Hoop, you are not the only one. My twitter feed is all about "death cross" on the DOW. Can I short yet?
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Beware of the death cross..really!!:)...It happened to the DOW this morning NZtime...Personally, I think the media hypes this thing up.... the name is more terrifying than it's action..good for selling business newspapers..eh..
I personally don't get too excited over a Death Cross..Its just 2 MA's crossing over on a chart and using the MA200 as one MA line crossover is a lagging indicator line so laggy its close to being useless..The death cross tells us 2 scenarios ..1.. that the downtrend has been operating for a good length of time...or 2... a plateaued market which is going nowhere has been operating for even a longer period of time. Honestly we can see these scenarios by just looking at the chart..the death cross just tells us what we already know...Don't get me wrong, MA crossovers can be reasonably useful indicators when set at lower more sensitive levels such as MA20/MA50 or better still EMA20/EMA50..Set at these levels a crossover can get you "out" reasonably earlier on without too much capital loss..although the whipsaw risk is higher....A few investors have dabbled with MA crossovers..I think Trackers was one who had a good indicator can't remember his MA period crossovers.
As with all indicators best use more than 1.. say 5 so they can confirm one another..
Problems with Death Crosses...
1..The lagging effect being rather long, a DC could occur at the bottom of a severe Bull market Correction...so instead of buying in you are selling out realising an unnecessary loss..This happened on the DOW in August 2011 when the DC occurred right at at the bottom of a severe ~18% bull market correction
2..In corrective markets (volatile) DC can be associated with GC (golden crosses) when the MA50/MA200 swing and cross the other way..
3..DC and GC operate in tops and bottoms of cycles but can also been seen during major corrections or lengthy trading patterns during mid-cycle.
4..DC can indicate a cyclic reversal but it should not be your indicator of choice. use it with others as a late confirmation indicator.
The reversion to a Bear cycle will ALWAYS at some later stage be meet with a DC occurrence..therefore my possible "egg on face" Bear Market cycle opinion is still on course and evolving (confirming).
Shorting?? ..its up to you mate...brush up on your S&R lines, stols etc and go for it..they say it can be fun...especially during bear markets
Written 7th August 2015 Post #769Mark Hulbert reckons under old Dow theory it fired a sell signal on 20st August.....(that's one more confirmation for me:))...........Jack Schannep says the updated Version didn't fire on Thursday ......... Schanneps updated Dow Theory specifics
I've noticed that whereas normally with a plunge in Equity markets the USD rises as money rushes to hard currency, that isn't happening this time. The USD has fallen against most other currencies (the AUD is one of the few exceptions dur to its exposure to commodities that are of course also falling). That tells me that the USD is losing its reserve currency status and is not longer seen to be the safe haven it once was. The EUR and CHF are more so at the moment. Even the NZD is doing comparatively well.
Trading accordingly.
The DOW did breakdown, big time, below its 200EMA (Monthly log scale) and the rising support trend line, and the linear regression channel (and the month isn't over). Uncannily again like the SP5, the DOW's 38.2% fib retrace falls perfectly on the Sep/Oct 2007 Highs around 14000. That's still a 2500 drop from here. You can ignore this if you want to, but why would you? Have a contingency plan in place, at least!
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Of course its a bit early(over 24hrs till market opens but US futures are looking scary atm.
Us futures have not opened yet.
While US futures have not opened, IG Markets provides Sunday trading on the DOW.
Currently DOW is UP 60. So there has been no panic over the weekend.
http://www.ig.com/au/ig-indices/sunday-wall-street
Dow futures have now opened. 100 points lower
http://www.cnbc.com/pre-markets/
Getting whomped (technical term) right now down over 300 points.
Chinese market was down over 10% at one stage, currently down around 8%.
Things are looking pretty ugly all of a sudden.
Gone long gold, hopefully my timing is ok, but volatility is key. I almost bought the VIX early last week ! DOH!