maikisch

ARE WE ARE ABOUT TO WITNESS A TRAIN WRECK FROM THE FRONT ROW?

Short
SP:SPX   S&P 500 Index
This evening I was watching TV and I get an email alert. The title of email, “Wall Street’s 2024 SP500 forecasts are out, are you positioned?”, … and to my surprise (not really) the future looks bright for the US stock markets next year. I immediately thought to myself…What did I click on to get this garbage? LOL Truthfully, I didn’t think that…I eagerly went to my office to open the email to see what firms were peddling what train wreck of a guess, and to what extent would market participants buy into this publicity stunt. If you’re like me and you’re either directly affiliated with the US markets or just a hit and run reader of online financial news, you probably get emails just like these. Obviously, these emails are click-bait for readers of market news…it worked on me.

I practice a form of market analysis called Elliott Wave Theory. To be brief, this form of analysis charts the price action that market participants create each of every time they buy and sell. The buys and sells are obviously based on their positive or negative sentiment within any particular market. The patterns tend to be repeating, and fractal in nature, from the intraday to the very long-term time durations. Based on their repeating nature these patterns can be very accurately forecasted long into the future. This form of analysis does not take into account market and economic news or events. The basis for this theory created by RN Elliott in the 1930’s is that news and external events are not causal with the respect to the pattern and its aftermath. A great example of this would be the last two earnings releases for Nvidia (NVDA) in both the August and November releases. Each release far exceeded analysts’ expectations on both revenue and EPS, but the resulting stock price behavior was to decline 20% and 10% respectively. However, in both cases those types of stock price behaviors could have been forecasted in advance.

On November 30 I posted this article,“Is NVDA Headed to $467" Later in the trading day, NVDA followed through as forecasted. This was not a function of magic, just EWT analysis and good ole' fashion math. Now for full disclosure, the rally off the October 27th bottom in the markets was not entirely unanticipated I just did not expect to the extent it has rallied and I had deemed that potential alternative pathway showing a rally, low probability. Now, having rallied from late October to last Friday, I would not get too excited about that sort of price action persisting. More on that when I update followers next time.

Back to the 2024 SP500 targets. From Bank of America to Goldman Sachs, not one firm is projecting the SP500 to be down next year. In fact, they forecast modest growth in neighborhood of 5% to 10%, with some other firms as high as 20% higher from current levels. The above chart is the SPX cash market from inception. You can see with arrows how I am forecasting the future price action. I have written on this subject matter ad nauseum. Nonetheless, I wonder if these latest SP500 targets from Wall Street firms are elevating market participant expectations, only to set up a pending train wreck. Are we willing participants?

Is Dow Theory Dead?
Dow Jones Transportation Index

Do Small Caps no longer lead?
Small Caps Index

I'm reminded of this true story.

In 1849 the Texas county of McClennan thought it was a good idea to approve an event for the (Missouri, Kansas, Texas Railway) known as KATY for short, railway executive George Crush to market two steam engine trains of his deliberately colliding head on into each other. The event was highly marketed and touted as free to attend. However, to get to the area of the event in rural McClennan county, you had to buy a ticket on one of George Crush’s trains for $3.50. In today’s dollars that fare would be $125. On the day of the event, a whopping 40,000 people lined up to witness the spectacle. Ironically, the sheer total human population in attendance on that day, rivaled the total population of Texas’ largest city at the time. The main event got underway with the two trains chugging towards each other at top speed and collided in spectacular form,…right up until the steam engines of both locomotives exploded, and jettisoned debris in such violent form, that scores of people were injured, and 2 people actually died that day. Between the event promoters, staff, county officials, and each and every soul that made a conscience decision to attend such an event on that day, apparently not one thought, this could be the outcome. In hindsight the result seems both obvious in its destructive and harmful potential, while simultaneously being inexplicable why no one thought it was a bad idea.

Are there two metaphorical locomotives running towards each other now in the economic world? Is the CNBC’s of the world, and Wall Street analysts of today with their lofty 2024 SP500 predictions nothing but a bunch of latter-day George Crushs’? Saying its free to attend their publicity stunt, but transport will cost you an arm and a leg.

Then you literally have to pay up. Time will tell.

Best to all,

Chris

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