Risk is Rising
As I write this, the market is in the midst of a massive two-day rally. This seems to have emboldened the bulls even further and I would categorize this morning’s sentiment as full-on euphoria.
As I stated in my last post, in 1987, prior to the market’s October dive, it actually staged an enormous rally, which took it up almost 6% before beginning its nosedive. I continue to believe that there is a real chance that we are going to have extreme volatility in the coming few weeks.
As I’ve written about many times, you don’t typically see 600 point Dow and 280 point Nasdaq 100 rallies in healthy markets when sentiment is this elevated. It elevates sentiment to extreme levels and depletes cash levels even further in an already unhealthy market. Paradoxically, if I were a bull, I’d prefer to see less dip-buying and more chop. Instead, today’s rally seems to have attracted all of the bulls back with more confidence than ever, like moths to a flame. It’s safe to say that sentiment has sustained no damage since this correction began.
Most notably of all, all of the major indices and Value Line Geometric Index are still in downtrends. I still believe the risk of a market event soon is massive and today’s rally has actually done more to confirm it than detract.
In closing, just gonna drop this here: https://www.nytimes.com/1987/10/02/business/dow-soars-as-new-quarter-begins.html