Is the Bull-Market Over?

Kind-of insane how fast equities sell off. I presume it's mainly from the algorithmic machines that dump massive amounts of volume all at once. The DOW opened insanely how but sold-off very fast afternoon. I have no hope in these markets anymore. Now, everyone is running around chasing all the bank stocks because hedge-funds, and quant boys are supposedly "shifting their money." Watch tomorrow the huge dump in the irrational run up in financials. This was a nice year, but the huge sell-off in the NQ wiping out months of gains has now put my long portfolio in the red, I am sad.

cheers

 
More Leverage:
Just saw LeveragedSellout is back. Clear sign we're nearing the top.

I would actually prefer for the markets to top off. Quite honestly, a crash seems likely and I have no problem with it happening. There is no new money flowing in the market! Grant it, I am ready to buy put-contracts all across the board. Assuming I am correct, I will make a great deal of money.

 
Best Response

In my nearly 40 years trading the markets (on the side), I've heard a constant chorus about an imminent crash.

There are commentators who provide very credible sounding reasons as to why equities can't keep rising. Years before the previous crashes they were predicting a crash. Day after day, week after week, month after month.

And the markets kept rising and rising and rising.

But, and here's the crunch, when a "correction" does happen these doom and gloom merchants all jump up and try to take credit for predicting the crash!

You talk about irrational dumps. Are you perhaps trying to blame the irrationality of other traders for your loss? Remember the old saying, "The market can remain irrational for longer than you can remain solvent".

If you do want to play the market, spend time studying some good books on technical analysis (Al Brooks is one good author). Never trade emotionally or based on hunches. Develop discipline - always calculate risk/reward before entering, always decide your stop before you enter any trade.

 

SB . I always love speaking to veterans in the market as I am learning more.

I strictly use technical analysis on my equity trades. I don't use those silly indicators. Volume and price action ONLY. I had some nice entries on my tech-stocks (basically QQQ) but the insanely, obscenely heavy selling from institutions blasted right through all my patterns last week. I personally believe equities can fall faster than they can rise, too many weak hands on top of heavy algo dumps. It's just annoying, you can have a nice set-up but this sector rotation makes people run around in circles. There is a famous saying, "follow the smart money." At that point, millions of shares being dumped on the market don't care about a couple lines on a chart, do you agree with me?

I'm thinking about quitting this silly line-drawing, and spend more time on my option-contract trades. STD Deviation and basic math/probability is all you need to succeed. I find it amazing that you can set up delta-neutral strategies to secure premium of volatility/time. You don't even need to be directional!

 
ForexOptions:
Lets put it this way, when people of your caliper want to sell-off their holdings, does it really matter what two lines on a chart mean?

lol 'caliper' ahhh that's a good one

"If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them." - Bruce Lee
 

I don't think so. To be honest I think that actually market is priced correctly, you know, valuations are relatively high. In periods of low interest rate P/E is higher, given the CPI and the expected return on your investment. Companies have a fair quantity of retained earnings, and US banks have a not bad buffer (Tier1) given by that. (tla 20/24%) I'm more concerned about EU banks, mainly about Italian banks, that have been paying dividends sine the very beginning of EU regulations. Same for other EU banks.

 

OP you do realize that outside forces are shaping the market right now. The sell offs are related to the current political issues, have little to nothing to do with actual fundamentals. There are little to no fundamental issues with the broad market right now, however there could be a crash tied to a major political disruption. But that crash would be very short lived and have little impact on the economy as a whole.

Follow the shit your fellow monkeys say @shitWSOsays Life is hard, it's even harder when you're stupid - John Wayne
 

Not really anything major, sure there are fundamental issues in individual companies. But right now there aren't any major systemic issues that could tank the entire market in my view. This is just a long running tail of pushing money out of bonds into other areas like equities and real estate. There are bubbles developing but they are far from catastrophic burst pressure. In my view politics are really the only systemic issue, but again that isn't anything directly tied to the market. That is just a ridiculous moral panic.

