A Weekly Look At the North American Markets.

Hello everyone, it's Stephen Whiteside here from TheUpTrend.com with this week's edition of Protect Your Portfolio. In this weekly presentation, we take a longer term look at the North American markets using weekly charts. We use weekly charts to help filter out all of that market noise from Monday to Friday so we're left with just one decision point and that, of course, is the closing price from 4:00 PM Friday afternoon.


Let's start off with a quick reminder, especially for those people who have recently joined us. You know, we're constantly looking both ways. We're looking up at our price targets above the market, we're looking down to see where we are going to get kicked out of the market, and because we're always looking up and looking down at the same time it looks like we're doing a lot when in reality we're not doing much of anything. We're going to spend 90% of our time waiting for the market to do what the market's going to do. If you feel uncomfortable sitting on your hands, that should be the normal position. It's only about 10% of the time that we actually have to take action and this is another one of those weeks where there's really not much to do.


Now, the markets continue to move higher and as I scan through all the major sectors that I look at and there's no new or early warning signals up here at the top of the screen so nothing to be concerned about. The US market made higher highs, while the Canadian market had a small pullback.


The VIX is on a sell signal both on a daily and a weekly basis, and so if the VIX index or what we often call the Fear Index is on a Sell signal that is supportive for higher stock prices. The SPY ETF for the S&P 500 making a new high this week. Now, we are starting to trade above our mathematical target so we got orders filled up at 296.88. 300 is psychological resistance, and we closed above that on Friday. Closing above a resistance target is not the same as breaking away from it. If you look over here or if you look at this number here, the low of the week was 295.48. Well, that is below the 300 level which is psychological resistance. We've traded up through it but we have not broken away from resistance.


If we can do that on the ETF or even on the cash, then we do have our targets above. We know where we're going to next and that will be the next point that we would take more profit off the table. Now, this is an interesting week. We've got a full moon coming up and we've got a partial eclipse, depending on where you live in the world. The moon cycles, we had a new moon back here which marked a top, then we had a full moon which marked a top, then a new moon that marked a bottom. Since then, the moon cycles really haven't had much effect on the market.


We've had lots of news to deal with and the market has reacted positively. We're coming into this week and on Tuesday we've got a couple of moon events that could possibly change the direction of the market on a short term basis. Now, I watch the moon cycles closely, I've done that for over 30 years. I don't take action based on an upcoming moon cycle but if the market was to change direction after Tuesday, hey, I wouldn't be surprised at all. Then we'll just have to see if it picks up momentum and takes out the bottom channel lines on any of our charts.


We have the Nasdaq making a new high, the Nasdaq 100 QQQ, but the Russell 2000 IWM and the iShares Russell Microcap Index IWC had inside weeks and were down. Both mid-cap and small cap stocks were down on the week. Looking at financials, financials traded higher in the US, they were down in Canada.


Looking north of the border, the XIU.TO iShares TSX 60 pulled back and that had a lot to do with financials, didn't have much to do with the XEG.TO iShares TSX Energy which was up nearly 3%. Gold stocks XGD.TO iShares TSX Gold were also up just under 3% while materials XMA.TO iShares TSX Materials Index Fund had an inside week and they were down ever so slightly. And the financial services XFN.TO iShares TSX Financials were down on the week. Of course, those are some huge stocks in the TSX 60, heavily weighted, and they pulled the market down. We are not overly concerned. You can see that that particular ETF did not close below the previous week's low, so nothing to get overly concerned about at this time.


Looking at the bond market, we may be setting up for some trend changes here. We saw bonds in the US and in Canada pull back into the channel last week.

Looking at currencies, we saw the US dollar pull back, it's still on a weekly sell signal. Canadian dollar made a new high for 2019.


Looking at commodities, starting off with the metals, copper traded back into the channel, did not take out the previous week's high so not overly excited about copper. There's an inside week for gold. Remember, gold is traded up to the top of our projected trading range, up to 1437.50, traded up just below that level so we're looking to see if that holds as major resistance or, if we could break out above that, that would be quite exciting for the gold market. Silver had an inside week so no change there. Moving over, looking at the energy sector, we have crude oil back on a weekly buy signal. That, of course, is putting upward pressure on gasoline which is unfortunate for the summer driving season. Then, natural gas pulled back into the channel and so this week we're looking for a close above $2.52 this coming Friday to give this a weekly buy signal.


Let's finish off this week's presentation with a quick look at Apple Inc. (AAPL). Apple was down at 93 cents on the week, still on a weekly buy signal. Now, earlier in the week I posted that we are looking to sell Apple on a close below $199.18. Well, that never happened and so for two days we actually traded below the lower channel but did not close below it, so no sell signal was activated. Moving up on Friday, the lower channel line continued to move higher and so this coming Monday we are looking for a close on Monday below $200.23 to give us a new daily sell signal for Apple computer. Of course, if that doesn't happen, that lower channel line will continue to move higher daily.


Okay folks, that is all for today's presentation. Just looking over my shoulder, I see the futures have started trading on Sunday night. Not a lot going on. The Dow futures are down $2, the S&P500 futures are down 50 cents, and the TSX futures have not started trading so fairly quiet in the futures market on Sunday night. The next time you'll hear my voice is on Tuesday morning and, at that time, we'll take a closer look at the US stock market using daily charts. If you're bored and you're waiting for the market to change direction and you've got some free time, why not give some blood this week? If you're a man, it's one of the best things you can do for your cardiovascular health. Have a great day folks. Again, next time you'll hear my voice is on Tuesday morning.


Stephen Whiteside

Nasdaq Market Timing Service