Flash Boys

In investing, the best Outcome is Income!

As a contrarian I should not have been surprised that today's market acted opposite from what I thought after 60 Minutes excellent coverage of Michael Lewis's "Flash Buys" interview (and book) on the "rigging" of the stock market by HFTs (High Frequency Traders)! Although many people are addressing this problem, it doesn't really affect long term investors very much, or even swing/position traders; but hopefully, as with the Bitcoin time lag, regulators can fix this inequity.

  More on equity returns at my Examiner.com column:  http://www.examiner.com/stock-market-in-san-francisco/brent-leonard. 

Sentiment and Breadth extremes last week included the monthly figures of ETF flows, all increasing to recent record highs: domestic equity, Int'l, and Bonds, although MMF (money market) outflows lessened. Margin debt again hit new highs, but as reported elsewhere, this is a common occurrence (until it doesn't). As shown below, most other indicators are within range:

Date>		3/28/2014	3/21/2014
Indices:	DJIA	16323	16302
	NAZ	4155	4276
	SPX	1857	1866
WklyVolume (Bshs).	naz/ny	11.4/3.6	10.5/4.4
Specul.Ratio hi=bullish		3.17	2.39
Sentiment:	put/call-CBOE	61	57
VIX>50-alltmlow=8.8		14.4	15
Advance/Dec-NYSE..		1485/1713	1940/1258
Weekly Net:		-228	682
Cumulative:		157313	157541
Weekly	NYSE hi/low	213/64	337/65
New Hi's/Low's	Nasdaq h/l	161/110	350/59
McClellan	Oscillator	-10	-12
McClellanSum	.+750/-1000	768	897
Newsletter	Inv.Intel -Bull:tues	54.7	52
Surveys	Bear:-5yrs	17.5	17.4
	AAII  -Bull :wed.	31.2	36.8
	Bear	28.6	26.1
COT:SPX w/w	large/small (net)k	7k/24k	9k/(31k)
COT:gold  comm.hedg	long-short.000	(127k)	(146k)nh
CEOinsider	selling	25:1	25:1
off.&bd b/s.vs.	10% holder b/s	200:40	140:50
3-box rev	Bullish%-	72	76
US equity -ICI	Fund Flows	WeekDelay	(3.8B)
MMF flows	Change in $B	(3.2B)	(31B)
MargDebt- top (300M)	monthly	466B
ETF:mthlyEqty/	Int'l/Bond-$B	1035/397/266
2-yr Tsy Yield: Inflation		0.45%	0.45%
	InsiderTotal:	50exer.

With record numbers of dollars coming out of Money Market Funds, mostly into the crowded trade of short term bonds, anyone who has a minimal knowledge of covered call options and/or an interest in hedging stock market exposure might want to check out: brentleonard.com for an alternative strategy that is low-risk as well as highly rewarding. For those of you wanting more details and actual trading results, a new book is available for $14.95 at Amazon.com: Zero (IN)Tolerance

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Flash Boys

Sorry Toto- Kansas Gone

Stanford bumps Kansas from the March Madness in an upset game. Picking teams is like picking stocks - one never knows.
Sentiment extremes last week include records (at least recent ones) in the 2-year Treasury yield of 0.43%; commercials are also selling gold bigtime - whether it is hedging or bailing, one never knows.

 The S&P 500 (SPX) futures large traders are long, but small traders remain short. Most other Sentiment Indicators reverted to the mean last week - Bull/Bear surveys, VIX, CBOE put/call ratio, et.al. See below:

Date>		3/21/2014	3/14/2014
Indices:	DJIA	16302	16065
	NAZ	4276	4245
	SPX	1866	1841
WklyVolume (Bshs).	naz/ny	10.5/4.4	11.2/3.3
Specul.Ratio hi=bullish		2.39	3.39nh
Sentiment:	put/call-CBOE	57	67
VIX>50-alltmlow=8.8		15	17.8
Advance/Dec-NYSE..		1940/1258	1196/2006
Weekly Net:		682	-810
Cumulative:		157541	156859
Weekly	NYSE hi/low	337/65	240/90
New Hi's/Low's	Nasdaq h/l	350/59	293/57
McClellan	Oscillator	-12	-29
McClellanSum	.+750/-1000	897	938
Newsletter	Inv.Intel -Bull:tues	52	55.1
Surveys	Bear:-5yrs	17.4	17.4
	AAII  -Bull :wed.	36.8	41.3
	Bear	26.1	26.8
COT:SPX w/w	large/small (net)k	9k/(31k)
COT:gold  comm.hedg	long-short.000	(146k)nh	(125k)nh
CEOinsider	selling	25:1	76:1
off.&bd b/s.vs.	10% holder b/s	140:50	150:60
3-box rev	Bullish%-	76	75
US equity -ICI	Fund Flows	WeekDelay	1.9B
MMF flows	Change in $B	(31B)	(2B)
MargDebt- top (300M)	monthly
ETF:mthlyEqty/	Int'l/Bond-$B
2-yr Tsy Yield: Inflation		0.43%	0.35%

