Bells are ringing all over Wall Street. The only question is whether it's a signal to sell or the sound of distant sleigh bells. Stock futures are marginally higher this morning as traders limp in to work after the worst day for stocks since October 9. Yesterday the Dow lost 268 points and the S&P 500 dropped 1.6%.
Why the weakness? I've been talking about it all week but by now it's obvious to just about everyone: It's the crude! Need me to draw you a picture? I've got two. First the 5 day chart for both crude and stocks. The S&P 500 down 2.4%, oil lower by 7.4%. Lock step. The other: The Philly Oil Service Index over the last six months has lost 33%.
There's all kinds of connect-the-dot reasons an uncontrolled drop in crude is bad for, say, tech stocks that don't seem to have anything to do with one another. Just hit some of the links in this piece if you missed our earlier conversations.
Suffice it to say traders are once again ululating down the canyons of Wall Street. The Volatility Index or VIX spiked 24% yesterday. Yesterday! It's now up more than 50% this week. In the words of legendary trader Billy Ray Valentine, "They're panicking out there. I can feel it".
This year has been defined by V-bottoms. When we've seen S&P drops and VIX spikes like this in the recent past the trade has been to buy, not sell.
It's not just this year. Yahoo Finance contributor Dana Lyons took a look at the VIX all the way back to 1986 when it was created. Over those 28 years there have been 52 instances of the VIX rising more than 34% above its monthly low on any given day in December. Each of the prior 52 times the market closed the month higher. I'm not huge on back testing but that's a rather notable track record.
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Here's the trade, which is to say here's how I'm playing it and please don't consider that a recommendation: The S&P has nice big obvious support at 2,000. That's less than 2% below where we are. I've torn up everything else on my Santa List except for this one thing: I want stocks to drop to S&P2000 while the VIX goes nuts higher. If and when it happens, dear Santa, I will be buying this bad boy like crazy. Specifically, I want domestic retailers for reasons we'll get in to later.
My stop is 1,975. Those are my numbers. The rest is up to Santa.