Follow the shit your fellow monkeys say @shitWSOsays Life is hard, it's even harder when you're stupid - John Wayne
 

Yea, those sell offs were profit taking due to political instability. It wasn't out of no where, it just wasn't a normal market trigger.

Follow the shit your fellow monkeys say @shitWSOsays Life is hard, it's even harder when you're stupid - John Wayne
 

No one strategy works 100% in every market. Keep doing what works, and paper test new strategies until you're reasonably certain you know what your strength is. The last thing I'd like to mention is that I've noticed that professional traders or sports gamblers who consistently make money are the ones who never have 5% or more riding on any one trade. It's a matter of risk management.

 

I'm not looking for an actual answer, I'm just looking for what other people think will happen to the market. I'm asking this question because I'm curious to see what other people think and also because I remember looking at an interview question for an ER intern position that asked the interviewee, "Predict if the stock market will go up or down?" (The question was very close to that)

 

Banks are admittedly cheap or at least reasonable. It’s taken them a long to work off the crisis lack of investor interest. And banks like Citi really benefit from the global growth picking up.

A lot of market moves seem kinda extreme to me last few years. I think it’s the lack of prop desks money and more money in the quants and firms with tight stop outs like millennium. You probably have atleast 200 billion in management with strict drawdown rules. So they chase up and down. Instead of bank desks that I think 5-10 years ago could sit on losses.

 

Market has priced in all of Trumps pro business policies which is an issue since there will be battles up a head. That being said, the market run up has been juiced by Fed policy which is being reeled in now. If taxes can be cut, along with lower regulations and a pro business environment, you could see actual growth fueling the market.

This administration looks to be very much focused on jobs and the economy which could continue this bull market. I do think there will be an eventual correction. Not sure when that happens though.

 

do you count 2015 as down? S&P was negative before adding back dividends...

I'm torn on this, because yes I agree with TNA, market is pricing in some warranted optimism from Trump, but earnings growth has been anemic, sales growth has been worse, and valuation is not quite bubbly yet, but still nerve racking. I think we have a couple more years of up markets to go before we see 20-30% declines.

in previous expansions, the rate of growth (GDP) was much higher, so from an economic standpoint, one could argue that this one deserves to last for longer. from a market standpoint however, I have my worries. I'm bullish, but more "hold your nose and stick to quality" bullish, than I am excited about everything bullish.

 

It's odd to contribute this to a "pro business" Trump considering there have yet to be any actual plans that someone could point to that would help the economy. He's been all over the place in terms of regulation. From a financial standpoint he's been a mixed bag, saying that he wanted to curb large scale M&A, bring back glass steagall, but get rid of Dodd-Frank (except for capital ratios, because that's never going away). Then he said he will bring down regulations by "75% or more" which is a ludicrous number that has no basis in reality and it's a clear indicator he has nothing specific in mind and hasn't thought through this critically. His strong dollar policies will make imports cheaper, but then the protectionist border taxes/tariffs will off set that and likely end up with net costlier imports. The plan to bring manufacturing home will increase the price of goods, if they actually do get manufactured here, and the retaliatory taxes/tariffs other countries will bring (assuming we bring ours) hurts those local businesses. The only thing you can actually point to that is unilaterally good for businesses and consumers is lower taxes, but most companies are already paying effective tax rates that are extremely low and simply repatriating cash has never shown to be a boom for US economy beyond artificially inflating stock prices (which makes sense in Re: the dow).

So, all in all, it certainly isn't a "pro trump policy rally" unless you don't believe in efficient markets. I would expect some of it has to do with the fact that previously worries about stronger policies from Clinton were priced in. But more than that, and most importantly, earnings have been good, we are in the upswing of a traditional cycle, and the economy has been showing increased growth since middle of last year.

 

https://cdn.ampproject.org/i/s/amp.businessinsider.com/images/5849dc9bc…

https://cdn.ampproject.org/i/s/amp.businessinsider.com/images/5849dc67c…

https://cdn.ampproject.org/i/s/amp.businessinsider.com/images/5849dcaec…

https://cdn.ampproject.org/i/s/amp.businessinsider.com/images/5849dd0ec…

The red line denotes Election Day. I have no idea why it's so hard for people to admit that Trump's election improved the economic outlook in the US. It's not even a political statement- these trends could easily reverse once his policies actually come into play.

