We’ve sold off very sharply in a short period. Many investors—probably the majority—think this is mostly technical and the basic global fundamentals have not changed. This group will be buying this dip. Others are worried that so much stimulus on a fairly full-employment economy will lead to inflation the Fed will have to stamp out, and, more concretely, fear the January Average Hourly Earnings number triggered a broader market realization of this. This group sees maybe a bounce, but more trouble ahead now that global central bank normalization is unambiguously on.
Behaviorally, after such a long, strong run, the BTD crowd is the more likely to prevail. The muscle memory is fresh. Traders like successful retests. And the overall case for this selloff being predominately technical is pretty strong. I’d cuff 75% odds that Friday was the bottom of this correction. And if that’s the case, it’s almost a certainty that we’ll be shocked at how fast market sentiment toggles back to the bull case.
Obviously, if this is wrong, the next leg down would likely be panicky and painful once investors realize it wasn’t.
However, if Friday was indeed the local bottom, my guess is that we rally back to or near the previous market highs. And it would be in the run up to those previous highs where we start looking for divergences to gauge the strength of the bounce. At least, this is the road map I am running with unless/until thing change.
For divergences, you’d want to look primarily to market internals. Advance-decline lines, new highs vs new lows, momentum indicators, these are the kinds of things you want to track. Vol needs to work it’s way lower too.
If you want to add risk here and are in a position to do so, I would recommend, as a general guideline, the sectors and names that held up best in the correction, not the ones that sold off most. It’s counter-intuitive for many of us, but strength tends to beget strength—even if constitutionally some of us are hard wired to shop for ‘laggards and bargains’.
Whatever you do, make sure you get your sizing and your stops right to manage that risk. Good luck.