QUESTION: Marty; Your energy model seems to be warning that the bounce is not going to last. I have followed the reversals and they have been great for the bounce. What I have noticed is your energy model peaked two weeks before the low but as the market has rallied, energy has been declining. The 2018 December low your energy bottomed with the low and that was a good rally. This seems to be the opposite. Is my interpretation correct?

DF

ANSWER: Yes. We have a divergence on the weekly level with the typical novice rushing in to buy based upon the fact the market has simply rallied. They will always judge the next 5 years by a few weeks of price action. When we look at the monthly level, the peak in price was very high in energy which has been declining ever since. This also warns of caution. Keep in mind that we had a nice 11-year rally in the Dow & S&P500 from the 2009 low. That is a traditional bull market. But the NASDAQ bottomed in 2002, not 2009, so that was an 18-year rally, which is significantly different.

QUESTION: Mr. Armstrong, you have been targeting 2021 into 2022 as a critical time. Do you think this is unfolding faster than expected, or is this yet another sucker rally to get people all trapped in again on a bounce and then slaughter them? I find it curious how people get so bullish at every high and it smells that way now. What do you see in the near-term? I saw Socrates traded the rally in gold very good, but the ratio just shifted and it did not make a new high. It looks like weakness is coming back. All these people clamoring that they missed the NASDAQ rally look like they will be separated from their money really soon. What do you think?

FP

ANSWER: You have to subscribe to Socrates for each particular market. I do not have the time to comment on every single market and you cannot make a comment of the Dow and apply to another index any more than gold applies to silver or platinum. They are all different. Socrates is there for a reason. It is objective without bias and is not written by any person – it is totally computer generated which is a good thing in times like this. We all have our prejudices that can get in the way of objectivity. That is why people sell the low and buy highs.

We definitely have to be careful here for it is true that only fools rush in where wise men dare not tread. With all the chaos in the world, these people who think they missed everything with the NASDAQ rally merely illustrates how naive they are to even think the market can rally from here with no problems because some states are opening up. They will simply become the fuel for the moves ahead.

Those are the people who inevitably buy the high because they get so caught up always at the top. The pattern which seems to get the emotions flowing the most is always the Knee-Jerk Reaction before the high. This is often the strongest type of move just before the high which sucks them all in at the top thinking this is it and here we go. They want to pretend to be investors, but then they want to really trade every move.

When we look at the German DAX, there we have elected ALL FOUR Monthly Bearish Reversals from the February high but we also elected a Quarterly Bearish Reversal at the end of March. This is a clear warning that we have a very serious shift in the trend moving forward into 2022. We have not elected any Quarterly Bearish Reversal in the Dow, there is obviously a major shift in trend within the US v externally even with the lockdown.

We are NOT ahead of schedule. June remains a Directional Change and July is the next key target. We then have the 2020 elections coming and that will have a major impact upon the confidence behind the dollar into 2022.

Nobody is capable of forecasting this type of market from a gut perspective. This is the entire reason you need to look at Socrates per market and not assume anything. This is something that cannot be judged even fundamentally because there are so many things changing only a fool will assume they can see the future reducing everything to a single cause and effect.

So far, there is nothing that suggests the trend has accelerated. The swings are still within historical movements. The NASDAQ is different for its low was 2002 not 2009. Obviously, you cannot apply the same outlook to the NASDAQ as you see in the S&P500 or the Dow. To each its own, as they say.

We are creating a new index with 30 stocks to reflect the Paradigm Equity Shift. We are working on a special report to cover this event since it is the first time it has taken place since the 1930s.

China’s Communist Party will impose a sweeping national security law in Hong Kong during the annual meeting of its top political body, criminalizing “foreign interference” along with secessionist activities and subversion of state power. This is directed at the protests for independence. It is a very dramatic and bold move that unquestionably undermines Hong Kong’s autonomy. This will threaten Hong Kong as a global financial hub and is already impacting the HK$ peg which may break in June.

This has been a 23-year run under the “one country, two systems” framework that has allowed the territory to enjoy a level of autonomy. That is coming to an end. Hong Kong’s political freedoms have been eroding, but now Beijing signaled that the national security law will be a new tool that allows it to directly tackle the political dissent that erupted on Hong Kong’s streets last year.

Hong Kong has been able to hang on thanks to the US Federal Reserve cutting rates. While this has eased the pressure on the Hong Kong dollar in the midst of this deepening political crisis intermixed with the Coronavirus Pandemic everyone is using for political gains globally, the clock is ticking on the peg.

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority is clearly running out of options. Under this new threat from the political changes, the question is how long its currency can hold the line appears shorter by the Day. For the past 37 years, the city has run a managed peg, tying the Hong Kong currency to the US dollar after a long stint being tied to the British pound. Right now, the greenback trades in a narrow band between HK$7.75-7.85.

Traditionally, when a nation pegs its currency to another, then the differences in market interest rates should be marginal at best. However, this interest rate spread between the greenback and the Hong Kong market rates is warning that the economic differences are surfacing. The demand for the Hong Kong dollar is shifting, and this brings the currency in short supply given the economic contraction due to the virus. Add this new political shift and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority will have little choice but to increase the supply of Hong Kong dollars in an effort to support the economy and try to prevent interest rates from rise in the face of a new political risk.

The pressure to crack the peg will begin in June.