Spare me the causality/correlation spiel. This isn't a coincidence.

 

This market is totally bullshit. Money is paper at 27 times earnings. But, there's so much head room. Margins are at 15.4%, corporate profit growth is at 6.3% so far, the highest in this decade, and the Fed confirms higher inflation expectations, predicting a FFR at 1.5% at the end of this year, which is way lower than the long-term rate. Lofty optimism would have most likely continued. But it's shit like this recent Muslim ban that will have a negative impact on outlook. Risk and uncertainty is Trump's game so far, so I bet the market isn't going to like this news and it could be the first to trigger the reality that we're in for a potential clown show with this administration.

 

Have to say that I agree with @TNA" comments on capitalism, competition, monopolies. By law, competition ought to lead to monopoly, otherwise it's not competition. The thing about capitalism is that it's nice on paper or as an ideological principle but reality is a completely different beast. Once you get into the nitty gritty details of every day life in a capitalist world, the picture is no where near what academic papers and media describe. Unless of course you suffer from cynicism or enjoy turning a blind eye. So what ThrowADart says, much like every other academic out there, they all have a common denominator; an (intended?) absentiism of what happens in every day reality and instead they are just self-secluded in their own theories and ivory towers. They present you with numbers that we ought to take as gospel or, well, scientific yet they are subjective/political since inception. Same thing happened with election/poll results, nice numbers (low unemployment, some growth, recovery etc) yet you end up with people longing for Trump, Brexit etc. Why?

Get real.

Colourful TV, colourless Life.
 

Bernanke is a student of the Great Depression. When unemployment started easing in 1937 and interest rates went up, the economy spiraled back into another recession.

Don't expect Bernanke to raise rates this year. There are no looming asset bubbles and deflation is more concerning than inflation at this point.

I would agree though that things are looking rather expensive. Banks still trading on book value rather than earnings multiples. However, it is very difficult to get someone to bet against the trend right now...

Smokey, this is not 'Nam, this is bowling. There are rules.
 

agree with bonkers...change in fed language/rates will be key. we saw a correction earlier this year when pboc began tightening, would think that when fed takes out "exceptionally low for extended period" will mark sell off as good economic news will turn to bad news for markets. that being said, would view sell off as buying opportunity...longer term trends of deleveraging/high debt to gdp/sovereign risk will play out over much longer period. at least for next 2yrs or so, with earnings growth expected to be off the charts and multiples at reasonable levels and retail investors largely not participating, i think we can be at 1400 by end of 2012....but just a hunch...

 

Forward PE ratio for stocks is estimated at 15, the market is not over valued by this measure. Earnings estimates will have to miss by a mile to cause a correction. There is no data that I can point to that says that it will, unless you want to speculate on Black Swans.

 

I think that consumer confidence is strong. Soon people will buy with credit, which will lead to better rises but a possible crash due to debt and etc. So it depends on governments actions, new tariffs or etc, but I predict is will sustain till government interference or consumer debt. (When government interference i mean such as Banks, GM, and possible medical areas getting affected. )

 

In terms of the corporate earnings that have actually been accrued, we are talking about a $57 (U.S.) trailing four-quarter trend in S&P 500 operating earnings per share (EPS).

The last time the S&P 500 was rallying towards the 1,200 level in late 2004, the trend in EPS was $68, or 20 per cent higher than it is today, and back then, we had solid and sustained employment growth, low and falling unemployment rates and high and rising capacity utilization rates.

Not to mention that credit was abundant and available to everyone at an extremely low cost, housing and commercial real estate were rising to new heights, and household balance sheets and wealth were hitting new all-time highs.

Market overvalued by 20 - 30%. Correction should come, tough to time - I would say after 2nd quarter of this year.

 

Inflation, speculation, stock manufacturing for now .... Interest hike coming up, hedge funds making big shorts = market correction.