With record numbers of dollars coming out of Money Market Funds, mostly into the crowded trade of short term bonds, anyone who has a minimal knowledge of covered call options and/or an interest in hedging stock market exposure might want to check out: brentleonard.com for an alternative strategy that is low-risk as well as highly rewarding. For those of you wanting more details and actual trading results, a new book is available for $14.95 at Amazon.com: Zero (IN)Tolerance

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Sorry Toto- Kansas Gone

What's The Big IDE?

The Ides of March are certainly providing a lot of market Volatility, partially due to all the revolting people around the globe; the NASD to NYSE Volume ratio ( speculation) made an all time high; but the CBOE put/call ratio yanked up 15 % points, a contrarily Bullish sign - more puts traded. The VIX leapt up from 14 to 17, which is usually a coincident, not predictive number.

For more, please click on:  http://www.examiner.com/stock-market-in-san-francisco/brent-leonard

To get it automatically each week, click on SUBSCRIBE

 

Here are the numbers:

Date>		3/14/2014	3/7/2014
Indices:	DJIA	16065	16452
	NAZ	4245	4336nh
	SPX	1841	1878nh
WklyVolume (Bshs).	naz/ny	11.2/3.3	11.0/3.6
Specul.Ratio hi=bullish		3.39nh	3.06
Sentiment:	put/call-CBOE	67	52
VIX>50-alltmlow=8.8		17.8	14.1
Advance/Dec-NYSE..		1196/2006	1864/1344
Weekly Net:		-810	520
Cumulative:		156859	157669
Weekly	NYSE hi/low	240/90	512/35
New Hi's/Low's	Nasdaq h/l	293/57	500/46
McClellan	Oscillator	-29	10
McClellanSum	.+750/-1000	938	1050
Newsletter	Inv.Intel -Bull:tues	55.1	54.6
Surveys	Bear:-5yrs	17.4	15.1
	AAII  -Bull :wed.	41.3	40.5
	Bear	26.8	26.6
COT:SPX w/w	large/small (net)k		3k/(31k)
COT:gold  comm.hedg	long-short.000	(125k)nh	(121k)
CEOinsider	selling	76:1	40:1
off.&bd b/s.vs.	10% holder b/s	150:60	160:50
3-box rev	Bullish%-	75	75
US equity -ICI	Fund Flows	WeekDelay	1.9B
MMF flows	Change in $B	(2B)	(4B)
MargDebt- top (300M)	monthly
ETF:mthlyEqty/	Int'l/Bond-$B
2-yr Tsy Yield: Inflation		0.35%	0.37%
	InsiderTotal:		1265k/32k

With record numbers of dollars coming out of Money Market Funds, mostly into the crowded trade of short term bonds, anyone who has a minimal knowledge of covered call options and/or an interest in hedging stock market exposure might want to check out: brentleonard.com for an alternative strategy that is low-risk as well as highly rewarding. For those of you wanting more details and actual trading results, a new book is available for $14.95 at Amazon.com: Zero (IN)Tolerance

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What's The Big IDE?

HOLDING THE BREADTH:

Despite Monday's selloff the overall markets' breadth, or advances versus declines is still very strong. Last week saw new highs in the cumulative A/D summation, the McClellan Summation (similar) also broke 1000; it also hit 1560 in June of 2003 after a strong runup, but only to advance for a few more years after the hiccup. The McClellan Oscillator, the weekly number, however, has been declining the past couple weeks to +10.

Markets did hit new highs last week - Nasdaq and S&P 500, and NAS Volume increased over NY (speculative) to a 3-handle. New highs to lows ran above 10 to 1 on both the above indexes.
Other notable extremes: the Investors Intelligence Bears dropped to 15; the gold commercials continue to increase their shorting. Insider selling continues to be huge.
Here are the numbers:

