Excerpted from James Stack's InvesTech.com,
Technical Evidence: Confirming a bear market
It’s been 26 years since we developed our Negative Leadership Composite (NLC) to help identify the best buying opportunities, as well as the highest risk markets. It’s pure common sense that broad upside leadership (and absence of downside or negative leadership) signifies or confirms a new bull market. It usually does the same for second or third bull market legs. This is shown when a bullish “SELLING VACUUM” [*1] appears in the NLC. Conversely, broad and increasing downside leadership –shown by “DISTRIBUTION” [shaded region *2]– will always confirm high risk early in a bear market by dropping to -100.
Our challenge, at times like this, is distinguishing whether “DISTRIBUTION” might be caused by temporary factors, which was the case three times in the current bull market – the Congressional showdown over the debt limit, the market’s Fed “taper tantrum,” and the oil price collapse over a year ago. Judging by the depth, duration, and broadening sector contribution to the “DISTRIBUTION” in leadership, we must conclude that Wall Street is currently in a bear market.
The run up in margin debt has also become an increasing concern in the past few years. This represents “hot money” borrowed to buy stocks on margin… that will likely panic as selling in a true bear market progresses.
Note that past peaks in margin debt have coincided with, or led, peaks in the stock market. That was also the case a year ago when margin debt peaked a month before the blue chip indexes. But as we’ve pointed out, the final peak cannot clearly be identified until margin debt falls enough to make new highs or peaks unlikely. Based on the volatile, high volume down days we’ve experienced since the start of this year, we anticipate margin debt may confirm a bear market when reported later this month by tumbling decisively through the support levels of the past 18 months.
Two (almost three) major U.S. indexes already qualify as bear markets…
Investors might be surprised to learn that most foreign stock markets –including London’s FTSE (Financial Times Stock Exchange) Index, the German DAX, and Tokyo Nikkei– are all off more than 20% from last year’s highs. China’s Shanghai Composite has tumbled 46% from its peak last June.
Globally, one of the safest places to be has been in solid blue chip stocks in the U.S. The S&P 500 Index and Dow Jones Industrial Average are approximately 13-14% off their peaks last May. Meanwhile, the Nasdaq Index is within several percentage points of hitting the -20% threshold of qualifying as a bear market.
By comparison, the Dow Jones Transportation Average is already in bear market territory with a loss of -24%. And the premier small-cap Russell 2000 Index has tumbled over 25%.
In summary, the bear market damage to many investors’ portfolios has already proven significantly more severe than what is portrayed by the more resilient blue chip DJIA and S&P 500. Even within the S&P 500 Index, over 60% of component stocks are down 20% from their 12-month highs, while 37% are down more than 30%!
We also find little to cheer about in market breadth or participation. The Advance-Decline Line, which showed a bearish negative divergence with the S&P 500’s secondary peak in November, continues to weaken with –or ahead of– the blue chip indexes.
When the majority of “troops” are in retreat, it can become increasingly difficult for the “generals” to stand their ground. Without a measurable improvement in breadth, we believe this market will continue to struggle in the coming weeks and months.
More bad news...
The Coppock Guide, which has been weakening for almost 2 years, is now confirming a bear market. That’s bad news for the market in the near-term, but has positive implications down the road. This important indicator was developed more than 50 years ago by Edwin S. Coppock and has often been described as “a barometer of the market’s emotional state.” As such, it methodically tracks the ebb and flow of equity markets, moving slowly from one emotional extreme to the other. By calculation, the Coppock Guide is the 10-month weighted moving total of a 14-month rate of change plus an 11-month rate of change of a market index. While that sounds complicated, it’s actually an oscillator that reverses direction when long-term momentum in the market peaks in one direction or the other.
Historically, the value of the Coppock Guide lies in signaling or confirming low risk buying opportunities that emerge once a bear market bottom is in place (black dotted lines on the graph below). And since market bottoms are typically sudden V-shaped reversals, it works amazingly well – as it did shortly after the bottom in 2009.
Unfortunately, the Coppock Guide is generally not as useful in identifying market peaks. One reason is that bull market tops are usually slow, rounding formations in which momentum –and the Coppock Guide– peak up to a year or more ahead of the market. Yet there are certain instances when it has proven invaluable at a market top…
In the late 1960s a technician named Don Hahn observed another phenomenon about the Coppock Guide. When a double top occurs without the graph falling to “0” –a phenomenon that Hahn referred to as a “Killer Wave”– it confirms an extended bull market where psychological excesses can reach extremes. In those situations, the appearance of a second peak generally means a bear market has just begun or is not far off (see red dashed lines). The late 1990s was an exception.
Killer Waves are rare, and they can be dangerous. This is only the 8th bull market in the past 95 years to see a double top in the Coppock. The table at right shows that in 5 of the previous cases the second peaks were associated with the start of the more notorious bear markets of the past century: 1929, 1969, 1973, 2000, and 2007.
The Coppock Guide is now projected to drop through “0” in February, which in the past carries over a 75% probability that a bear market has taken hold. Of course, that does not mean the bear market will soon end, and it would be foolish to attempt to second guess when or where the Coppock might bottom. But the more important message for defensive investors is this: Once the Coppock Guide does hit bottom and turns upward –by even 1 point– we will be presented with one of those historical buying opportunities that comes around only once or twice a decade. We can’t rush it… and we certainly can’t forecast it… but we can look forward to it and quickly recognize it when it does occur. So be patient, stay defensive, and remember that there is light at the end of the tunnel.