And the whole prophet bull... come on now! Let me guess, is this the same man that told John Paulson to bet against the economy to make close to $4billion in 1 year right? Not only that, he is also shorting stock on his e*trade account...

"The higher up the mountain, the more treacherous the path" -Frank Underwood
 
Geraint Anderson:
If this Prophet was for real he'd have been snapped up as an Equity Research Analyst years ago! :p

Yeah that's true. In fact, if some people really can do that I'm surprised they wouldn't capitalize on it. Although have you heard of Edgar Cayce? He was a documented prophet, but people started taking advantage of him (i.e. getting stock tips) and I guess he couldn't physically withstand it after a while, so he had to go back to helping people heal illnesses/problems first and foremost

 

Someone bumped this thread and I'm glad they did. Most people said to sell when the S&P was at 1200. The market has a similar P/E ratio and much better fundamentals and people are still saying 'sell' today. Needless to say, the market is substantially higher now than when this post was first written.

Buy you fucking pussies.

 

There doesn't seem to be anything in our current economic situation to justify this bull market. Consumers are still de-leveraging, we're still setting new poverty records and our GDP growth is languishing at around 1%

But low interest rates, tech investments, cost cutting, QE, outsourcing, etc are helping corporations see record profits in this environment. Banks have tightened up underwriting and are having a blast buying treasuries and making the easiest money they've ever made. Given how cash rich big companies are are these days I'd consider this the real deal w/ a caveat that it's predicated upon the strength of our bondholder confidence

 

The S&P index is based off of the total EPS for the index. The S&P is not a good gauge of the U.S. economy. 50% of the revenue for S&P companies is outside the U.S. Not to mention, companies have become more efficient and have held down cost especially on interest expenses due to low rates.

Array
 

These are systemic changes along the same order of magnitude of when the dollar was originally decoupled from an official gold standard and gold prices began to flutuate in ways that the previous framework did not have the capacity to explain. I'm not an economist and don't posess the vocabulary to express what I see, so I'm working on it. In the big picture, the market and companies in general are slowly recovering to more sustainable models while the overaching financial system is building an upgrade out of existing infrastructure. Economists heads' were exploding when FDR decided to allow gold prices to change, and they freaked out again when Nixon finalized the process.

It's a paradigm shift

Get busy living
 
Amphipathic:
The sea of liquidity the fed is pumping out on a daily basis has to be put somewhere
Yes. My guess is that the government was hoping this money would be invested in the form of loans to small companies and/or expansion of operations with the self fulfilling anticipation of a generally improving economy. In reality, they are pumping this money into the institutional side of things, so returns are being chased in the market: just as the entire housing market was juiced from 1995 to 2006, this time it's the entire economy. Is it a bubble? maybe. But I think there's too much overall change and too much at stake, so instead we see a realignment of the entire global economy. If some small country inflates a bit, they're the only ones that suffer. If the largest and most powerful country inflates a bit....everyone else suffers.

Unfair perhaps, but that's what I see happening.

Get busy living
 

I think when we see the Russell 2000 moving, that is when we can have a better argument on where the economy is heading. Russell 2000 is a good indicator on job creation.

We can't rely on anyone these days, we just have to do things ourselves don't we?
 

Architecto voluptas rerum in veniam debitis accusamus deserunt. Nesciunt sit et et molestiae sunt deleniti. Error dolorum harum excepturi. Autem exercitationem voluptatem aut repellendus quasi aperiam velit ad. Minus aperiam labore qui necessitatibus ut eum. Et earum vel ut.

Eaque architecto quod aliquid rerum autem aliquid. Quam sed maxime est et minima non. Nulla accusamus voluptatem laborum repellendus cupiditate impedit eum. At qui non delectus iste eaque repudiandae repudiandae. Aspernatur et eum natus culpa. Et nihil ab voluptate esse aperiam quo doloribus.

Aut qui amet omnis eligendi. Consequatur et nihil eos ut ipsa rerum. Deleniti non molestias voluptas minima ut et consequatur. Dolorem quo ut placeat adipisci voluptatem sunt sint nesciunt.

