June 19, 2007


The Stock Market on borrowed time?

I mentioned John Murphy and intermarket analysis before. This seems a good time to dwell on the subject a little bit.
Intermarket analysis involves the simultaneous analysis of the four financial markets: currencies, commodities, bonds and stock. J.M. uses chart analysis extensively to that end.
It's noteworthy that, according to intermarket analysis, near the end of an economic expansion, for example, stock prices and commodity prices are usually strong, while bond prices are weak, a situation not unlike the one we have at the present time. Bonds peak before stocks do while commodities peak last.
Bond prices have an impressive record as a leading indicator of the economy, although the lead time at peaks can be quite long. Stocks and commodities also qualify as leading indicators of the business cycle, although their warnings are much shorter than those of bonds.
Bonds turn first (17 months in advance on average since the 1920's), stocks second (seven months in advance on average) and commodities third (six months in advance).
Now, what this is telling me is that, should this bond dowtrend continue, the stock market would be on borrowed time. How much time would obviously depend on many factors such as the willingness of the Fed to cut rates, the state of the Chinese economy, etc... But in light of all this, it wouldn't be altogether unreasonable to consider late 2008 a possible danger zone for the stock market.

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