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Will Financials Push The Market Over The Edge?
Thursday January 29, 12:39 pm ET
By Simon Maierhofer
Poker players and anyone who's ever been in a position where negotiation skills are required can appreciate the value of a good bluff. Dishing out a successful bluff or calling a bluff is much more fun than falling for a bluff, especially since falling for a bluff could be quite costly.
The stock market has been bluffing investors for decades. The market's indiscernible jolts have been particularly pronounced and painful in recent months.
Novice investors might take solace in the fact that mutual fund managers (supposedly the 'pros') have had a heck of a time trying to call the market's bluffs. In fact, in October 2007, at the all-time high, fund managers expected the rally to continue indefinitely. With a record low allocation of only 3.5% in cash, fund managers were invested to the max right before the market topped and crashed nearly 50%.
To a smaller extent, at the beginning of 2009, investors were extremely bullish yet again. In fact, investor optimism (CBOE Put/Call ratio, moving average) rivaled the optimism seen at the stock market's all time high. The optimism combined with other factors caused us to issue a sell recommendation on January 6th with the Dow at 9,070 (alert sent to ETF Profit Strategy subscribers). The Dow has dropped 800 points since.
Financials were the worst performing sector in 2008 and year-to date. Financials have been falling harder and faster than the major indexes. Have financials fallen because of the market or was the market's fall induced by financials?
There are a number of ETFs tracking the financial sector. Here are the main ones:
Financial Select Sector SPDRs (NYSEArca: XLF - News)
iShares Dow Jones US Financial Sector (NYSEArca: IYF - News)
Vanguard Financials (NYSEArca: VFH - News)
PowerShares Dynamic Financials (NYSEArca: PFI - News)
PowerShares FTSE RAFI Financial Sector (Nasdaq: PRFF - News)
First Trust Financials AlphaDEX (NYSEArca: FXO - News)
Rydex Equal Weighted Financials (NYSEArca: RYF - News)
Unlike the above pure-bred financial ETFs, major benchmarks like the Dow Jones (AMEX: DIA - News), S&P 500 (AMEX: SPY - News) and Russell 1000 (NYSEArca: IWB - News) have only limited exposure to the financial sector. Before the bubble burst, financials made up over 20% of the S&P 500. Today financials account for less than 11% of the S&P 500.
The strangle hold of financial stocks on broader benchmarks continues to weaken as the financial sector loses value. This is particularly true for the Dow Jones. As a price-weighted index, movements of higher priced stocks affect the Dow Jones the most and vice versa.
At $90 a share, IBM carriers 30 times more weight than General Motors at $3 a share. Four of the 30 Dow components already trade below $10 a share, two of which are financials: Bank of America (NYSE: BAC - News) and Citigroup (NYSE: C - News). The remaining two financial stocks are JP Morgan (NYSE: JPM - News) and American Express (NYSE: AXP - News).
No doubt, financials were the mill stone that dragged the stock markets to new lows. After a year of persistent losses however, financials relinquished their command over the major indexes. According to Ronnie Moas with Standpoint Research, if all the financial stocks in the Dow (JPM, BAC, C and AXP) drop to zero, the Dow Jones would only drop 300-350 points from current levels.
On the other hand, if Exxon Mobil went to zero, that stock alone (at $76) would send the Dow Jones down 600 points.
Industrials (19%), consumer staples (17%), technology (15%) and energy (15%) currently dominate the major benchmarks. As we've seen in recent months, individual sectors are not de-coupled from one another. In fact, the tentacles of financials control the welfare of many other sectors via its lending power (or lack thereof). As we are painfully aware, when funding dries up, so does economic activity.
We have successfully used the financial sector as a precursor of future events to come. Via our ETF Profit Strategy Newsletter we alerted subscribers on November 14th of the following: 'The Financial Select Sector SPDRs actually closed beneath its October 27th low. This should serve as a nice foundation for the next push down. Once the Dow breaks beneath 7,500, it is time to lighten up on short ETFs' like the ProShares UltraShort Financial (NYSEArca: SKF - News) and ProShares Short Financial (NYSEArca: SEF - News).
Once again, the financial sector has broken beneath its previous low. We've alerted our subscribers since the middle of November that the broad indexes will break below their respective November 21st lows once the Dow's rally past 9,000 is complete. The spear heading approach of the financial sector is yet another piece of the puzzle that confirms our outlook.
A test of the November lows will likely be followed by a forceful break of the November lows. The stock market will continue to bluff investors. The best reply to a bluff is a winning hand. The ETF Profit Strategy Newsletter has consistently recommended the right ETFs at the right time. It's time to call the market's bluffs.