(First published 3.3.10, 1:27PM EST)
I’ve noticed lately how well the 60-min RSI (relative strength index — a measure of oomph in price movement) has been doing, so today I decided to quantify it. The result is simply spectacular, even with a mechanical buy/sell decision that always had you in the market either long or short.
Here is [...]

Sorry about that. We had a server problem yesterday. I see that the last two posts I made before the crash  were lost, but they still went out as email so I’ll copy and paste them back up now.

5-year view of the ASX 200:

Source: Bloomberg
Australia has a huge property bubble that has yet to burst. The average home there, at AU$502,492, is priced at eight times average household income, compared to about three times income at the height of the US bubble (though higher in places like California and Florida). This is a country with [...]

Copper is an excellent guage of animal spirits. It was one of the biggest winners of 2009 ($1.30 to $3.50) and one of the biggest losers since January (it fell to 2.80). Note that overnight it has broken out of and successfully tested the line containing its downtrend:

Interactive Brokers

Just put the hedges back on. Wouldn’t mind going long from these levels, even.

Source: prophet.net
But boy, hard selling across the board: stocks, metals, oil, currencies — nothing is excempt. But hurray for the grains, which have held steady. When risk appetite comes back, they should benefit.
You know what? We might be doing a megaphone pattern [...]

I like the looks of the grain complex here. Corn, soy, wheat and oats are all pretty oversold, and if an oscillation pattern holds, there could be a rally right about now. Also nice that their rates of decline have flattened out a tad.

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Here’s a closer view, a 1-hour scale of the last month:

Source: Interactive [...]

Still have that downsloping RSI on the 10-min scale, indicating waning momentum on rallies since yesterday afternoon:

Source: prophet.net
But on a 20-day view of the S&P you can see the increasing upside strength since the 25th:

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No telling whether this is the end of the whole rise or just a set-back. I could make a case either [...]

From Bloomberg:
Feb. 1 (Bloomberg) — President Barack Obama proposes a $3.8 trillion fiscal 2011 budget today that calls for $100 billion in additional stimulus spending and projects this year’s deficit will hit a record $1.6 trillion.
The spending blueprint being sent to Congress for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1 reflects the administration’s struggle to boost the economy and [...]

Platinum followed through on its MACD sell signal with a probe through $1500 today ($1483 was the low on the active April contract):

Source: futures-tradingcharts.com
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I remain short PL and its nephew palladium.
I’ll write up sugar later if I get a chance, but check out its chart here.

This pattern played out nicely this afternoon (highlighting is the possible wave 4 as I saw it then). We’ll see if there’s any follow through tomorrow. Would be nice to see a clean final wave down on diverging RSI to set us up for a rally.

Source: prophet.net
I think a lot of bears are waiting for [...]