 

Iusto vel ea corporis aut. Nisi illo dolorem nesciunt mollitia non est. Adipisci quibusdam eveniet et odit totam. Minus repellendus iusto dolor et provident. Quidem illum consequatur consequatur numquam deleniti dolor.

Magni placeat ex et eos consectetur est. Laudantium dolores dolor consectetur earum. Eaque enim modi ut sit sunt nobis. Sit qui ipsa similique perferendis eum omnis. Animi quam et natus fugit consectetur quae. Ipsa magni velit consequuntur quam labore dolor.

 

Qui doloremque repellat numquam commodi porro. Fuga debitis et sint consequatur rerum eligendi id. Excepturi aut nemo incidunt omnis sed voluptas fugiat. Ipsa accusamus dolore accusamus sed aut ducimus. Sed enim ipsum ipsam provident consequatur et error a. Voluptatum ipsam maiores nostrum cupiditate eligendi et.

Voluptatem rerum vel aut dicta sit totam. Laboriosam voluptates quibusdam aut natus tenetur. Nam tenetur itaque eum.

Aliquam nostrum et est saepe. Voluptatum omnis nesciunt et. Natus eaque rem possimus dolores est nobis. Autem libero numquam est rerum dolor.

Nesciunt quasi voluptates cum ut. Illum rerum odio nisi enim quibusdam similique ea.

Get busy living
 

Aut eum optio quod sint aut. Voluptas voluptatibus totam enim consequatur officia voluptatem ratione. Quis tempora eos porro saepe eius. In est neque quibusdam vel sed consequuntur et. Doloribus sunt molestias distinctio quam non.

Autem sunt porro non et. Molestiae cumque eum distinctio accusamus qui deleniti voluptatem.

Quibusdam repudiandae nihil qui et. Ut fuga provident explicabo quia quas voluptas occaecati eos. Aut ut aut vel minima ut. Dolorem at tempora eos quos minus voluptates neque.

Career Advancement Opportunities

March 2024 Investment Banking

  • Jefferies & Company 02 99.4%
  • Goldman Sachs 19 98.8%
  • Harris Williams & Co. (++) 98.3%
  • Lazard Freres 02 97.7%
  • JPMorgan Chase 03 97.1%

Overall Employee Satisfaction

March 2024 Investment Banking

  • Harris Williams & Co. 18 99.4%
  • JPMorgan Chase 10 98.8%
  • Lazard Freres 05 98.3%
  • Morgan Stanley 07 97.7%
  • William Blair 03 97.1%

Professional Growth Opportunities

March 2024 Investment Banking

  • Lazard Freres 01 99.4%
  • Jefferies & Company 02 98.8%
  • Goldman Sachs 17 98.3%
  • Moelis & Company 07 97.7%
  • JPMorgan Chase 05 97.1%

Total Avg Compensation

March 2024 Investment Banking

  • Director/MD (5) $648
  • Vice President (19) $385
  • Associates (86) $261
  • 3rd+ Year Analyst (13) $181
  • Intern/Summer Associate (33) $170
  • 2nd Year Analyst (66) $168
  • 1st Year Analyst (202) $159
  • Intern/Summer Analyst (144) $101
notes
16 IB Interviews Notes

“... there’s no excuse to not take advantage of the resources out there available to you. Best value for your $ are the...”

Leaderboard

1
redever's picture
redever
99.2
2
Secyh62's picture
Secyh62
99.0
3
Betsy Massar's picture
Betsy Massar
99.0
4
BankonBanking's picture
BankonBanking
99.0
5
kanon's picture
kanon
98.9
6
DrApeman's picture
DrApeman
98.9
7
dosk17's picture
dosk17
98.9
8
CompBanker's picture
CompBanker
98.9
9
GameTheory's picture
GameTheory
98.9
10
numi's picture
numi
98.8
success
From 10 rejections to 1 dream investment banking internship

“... I believe it was the single biggest reason why I ended up with an offer...”