Preço das casas dá maior salto de sempre no arranque da garantia pública

[Figas]

THURSDAY a.m.
July 31, 2003




Still Grinding
by David Nichols

There's not much new information in the market from yesterday. The market continues to zig-zag in the same very tight range, between 976 on the bottom and 1000 on the top.

Updating the chart of the S&P futures from yesterday, we can see prices just popped back down to the line at 985, and were content to stay parked there.



Right now there is a perfect disharmony in the markets among the few remaining summer participants. It's about a 50/50 split whether the market is going to go up or go down from here. The buyers and sellers are perfectly matched at these levels.

It's going to take some fresh piece of information to create a consensus in one direction or another. In order for the market to move, there has to be a temporary uniformity of opinion, catalyzed by an exogenous event. This creates a market imbalance of buy or sell orders, and the market then moves quickly in that direction.

We're not seeing any such uniformity of opinion yet, although some economic numbers ought to at least spark something over the next few days. For months, there has not been a spark of fear to catalyze selling, in the process sending the VIX soaring -- yet the good news has also lost its impact to blow out the shorts. At this point, the shorts are pretty well cleaned out. The Saddam brothers episode pointed this out, as the market barely blipped on what might have been a furious move up.

The set-up is still there for a major quick collapse, and we'll need to keep alert for it. A grind higher accompanied by a falling VIX is still the key thing to be looking for as a short set-up. Increasing bullishness right now in a market making little upside headway can be a very dangerous thing.

So the situation is actually ripe now for a quick breakout that sucks in money on the long side, yet proves to be false. Such a head-fake up could lead to a quick collapse back down, which would then keep on heading down. The likeliest way for this to happen is on "good news", economically-speaking, so let's keep this in mind in the coming few sessions. There just may not be enough money left to push the market higher, even if things seem rosier on the surface.

Sentiment Dashboard
by Adam Oliensis



SENTIMENT TANK: Filled 0.8 points to 1.5%.

SHORT-TERM: Neutral with a bias toward a decline phase.

MID-TERM: Progressed 7 points to 61% on the advance side with a Confidence reading of 2 (out of 7).

LONG-TERM: Neutral at 97/3 with a confidence reading of a bearish 1 (out of 7).

BOTTOM LINE: Mixed signals continue to rule. I've drawn three arrows on the tank. The long yellow arrow shows us what the long-term (weekly) gauge is measuring, which is the draining of negative sentiment from very high levels (March) to current very low levels, and then flattening out. The weekly gauge is measuring a months-long advance phase that has gone neutral. Next the green arrow on the tank shows what the mid-term gauge is measuring, which is the draining of negative sentiment from the "teens" down to almost-empty. Negative sentiment is diminishing on a daily basis (new advance phase). Finally, there is a teeny little red arrow in the lower right corner of the tank. That shows us the hourly trend, which is on the rise from 0.3% up to 1.5% on the tank. On an hourly basis there is a very teeny bias toward an increase in negative sentiment (decline phase).

So, we have a very mature weekly advance that has gone neutral and has been flirting with flipping into a decline phase, inside of which we are now in a 9-day old effort on the part of negative sentiment to drain from the teens down to 0 (and is virtually there), inside of which we are seeing a weak hourly effort to increase negative sentiment (about 2 days old).

If that sounds confusing, it's because it IS confusing. The market itself caught within a narrow range and has bent its knees in preparation to jump. There are 6 major economic reports out this morning. Today could well be "jumping" day.