If you were looking to pay a technological device with the thought its cost may come down (such as an iPad 4 or a big screen TV), would you wait to buy it or do it today if you really wanted it? If you were looking to buy a car and you’ve properly done your research with money being the only issue, would you wait to buy it or do it now? If you wanted to buy a house, would you do it now or wait? If you’re a manufacturer, and you need to purchase supply of goods, would you do it now or wait? If you are a home builder, would you build more homes now or wait? Now, I ask all of these questions with the assumption that, say, you don’t need to buy a car because yours broke down but simply because you need to do some point in the next 6-12 months. The fact of the matter is that if many many many people answer that they would wait for prices to come down, it is a major self-spiraling problem. If many many many manufacturers hold off on the purchase of product due to low demand, it’s a major self-spiraling problem. What is the problem from the consumer side? It’s a little bugaboo called deflation. Any central bank has a host of things it can do to combat strong growth such has hiking interest rates or sucking money out of the economy by things such as increasing margin requirements of markets. But there is no known tool to fight a deflationary spiral- ask the citizens of Japan who bought a SPY-like Nikkei instrument on New Year’s Eve 1989 and are down 78% on their money as of today. Inflation to some extent is normal. How would you feel if you were a teacher and was told you wouldn’t be getting a pay raise (or worse yet, getting a pay cut)? Another example: my Mom and numerous other retirees I know were furious when their cost of living adjustment for 2010 barely budged. Rampant inflation of course is bad as it takes away the value of things- the people of Germany in the 1930’s who had to use a box to carry enough paper currency to buy a loaf of bread can attest to that. But deflation? That can be even worse because the issue is almost entirely psychological and self-perpetuating. Everybody waits for everyone else and this creates an extended period of slightly stagnant or even declining prices- not just for TV’s but for the price of your house. The fact that the government has thrown everything it can at the economy and it has had no impact on prices shows of a masking of a problem- not inflation (at this point anyway) but potentially deflation. For day traders, it is important to watch things such as the consumer price index, producer price index, and housing prices for a gauge as to prices. Furthermore, the performance of the dollar will give a clue as well. The most important tell in the immediate-term is as I described in this space a couple of weeks ago in detail- the necessary return to revenue growth by companies. The fact that entities like IBM and GS missed their revenue estimates is a glaring deflationary warning sign. Whether deflation comes to pass (or has already started) is certainly not something I am qualified to hazard a guess at, but it is a word we’ll be hearing about increasingly in coming weeks and months as the effects of the stimulus (with a jobless and loanless) recovery lessen with each passing day.
The Nikkei fell 1% overnight in a catch-up effort after being closed yesterday but the rest of the Asian markets bounced with Sydney up 1% and Hong Kong about 0.9%. The picture is different in Europe with Frankfurt down 1.1% and London off 0.7%. Currencies are quiet with bonds slightly stronger and oil and gold down 0.5% or so each. The futures are down very sharply in the early going as IBM posted terrible earnings. Things only worsened when GS piled on when they missed their revenue estimates. There seems to be no major reason for the market to rally much so look for a downside day all day but more of a day for individual stock moves than the overall market. Focus on the myriad of earnings out there such as IBM, GS, UNH, and WHR, the financials with a number of companies in the industry having reported such as STT, and some relative strength plays should there be any short covering early on particularly in things like AMZN which indicated growing revenue growth last night.
Reiterating-
If the whole story is not there -
If something is good, assume either a short thru unchanged or an A-B-A2 (preferably to the downside in a downside market and the upside in an upside market) based on direction of the market unless specified.
If something is bad, assume either a buy thru unchanged or an A-B-A2 (preferably to the downside in a downside market and the upside in an upside market) based on direction of the market unless specified-
Good- The following stocks have good news and/or a strong technical pattern
AMZN- noted its sales of Kindles was increasing each month of the 2nd quarter
ICUI- decent earnings
ZIOP- announced initiation of Palifosfamide phase III study
LDSH- decent earnings
RIMM- closed near a high
APA- closed near a high as it began to appear that the likelihood was declining of a BP-APA hook-up for an APA acquisition of some of BP’s businesses
FSLR- closed near a high
PII- decent earnings
WHR- great earnings
WFT- decent earnings
STT- decent earnings
UNH- decent earnings
WFT- decent earnings
MTG- good earnings
UAUA- decent earnings
Bad-The following stocks have bad news and/or a weak technical pattern
IBM- terrible earnings
TXN- poor earnings
STLD- poor earnings
NE- bad earnings
ATHR- bad earnings
ZION- poor earnings
TUP- awful earnings
BK- poor earnings
PEP- poor earnings
JNJ- terrible earnings
RSH- rumored Blackstone/TPG for RSH deal is off according to Reuters
CRUS- terrible earnings
BTU- poor earnings
GS- poor earnings
Earnings:
TUES. JUL. 20 BEFORE
AMTD BIIB BK
BTU CRUS FRX
GS HOG ITW
JNJ MI MTG
OMC PEP PII
STT UAUA UNH
WFT WHR
TUES. JUL. 20 AFTER
AAPL ALTR AMX
BSX CYT FIS
GILD JNPR LLTC
MDRX SLM STX
SYK TPX URI
VMW WCN YHOO
Epiphany Trading, LLC
www.epiphanytrading.com
Erik R. Kolodny- Chief Markets Strategist
Brendan P. Byrne- President
Joseph R. McCandless- Managing Partner
D. Timothy Seaquist- Managing Partner
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