The topping process: Slowly At First, Then All At Once

This is a very good writeup about the current market topping process, which will inevitably lead to a bear market that is likely a prolonged and severe one, given how much froth has currently been built in. 

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Still A Bull Market

Today, Central Banks globally continue their monetary injection programs, rate policies remain at zero, and global economic growth is weak. Moreover, with stock valuations at historically extreme levels, the value currently ascribed to future earnings growth almost guarantees low future returns.

As discussed previously:

"Like a rubber band stretched too far – it must get relaxed in order to stretch again. The same applies to stock prices that are anchored to their moving averages. Trends that get overextended in one direction, or the other, always return to their long-term average. Even during a strong uptrend or strong downtrend, prices often move back (revert) to a long-term moving average."

The chart below shows the deviation in the market price above and below the 75-week moving average. Historically, as prices approach 200-points above the long-term moving average, corrections ensued. Thus, the difference between a "bull market" and a "bear market" is when the deviations occur BELOW the long-term moving average consistently. 

Since 2017, with the globally coordinated interventions of Central Banks, those deviations have started exceeding levels not seen previously. As of the end of May, the index was nearly 800 points above the long-term average or 4x the normal warning level. 

We can see the magnitude of the current deviation by switching to percentage deviations. Historically, 10% deviations have preceded corrections and bear markets. Currently, that deviation is 22.5% above the long-term mean.

Notably, the decline below the long-term average reversed quickly, keeping the "bull market" trend intact.

Conclusion

Understanding that change is occurring is what is essential. But, unfortunately, the reason investors "get trapped" in bear markets is that when they realize what is happening, it is far too late to do anything about it.

Bull markets are lure investors into believing "this time is different." When the topping process begins, that slow, arduous affair gets met with continued reasons why the "bull market will continue."  The problem comes when it eventually doesn't. As noted, "bear markets" are swift and brutal attacks on investor capital.

As Ben Graham wrote in 1959:

"'The more it changes, the more it's the same thing.' I have always thought this motto applied to the stock market better than anywhere else. Now the really important part of the proverb is the phrase, 'the more it changes.'

The economic world has changed radically and will change even more. Most people think now that the essential nature of the stock market has been undergoing a corresponding change. But if my cliché is sound, then the stock market will continue to be essentially what it always was in the past, a place where a big bull market is inevitably followed by a big bear market.

In other words, a place where today's free lunches are paid for doubly tomorrow. In the light of recent experience, I think the present level of the stock market is an extremely dangerous one."

Pay attention to the market. The action this year is very reminiscent of previous market topping processes. Tops are hard to identify during the process as "change happens slowly." The mainstream media, economists, and Wall Street will dismiss pickup in volatility as simply a corrective process. But when the topping process completes, it will seem as if the change occurred "all at once."

  by Lance Roberts