The Ending of an Era - HSI
Original Chart This is Based Off
2018 update
Original Trade Strategy Around This Chart
Everything should be self explanatory in the chart. Of course - this will work until it doesn't, but since the 1990, the HSI index hitting its upper resistance line has nailed every major global market top within a very short timeframe. You can see how perfect this has timed markets with the correlation to the SPX index in the lower chart. Hypothetically speaking, when you would hit the upper resistance line, you would short emerging markets to hedge against whatever is about to happen. Then when this hits the lower resistance line, you would go long major market indexes until you arrive back at the upper resistance line (SPX, etc).
2022 - End of an Era?
As most can see, this chart is a very very long narrowing wedge / channel. The volatility between drawdowns and rises was far greater the further back you go, and the drawdowns have all been proportionally smaller as we narrow within the channel bouncing off top and bottom resistance (and sometimes in between). With that said, narrowing channels like this indicate increasing fragility of the trend, and potentially suppressed volatility. Eventually, something has to give, and this will break the long term pattern.
I believe we're close to that point, and that's not a good sign for asian markets. I don't know exactly what would happen if this breaks to the downside, but I don't think it would be pretty. Stable systems such as this have a way of becoming extremely chaotic when the stability breaks. Chaotic markets = drawdowns / crashes, and given the current state of Chinese markets and politics, this shouldn't be too surprising that it could be possible. The ongoing Chinese real estate crisis is just getting going, and the party has so far remained committed towards deflating their real estate bubble. Fundamentally, Hong Kong is just as bad if not worse than China from a real estate speculation / valuation perspective, yet there are additional problems in HK with people fleeing the territory due to the Chinese takeover following the 2018 protests. Demographics are strongly against this market, valuations are strongly against this market, and the current economics of this look rather dire without any major positive windows into future development / growth.
From a technical perspective, this is also far weaker than every other time it's hit the bottom resistance line. Note that every other instance we hit the lower resistance line, we also were hitting the lower monthly bollinger band at the same time. Not included within the chart, but momentum indicators also are showing a lot of negative divergences. You can see this from simply looking at the chart and noting the covid recovery bounce has been far weaker than every other post-lower boundary recovery bounce. We didn't even make it up to the middle resistance line before retesting.
My guess and view is that this won't break easily, but it will break dramatically. I think there is a good chance we see another rally here back towards one of the resistance lines, but after that, momentum will have really worn off. I also think we could chop around the lower resistance for a while, but ultimately, we are likely going to break down here on a secular basis. Maybe Kyle Bass will actually be validated after being wrong for 10+ years (except he's probably already been stopped out of all his poorly timed trades)?
2018 update
Original Trade Strategy Around This Chart
Everything should be self explanatory in the chart. Of course - this will work until it doesn't, but since the 1990, the HSI index hitting its upper resistance line has nailed every major global market top within a very short timeframe. You can see how perfect this has timed markets with the correlation to the SPX index in the lower chart. Hypothetically speaking, when you would hit the upper resistance line, you would short emerging markets to hedge against whatever is about to happen. Then when this hits the lower resistance line, you would go long major market indexes until you arrive back at the upper resistance line (SPX, etc).
2022 - End of an Era?
As most can see, this chart is a very very long narrowing wedge / channel. The volatility between drawdowns and rises was far greater the further back you go, and the drawdowns have all been proportionally smaller as we narrow within the channel bouncing off top and bottom resistance (and sometimes in between). With that said, narrowing channels like this indicate increasing fragility of the trend, and potentially suppressed volatility. Eventually, something has to give, and this will break the long term pattern.
I believe we're close to that point, and that's not a good sign for asian markets. I don't know exactly what would happen if this breaks to the downside, but I don't think it would be pretty. Stable systems such as this have a way of becoming extremely chaotic when the stability breaks. Chaotic markets = drawdowns / crashes, and given the current state of Chinese markets and politics, this shouldn't be too surprising that it could be possible. The ongoing Chinese real estate crisis is just getting going, and the party has so far remained committed towards deflating their real estate bubble. Fundamentally, Hong Kong is just as bad if not worse than China from a real estate speculation / valuation perspective, yet there are additional problems in HK with people fleeing the territory due to the Chinese takeover following the 2018 protests. Demographics are strongly against this market, valuations are strongly against this market, and the current economics of this look rather dire without any major positive windows into future development / growth.
From a technical perspective, this is also far weaker than every other time it's hit the bottom resistance line. Note that every other instance we hit the lower resistance line, we also were hitting the lower monthly bollinger band at the same time. Not included within the chart, but momentum indicators also are showing a lot of negative divergences. You can see this from simply looking at the chart and noting the covid recovery bounce has been far weaker than every other post-lower boundary recovery bounce. We didn't even make it up to the middle resistance line before retesting.
My guess and view is that this won't break easily, but it will break dramatically. I think there is a good chance we see another rally here back towards one of the resistance lines, but after that, momentum will have really worn off. I also think we could chop around the lower resistance for a while, but ultimately, we are likely going to break down here on a secular basis. Maybe Kyle Bass will actually be validated after being wrong for 10+ years (except he's probably already been stopped out of all his poorly timed trades)?
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