Interessante este artigo, sobretudo a parte final.
"Don't Look Now, But Interest Rates Are Climbing"
By Helene Meisler
RealMoney.com Contributor
7/18/2008 9:01 AM EDT
"Someone sent me an article from The Denver Post yesterday about why the Dow Utilities are down. Well, it didn't exactly explain it, as in, "Here's the reason the Utes are getting crushed," but rather the article explained how Xcel, the Denver utility, is having trouble with delinquent payments and is being forced to shut off service for some customers -- another result of the housing crisis.
And I still haven't heard a word about the collapsing Utes in the mainstream financial press. Perhaps they are too focused on the collapse in oil!
I also haven't seen anyone discussing the huge head-and-shoulders bottom in interest rates. You might recall back in June before the stock market tumbled, everyone called for higher interest rates. Then in late June, the FOMC didn't give the market what it wanted and we tanked. Yet here before our very eyes I see a head-and-shoulders bottom forming.
Now this won't break out until rates rise through 4.25%-ish on the ten-year note, but a breakout through that neckline would measure to around 5.15%! The last time we saw rates that high was June of 2007!
Since I was asked yesterday why I was making such a fuss over that head-and-shoulders top in the Utilities (this person thought I didn't like H&S tops in the major averages), I thought I would explain that viewpoint. It's not that I don't like them; it's that I tend see them early (I know, I know, I have a tendency to see head-and-shoulders patterns everywhere!), and then by the time they are ready to come to fruition, everyone else sees them -- that's why they don't work!
They work before everyone jumps on the bandwagon, but once they jump on, I begin to see too much company, and I jump off.
So back to that chart of interest rates: I'd say that as long as no one is chatting that pattern up, I think it can work. But if we get up to 4.25% and everyone is discussing the pattern everywhere we turn, it runs the risk of not working. When everyone is so prepared for a move, it tends not to work out. The best patterns are the ones that take folks by surprise.
As for the collapse in the commodity names of late and their total lack of participation on the now 5% rally in the market, remember the old adage on Wall Street that corrections are the market's way of changing leadership. With that in mind, I'd like to show you the chart of the Bank Index relative to the S&P going back to 1997. Notice that huge spike low in 2000. That low came on March 10 of that year (point A). Longtime players will recall that was the exact date Nasdaq made its high.
I always say that I will never know if it was the low until well after the fact, and I would repeat here -- I don't know if this recent spike low in this ratio is "it" or if we will see it head lower, but if it holds and turns out to be the low, then it might just turn out to be the same turning point that March of 2000 turned out to be for the tech stocks. If this turns out to be more like point B, then commodity names might have a long way to go. Point B was the fall of 1998 when the tech bubble was just getting started.
Of course, if that chart of interest rates is correct and rates are going up, then chances are commodities are going to underperform for some time to come, because that probably also means a stronger dollar. "
(in
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