By Rohan Clarke
Watching the panic pervade our market this week I was sorely tempted to pick up a few large cap stocks that were pushing pre-tax dividend yields of ~15%. In hindsight it might have been opportune to do so. Yet, I’m of the view that we haven’t seen the full extent of this unwind.
Exhibit 1 – The downdraft has been accompanied by high volumes. It could be argued that this is capitulation by the weaker hands, but for mine we haven’t traded low enough to attract ‘value investors’ (witness Jeremy Grantham’s latest tome – S&P 950). Rather the volume selling suggests that this selloff is different relative to last year’s correction.
Note too, that momentum is still reeling from the severity of the fall. Given the damage done to confidence and level of uncertainty in the market, it is likely that we will at least revisit the recent lows. Watch to see how the MACD responds should this eventuate.
Exhibit 2 – An old favourite, the McClellan Oscillator that measures market breadth has completely broken down. Again, we’d expect to see a divergence in this indicator when investors are starting to accumulate on market weakness:
At the risk of repeating myself, the playbook we’re following is one where we take our lead from government stimulus. Negative real interest rates are not sufficient in a deleveraging market. That is why QE3 in whatever disguise is more likely than not and also why Japan, the UK and any other sovereign state with their hand still on the monetary tiller will follow suit. In the absence of fresh stimulus we’ll wait for signs that the market has exhausted it’s selling impetus before leaping into the void.
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