Date>		3/7/2014	2/28/2014
Indices:	DJIA	16452	16321
	NAZ	4336nh	4308nh
	SPX	1878nh	1859nh
WklyVolume (Bshs).	naz/ny	11.0/3.6	10.9/3.7
Specul.Ratio hi=bullish		3.06	2.95
Sentiment:	put/call-CBOE	52	58
VIX>50-alltmlow=8.8		14.1	14
Advance/Dec-NYSE..		1864/1344	1825/1192
Weekly Net:		520	633
Cumulative:		157669	157149nh
Weekly	NYSE hi/low	512/35	457/63
New Hi's/Low's	Nasdaq h/l	500/46	446/50
McClellan	Oscillator	10	42
McClellanSum	.+750/-1000	1050	924
Newsletter	Inv.Intel -Bull:tues	54.6	53.5
Surveys	Bear:-5yrs	15.1	17.2
	AAII  -Bull :wed.	40.5	39.7
	Bear	26.6	21.1
COT:SPX w/w	large/small (net)k	3k/(31k)	6k/(29k)
COT:gold  comm.hedg	long-short.000	(121k)	(117k)*
CEOinsider	selling	40:1	111:1
off.&bd b/s.vs.	10% holder b/s	160:50	200:50
3-box rev	Bullish%-	75	72
US equity -ICI	Fund Flows	WeekDelay	3.1B
MMF flows	Change in $B	(4B)	20B
MargDebt- top (300M)	monthly		451Bnh
ETF:mthlyEqty/	Int'l/Bond-$B		987/377/248
2-yr Tsy Yield: Inflation		0.37%	0.32%
	InsiderTotal:	1265k/32k

With record numbers of dollars coming out of Money Market Funds, mostly into the crowded trade of short term bonds, anyone who has a minimal knowledge of covered call options and/or an interest in hedging stock market exposure might want to check out: brentleonard.com for an alternative strategy that is low-risk as well as highly rewarding. For those of you wanting more details and actual trading results, a new book is available for $14.95 at Amazon.com: Zero (IN)Tolerance

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HOLDING THE BREADTH:

PC: Political Correc-tion

What a Revolting World! As a Contrarian it was interesting for me to see that the takeaway from the media (Barron's) this weekend was that the U.S. stock market would soar due to a global flight to safety, and that gold would tank. (DJIA down over 200 points on Monday, gold up $30). In Barron's Other Voices column, Walter Weil, a retired hedgehog, noted the long term failure of the Investors Intelligence Bull/Bear Indicator to predict the market a year later! However, what he failed to observe was that immediately following each signal, the market did decline short term - not a year later.

Although markets have been hitting new highs, not all Sentiment Indicators are doing the same: the NASD to NY is quite high, but not RECORD; the same with newsletter surveys, put/call, and both McClellan charts.

Records are occurring now in Margin debt; Barron's case for over bought Gold is born out by Commercial Traders, now at a Record 117k short contracts. For more commentary and this week's meetups, please see:

http://www.examiner.com/stock-market-in-san-francisco/brent-leonard

Here are the Sentiment numbers for last 2 weeks:

Date>		2/28/2014	2/21/2014
Indices:	DJIA	16321	16103
	NAZ	4308nh	4263
	SPX	1859nh	1836
WklyVolume (Bshs).	naz/ny	10.9/3.7	7.9/2.9
Specul.Ratio hi=bullish		2.95	2.72
Sentiment:	put/call-CBOE	58	57
VIX>50-alltmlow=8.8		14	14.7
Advance/Dec-NYSE..		1825/1192	1948/1247
Weekly Net:		633	701
Cumulative:		157149nh	156516nh
Weekly	NYSE hi/low	457/63	353/52
New Hi's/Low's	Nasdaq h/l	446/50	368/47
McClellan	Oscillator	42	44
McClellanSum	.+750/-1000	924	727
Newsletter	Inv.Intel -Bull:tues	53.5	46.5
Surveys	Bear:-5yrs	17.2	17.2
	AAII  -Bull :wed.	39.7	42.2
	Bear	21.1	22.8
COT:SPX w/w	large/small (net)k	6k/(29k)	5k/(25k)
COT:gold  comm.hedg	long-short.000	(117k)*	(97k)
CEOinsider	selling	111:1	130:1
off.&bd b/s.vs.	10% holder b/s	200:50	200:25
3-box rev	Bullish%-	72	70
US equity -ICI	Fund Flows	WeekDelay	4.1B
MMF flows	Change in $B	20B	(49B)
MargDebt- top (300M)	monthly	451Bnh	445B
ETF:mthlyEqty/	Int'l/Bond-$B	987/377/248	1028/399/246
2-yr Tsy Yield: Inflation		0.32%	0.32%

With record numbers of dollars coming out of Money Market Funds, mostly into the crowded trade of short term bonds, anyone who has a minimal knowledge of covered call options and/or an interest in hedging stock market exposure might want to check out: brentleonard.com for an alternative strategy that is low-risk as well as highly rewarding. For those of you wanting more details and actual trading results, a new book is available for $14.95 at Amazon.com: Zero (IN)Tolerance

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PC: Political Correc-tion