Burk's Technical Market Report
Mike Burk
October 6, 2007
The good news is:
- The blue chip indices closed at all time highs on Monday and/or Friday last week and the NASDAQ composite (OTC) closed at a multi-year high on Friday.
Short Term
The market is overbought.
The chart below covers the past year showing the OTC in blue and a 30 day oscillator of the OTC in black. There are dashed vertical lines drawn on the 1st trading day of each month.
The oscillator is at its highest level since January of 2004. From the index and oscillator high on January 26, 2004 the index fell 6.5% in the next 7 trading days.
It is likely the market is at or near a short term top.
Intermediate Term
The patterns that define a cycle top are a high in all of the major indices confirmed by the breadth indicators then a decline, followed by a return to new highs in the blue chip indices unconfirmed by the breadth indicators and the small cap indices.
The chart below covers the past year showing the SPX in red and the NYSE advance - decline line (NYSE ADL) in green. The NYSE ADL and SPX hit their all time highs around June 1. The SPX hit another all time high on July 19 but the NYSE ADL did not. Last Friday the SPX hit another all time high while the NYSE ADL was well off its old highs.
The next chart shows the SPX in red and a 10% trend (19 day EMA) of NYSE new highs (NY NH) in green. NY NH peaked in December of 2006 and has been reaching progressively lower highs with each higher high in the SPX.
The next chart is similar to the one above except it shows the OTC in blue and the new high indicator OTC NH has been calculated from NASDAQ data.
Seasonality
Next week includes the week prior to the 2nd Friday in October during the 3rd year of the Presidential Cycle.
The tables show the daily change of the indices during the week prior to the 2nd Friday in October. OTC data covers the period from 1963 - 2003 and SPX data from 1953 - 2003. There are summaries for both the 3rd year of the Presidential Cycle and all years combined. Prior to 1953 the market traded 6 days a week so that data has been ignored.
The coming week during the 3rd year of the Presidential cycle has been up slightly less than half of the time and the returns, on average, have been modestly negative. Over all years the averages have been up slightly more than half of the time and the returns, on average, have been modestly positive.
Report for the week before the 2nd Friday of October.
The number following the year is the position in the presidential
cycle.
Daily returns from Monday to 2nd Friday.
OTC Presidential Year 3
Year Mon Tue Wed Thur Fri Totals
1963-3 -0.26% -0.17% 0.20% -0.58% 0.09% -0.72%
1967-3 0.49% 0.36% -0.51% -0.41% -0.39% -0.45%
1971-3 0.35% 0.03% 0.63% 0.27% -0.22% 1.06%
1975-3 0.70% -0.20% 0.96% 0.34% 0.12% 1.92%
1979-3 -0.86% -3.83% -4.06% 0.56% 0.44% -7.74%
1983-3 0.02% -0.68% -1.29% -0.39% -0.14% -2.48%
Avg 0.14% -0.86% -0.85% 0.07% -0.04% -1.54%
1987-3 0.45% -1.35% -0.64% -1.04% -0.36% -2.94%
1991-3 -0.81% 0.20% -0.67% 0.41% 0.60% -0.25%
1995-3 -2.69% -0.13% 1.84% 1.40% 0.28% 0.69%
1999-3 2.16% 0.13% 2.05% 0.12% 0.91% 5.37%
2003-3 0.69% 0.76% -0.74% 0.96% 0.18% 1.84%
Avg -0.04% -0.08% 0.37% 0.37% 0.32% 0.94%
OTC summary for Presidential Year 3 1963 - 2003
Avg 0.02% -0.44% -0.20% 0.15% 0.14% -0.34%
Win% 64% 45% 45% 64% 64% 45%
OTC summary for all years 1963 - 2006
Avg -0.01% -0.29% -0.10% 0.36% 0.52% 0.49%
Win% 61% 45% 49% 73% 68% 57%
SPX Presidential Year 3
Year Mon Tue Wed Thur Fri Totals
1955-3 -2.90% -0.85% 1.76% -0.31% -0.41% -2.71%
1959-3 -0.10% -0.09% -0.26% -0.23% 0.33% -0.35%
1963-3 -0.21% -0.14% -0.58% 0.03% 0.10% -0.80%
1967-3 0.26% -0.69% -0.49% -0.64% 0.26% -1.30%
1971-3 0.28% -0.10% 0.72% 0.20% -0.66% 0.44%
1975-3 1.08% -0.13% 1.35% 0.49% -0.18% 2.61%
1979-3 -1.25% -2.96% -1.25% -0.24% -0.53% -6.22%
1983-3 1.08% -1.34% -0.42% 0.15% -0.01% -0.54%
Avg 0.29% -1.04% -0.02% -0.01% -0.22% -1.00%
1987-3 0.00% -2.70% -0.21% -1.38% -0.98% -5.27%
1991-3 -0.46% 0.31% -1.02% 1.00% 0.24% 0.07%
1995-3 -0.71% -0.15% 0.33% 0.37% 0.49% 0.35%
1999-3 1.70% -0.25% 1.84% -0.58% 1.39% 4.11%
2003-3 0.44% 0.47% -0.53% 0.48% -0.06% 0.80%
Avg 0.20% -0.46% 0.08% -0.02% 0.21% 0.01%
SPX summary for Presidential Year 3 1955 - 2003
Avg -0.06% -0.66% 0.10% -0.05% 0.00% -0.68%
Win% 54% 15% 38% 54% 46% 46%
SPX summary for all years 1953 - 2006
Avg 0.12% -0.21% 0.13% 0.04% 0.16% 0.24%
Win% 58% 34% 47% 44% 54% 56%
Conclusion
As of Friday's close everything is in place to indicate a market cycle high. If this scenario is correct there could be another move to modestly higher highs before a decline into a cycle low begins. If the R2K makes a new high this interpretation is wrong.
I expect the major indices to be lower on Friday October 12 than they were on Friday October 5.
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Mike Burk
YTD W16/L14/T10
Disclaimer: Mike Burk is an employee and principle of Alpha Investment Management (Alpha) a registered investment advisor. Charts and figures presented herein are believed to be reliable but we cannot attest to their accuracy. The views expressed are provided for information purposes only and should not be construed in any way as investment advice, furthermore the opinions expressed may change without notice.
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