“Only in equilibrium can we not distinguish past from future.”

-Eric Chaisson

If it appears that I have been back and forth on the US stock market all week, that’s because I have been. The nature of any non-linear ecosystem of colliding factors is often just that – uncertain.

Remember, I think of markets in terms of chaos theory and thermodynamics. Markets have blasts of entropy (the price paid when the complexion of the overall market’s energy changes), but they also oscillate back and forth from equilibrium.

What does that mean? Markets are built to confuse. That’s why they impose a lot of pain on a lot of people at the same time. “If not periodically checked, entropy will tend toward a maximum in any system” (Cosmic Evolution, pg 25). Think about that in terms of Gold.

Back to the Global Macro Grind

When my Research and Risk Signals are aligned across durations, it’s easy to make buy/sell decisions. When my front-runner (my immediate-term TRADE duration) whips back and forth between bullish and bearish, making decisions gets a lot tougher.

That’s where the SP500 and VIX are today – and they are hyper correlated:

  1. SP500 = bearish TRADE (1557 resistance); bullish TREND (1515) support
  2. VIX = bullish TRADE (14.27 support); bearish TREND (18.89 resistance)

We also call this Duration Mismatch (i.e. when one duration’s signal has a different conclusion than the other). I get less concerned about our fundamental research view when the TRADE is bearish than when the TREND is – when both are bearish, I short the market.

That’s why bearish TRADE/TREND setups are our Best Short Ideas:

  1. COMMODITIES (CRB Index) = bearish TRADE (289 resistance); bearish TREND (298 resistance)
  2. GOLD = bearish TRADE (1496 resistance); bearish TREND (1641 resistance)
  3. FCX (Freeport McMoran) = bearish TRADE ($31.92 resistance); bearish TREND ($34.18 resistance)
  4. YEN (vs USD) = bearish TRADE (95.87 resistance); bearish TREND (91.17 resistance)
  5. ITALY (MIB Index) = bearish TRADE (15,991 resistance); bearish TREND (16,313 resistance)

It’s a lot more profitable to get bearish about these things when they initially confirm TRADE/TREND breakdowns than it is shorting them after big drops. Obviously the big stuff (Commodities, Gold, Yen) has been breaking down for almost 6 months now, so you want to be proactive in managing the mean reversion risk associated with the immediate-term Risk Range. Bearish TRENDs bounce.

What is the immediate-term Risk Range?

That’s what I consider the most probable range of price within an immediate-term (3 weeks or less) time frame. Since time and space changes, so does my model.

It’s dynamic – meaning I tweak it throughout every day for my volatility and volume assumptions. If you think of it like an engine, I need to monitor accelerations and decelerations and be both proactive and reactive (i.e. I need to manually change the gears).

To use the SP500 as an example:

  1. My immediate-term Risk Range = 1
  2. My immediate-term TRADE line = 1557
  3. So, I could buy it A) at the low-end of my range (1539) or B) buy it on a breakout > 1557

Since every move I make is #timestamped in real-time, you can see that over the years I’ve evolved. I am more and more indifferent than I have ever been on buying oversold signals versus buying breakout signals.

Theoretically, you’d always like to buy something lower and sell it higher. Sometimes that’s dead wrong (lower can go lower and lower). If the front-runner (TRADE line breakdown of 1557) continues to confirm and attacks the TREND line (1515), and you’re buying it all the way down, you A) better have deep pockets and/or B) a longer-term investment time horizon.

One of my favorite lines on that score is Jeff Gundlach’s coarse description of an “investor” – a trader who is underwater. And when I really think that through in terms of how I risk manage my research team’s best ideas – that’s dead on. If I buy something, I want it to be the right spot. Being too early is also called being wrong.

Astrophysicist, Eric Chaisson, says “the greater the randomness or disorder, the greater the entropy” (pg 24). Agreed. But, in my process at least, it’s a lot easier to make decisions when entropy is obvious than it is when equilibrium is testing my patience.

Our immediate-term Risk Ranges for Gold, Oil (Brent), US Dollar, USD/YEN, EUR/USD, UST10yr Yield, VIX, Russell2000, and the SP500 are now $1, $97.58-102.91, $82.26-83.12, 95.87-101.91, $1.29-1.31, 1.68-1.76%, 14.27-17.46, 899-929, and 1, respectively.

Best of luck out there today,

KM

Keith R. McCullough
Chief Executive Officer

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