Wednesday, 22 February 2012

Will the stock market rally continue?

Global markets have been rallying for the pass 2 months. The Dow jones has rallied from a low of 10655 to 12900 currently. S&P from 1100 to 1361. Nasdaq from 2400 to 2950. In asia, Hang Seng has rallied from 16250 to 21478 currently. STI from 2528 to 3002. If you calculate, most indexes has rallied more than 10%. The question is, will this rally continue?

The rally has been going on for 2 months without a decent correction. It has already gone long overdue. After the greek bailout being approved, asian markets did not react positively and remained flat with some indices slightly lower. US markets were slightly higher by +15.82. Now, asian markets are still flat as in preparing for some news to come out. If you look at the market internals for the NYSE and NASDAQ, you'll see that decliners outpaced advancers and down vol was higher than up vol. The VIX went up to 18 points indicating fear may be back on the trade. If there is a reason for short sellers to come into the market, now is a very good time as this market is way overcooked. The bulls are exhausted and the bears are ready. If the correction comes in the last few days of February and February ends lower, we should see a rally from march through april. These 2 months are known to be the best months in a trading year. This is of course excluding macroeconomic factors like EU crisis and the Iran nuclear issue. Any of these problems may trigger another sell off in the markets. 

Stay cautious and trade defensively. My strategy is to wait for the correction and buy the dip, bearing in mind of any macroeconomic issues arising. If the correction comes and i'm able to buy in, i'll most likely be out by mid or end april preparing for the "sell in may and go away" phenomenon which is a very accurate self fulfilling prophesy.   

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