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updated 18th Jan 2010  

N.B. Above Chart is abstracted from NextView Program

Last week we said that, "Last year was indeed a very good year for investors and brokers. In fact, I would say it was well exceed our expectation. Will this year continue to be like what last year brought to us, personally I have some doubt of it. However, I am pretty certain, we are heading to a very volatile year for the stock market. So, prudent and cautious trading/ investment may be the key to survive. As you may see from the above STI Weekly chart, we are again at a crucial juncture and that for the next couple of weeks, the battle between the Bull and the Bear may become more ugly and that a winner may emerge soon! Starting next week, USA corporations will begin their 4th quarter results announcement. Will this end up to be the turning point for market direction? It is certainly possible. Considering that most of the cost cutting measurement in the past year would have been build into the company performance, the coming results will need to be solidly back by increase in revenue to convince investors that the growth path remain strong. Failing which, a sell on fact may sit in and that could be the trigger point for the next big correction, considering that the market had not been seriously corrected since the bottom in Mar'09. From technical perspective, the odd is also favoring down side. First, despite a continue 5 days rally in S&P in this new year, the breath and volume were not impressive. Second, both DJIA and S&P are now at their major resistance (be it 50% retracement or hitting major down trendline). Third, momentum indicators start to shown divergence (some may be even triple divergence), which suggesting that a turn down may be coming soon. Fourth, many Bears have been badly injure over the past few months, for the market continued to rally and shorting was like killing themselves. It has now reaching a point whereby the Bears have completely lost faith in shorting and many of them have forgotten how to short!!  Another area worth taking note is on the major action for funds in January. Last year was a tremendous good year for most of the funds, however most of them may not liquidate their position to avoid heavy capital gain tax. However, if market is unable to rally on good news for the next two weeks, they may decide to sell down and take the profit first. After all the year is still young, they can always buy back later at a lower price! For next week, there are no major economic data, so may not have any surprise comes out from there. However, starting from Monday we have Alcoa, follow by Thursday's Intel, Friday's JP Morgan announcing their results. And then the week after next will have more bigger corporations and banks announcing. We would certainly expect a very volatile market, for most of the analysts are beginning to demand better results. My hunch tell me that, this could be a turning point for the market, so do be careful!" Indeed we were right to the dot! The results announcement by Alcoa, Intel and JP Morgan were pretty good, but all were facing a sell down after the result! We also said that, "If Hang Seng index breaks below 22000 or Shanghai index breaks below 3040, these could be another early sign of a down turn.  As for STI, a break below 2890 will be the fist sign of turning." Again, some tail tail signs had emerged, HSI broke 22000 last week! So, what could be happening this week, will the global indexes continue to drop! Are we at the turning point in stock market?

Last week was rather interesting. Starting from the result announcement of Alcoa on Monday and subsequently Intel on Thursday and JP Morgan on Friday, all were facing a sell off after the announcement despite good results. Will this turn up to be the theme for this corporate announcement period. It certainly looks like it for the time being. The coming week and the week after will have big number of corporate announcing their results. If the past does reflect the future, we will be facing a big sell down in the stock market! However, if you have taken my advise seriously last week after my self imposed resting for three months on this column writing, you are certainly in good shape now! Best still if you are my customer and have attended my seminar last Saturday, you would have turned short last week and is now sitting on with good profit! There are not many important economic data coming up next week, as such the big surprise would not be from the economic data. However, there are plenty of big and important corporate results to be announced next week. Starting on Monday's Citi Group. Follow by corporations like Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, IBM, AMD, Google, and GE. It certainly has the power to rock the indexes. And judging from past week performance, it is certainly favoring the downside if everything remain unchanged! For Dow Jones Industrial and S&P, watch out for the support at 10550 and 1120 respectively, a break will confirm the change of trend and is likely to take the indexes much lower than current level. As for Hang Seng Index it has already broken the 22000 level and led the global market down last week. It would be interesting to see how the support at 21200 play out. An eventual break on 21200 will have strong bearish implication to Hong Kong market. As for STI, we would expect a gap down on Monday and test the support at 2850 next week. A break below this level will probably change the intermediate direction of STI into down and could carry for at least several weeks!  For Intermediate investors, you would have square your position last week if you had followed my advise. As such, you may want to wait for some rebound before initiating your shorts.  As for short term traders, perhaps it would be better to switch into trading shorts for the coming weeks, as long side may be more difficult and subject to possible trap on your positions.

                       Dow Jones   Hang Seng     Nikkei
Resistance      10723           22000          11000
Support            10550           21200           10880

As for STI the resistances and supports are as follow:
Resistance:     2932, 2945, 2950, 3000
Support:           2900, 2883, 2850, 2800

Events To watch For The Coming Week:

  1. The movement in Dow Jones Industry and NASDAQ..
  2. The movement in currencies, bond, oil and commodities price.
  3. The corporate result announcements. Starting on Monday's Citi Group. Follow by corporations like Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, IBM, AMD, Google, and GE.
  4. The economic data include Tuesday's Home Builders, Wednesday's Housing starts, PPI, Thursday's Jobless Claims, Leading Indicators.

The following are two possible wave counts on STI as at to-date:

  1. Preferred Count (60% probability)-- bullish count
    My preferred count calling for a top at 2502 (on 7/1/2000) as wave ((1)), it then follow by a two year sell off on wave ((2)) to 1197 (on 28/9/2001). The index had then entered into an  impulsive wave ((3)) that ended at 3906. We are now in the development of wave ((4)), of which we expect it to be a big triangle formation that take about one to two years to complete. The recent sell down is the first leg of wave ((4)), which will take a form of a-b-c and reaches the potential target of 2770, as the wave (a) of ((4)). The index will then continue to develop the (a)-(b)-(c)-(d)-(e) triangle formation.
     
  2. Alternate Count (40% probability)-- bearish count
    My alternate count calling for a top at 2502 (on 7/1/2000) as wave ((1)), it then follow by a two year sell off on wave ((2)) to 1197 (on 28/9/2001). The index had then entered into an  impulsive wave ((3)) that ended at 2666 in May 2006. The index had then entered into wave ((5)) that ended on 3906 in October'07. We are now in the downtrend bear market, which will last for a few years! Although this count remains as the least chance as compare to my preferred count. If the index breaks below 2776 convincingly on very high volume, the odd on bear market will significantly increase.

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