(By Chris Vermeulen) Over the weekend I had an interesting conversation with a local trader. We typically meet a few times a year to share our market outlooks, new trading tools and techniques, and usually finish our session off in a debate about the US market manipulation and how to trade around it.
Talking about market manipulation always opens up a can of worms and sparks some interesting theories… And while everyone has their own views and opinion on this subject I thought I would briefly share the main points I pulled from our conversation.
I did talk about the dollar index last week, but the recent price action unfolding today is important so I'm going to recap on it again.
My Weekend Conversation Key Thoughts:
Point form thoughts supporting Lower Equity prices and a Higher Dollar:
- Dollar index looks ready for a major rally (high dollar means lower stocks)
- SP500 may have just formed a double top
- SP500 closed strongly below the 20 day moving average
- First week of May for the past two years have been intermediate market tops
Points supporting Higher Equity prices and a Lower Dollar:
- Countries around the globe are trying to keep their currency value low including the United States.
- Presidential cycle strongly favors higher stocks prices which means the dollar should not rally until Nov.
What do all these points mean? Let's take a look at the dollar charts below…
4 Hour Dollar Index Chart:
This chart time frame allows us to see all intraday price action while being able to zoom out several months for patterns along with key support and resistance levels.
As you can see over the past few months the dollar has been consolidating sideways. Within this consolidation it has formed two bullish falling wedges with the most recent one breakout last week right on queue.
Using this 24 hour futures dollar index chart we can see where things are trading through the weekend. On Friday the dollar index closed around the 79.50 level. As you can see the dollar has surged Sunday night by more than half a penny breaking through its down trend line.
The next few weeks will continue to be exciting ones as strong moves in the dollar will create wild movements in stocks and commodities.