LT wave for January

Stocks had rather flat end of year trading with some weakness surfacing in the final days of December. The lunar green period produced a 54 point loss in the Nasdaq, a fitting close to a year which has been difficult for lunar cycle trading. More on possible reasons for this bad year and when “normal” cycles may return in a later article. Let’s first have a look at the current Nasdaq chart:

As I reported a few weeks ago, my indicators appeared stretched and a choppy ending to the year would be healthier than an ongoing surge to new highs. All my indicators are now coming down, including the slower Earl2 (orange line). This means the overbought situation is slowly getting worked off. But none of the indicators is showing any signs of bottoming out at the moment, so I would be patient here. Chances are we will see further downside action before we get an attractive setup to enter new longs.
We are also starting a new lunar red period and perhaps we are due for a normal cycle. The technical setup looks right for it. If we do get an early new year drop then Nasdaq 5250 becomes first target and just above 5000 if things turn ugly.

The LT wave for January also points to early weakness:

The wave for December did OK, not perfect. The expected weakness in the 2nd week did not pan out, but the neutral/flat trading for the rest of the month came true. Highs in the S&P came close to noticeable peaks in the LT wave on the 12th and 20th.
For January the wave projects weakness in the first week with a low value on the 4th. Then a strong period from around the 11th until 21st with a major peak value on the 17th. Last 10 days of the month are weaker again.
As always, don’t bet the bank on this. The LT wave is purely based on natural cycles and doesn’t use any market inputs.

As a final extra I want to point to the number of bullish stocks in the S&P 500. This is a chart I also post on Twitter from time to time, e.g. Dec 7. In a healthy bull market the number of S&P 500 stocks in bullish mode (based on my reversal levels method) is well above 250 (50%). In the beginning stages of a market advance the number of bullish stocks normally goes above 400 (80%) and stays above 300 during minor pullbacks. Once the number of bullish stocks drops back below 300 a deeper correction could be starting. This is the current situation:

The number of bullish stocks did climb above 400 on Dec 12, but has since come back down and is now at 278. This means a lot of stocks and sectors are already quite bearish and only a small majority of stocks remains in bullish mode. Maybe this is just year end profit taking… Or the market is about to turn lower. We will find out soon.