Focusing on prices, not the news - J.C. Parets joins Alpha Trader

Alpha Trader

If you’re looking for a tonic to the ceaseless flow of (mostly) disturbing news on any number of fronts, than this week’s Alpha Trader podcast is for you. Host Aaron Task is joined by J.C. Parets, market technician nonpareil and chief market strategist at All Star Charts (co-host Stephen Alpher is out this week) .
His eye always on the price charts and never on the news flow, Parets remains bullish on stocks. To those who say the bull market needs a break, Parets would say there’s already been one, noting leading names like Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Facebook, and Alibaba are flattish-to-down (in some cases significantly down) since early September - that’s more than four months of lame performance.
If you ask him for a price targets, Parets will say 38K, or nearly 25% upside on the Dow (DJI), and 4.5K, or about 20% upside on the S&P 500 (SP500). New information rolls in every day, however, and Parets won’t be afraid to change his opinion if the facts change. For now, he’s keeping his eye on the above-mentioned names, and is looking for those stocks to move to new highs to confirm his bullish case.
And what might turn Parets bearish? Price signals of course … Treasury bonds outperforming stocks, a strong relative bid in consumer staples, widening credit spreads, a rollover in the aussie/yen currency cross, a deterioration in market breadth. At the moment, just the opposite of every single one of these bearish omens is happening, so Parets sees little reason not to stay long equities.
Want another signal? Take a look at Deutsche Bank (DB). It’s been hitting new 52-week highs. If the world (and the S&P 500) is really about to fall apart, would this most risky and sclerotic of banks be breaking out to the upside? Hardly, says Parets.
Turning to bitcoin (BTC-USD), Parets remains bullish, with $46K as his upside target. On the downside, he sees $30K as key support, and a sustained break below that level would be a sign of worse to come. As always, though, Parets is just looking at the charts, and isn’t treating bitcoin analysis any differently from that of stocks. He warns that once one begins buying into the religion status of bitcoin, they can no longer think rationally about the trade.
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