Bearish Call On Home Builders ... What's Next For ITB?
by Mike Paulenoff
June 19, 2022 • 12:00 AM EDT
Last Wednesday, prior to the official FOMC rate hike of 75 bps, Mike Paulenoff warned MPTrader members about the likelihood of additional weakness in the beleaguered home builders, writing about the ITB (iShares US Home Construction ETF):
"In that, neither my pattern work nor my intermediate-term Momentum gauges offer much technical confidence that ITB will be able to carve out a meaningful corrective basing area in and around 53.00, I am expecting the price structure to head still lower to test the next key Fibonacci support plateau in and around 46.00."
Mike added, "The fact that the Fed intends to maintain its rate hike cycle through Q3, 2022 at a minimum (unless today's FOMC policy statement and Powell press conference change the timeline), and given the sharp back-up in mortgage rates, the crash in demand for mortgages, the slowdown in economic growth (recession?), and residual upward pressure on prices in general, and housing in particular, the prospects for a powerful, sustained upside reversal in ITB appears low-to-none."
ITB, which was trading at 53.18 at the time, proceeded to nosedive into Friday's late-session 11-month corrective low at 48.02, a down-move of 9.7%, bearing down on Mike's next lower key technical level at 45.80-4600, which represents the Fibonacci 62% support plateau of the entire post-March 2020 Pandemic bull phase.
The ability of ITB to contain further weakness in and around 46.00 will provide Mike with valuable technical and macro market information about the underlying strength or weakness of the housing sector, the consumer, and the outlook for mortgages (longer-term interest rates). Mike's work argues that ITB buyers need to emerge to imbue an otherwise dismal and still-deteriorating intermediate-term technical setup with an initial measure of confidence to avert triggering the potential for a "death spiral" in the housing and home building sectors.
Join Mike and MPTrader members next week as they monitor, chart, and discuss the ITB as well as many individual names, ETFs, macro indices, commodities, Bitcoin, and Precious Metals miners in real-time as they brain-storm hour-to-hour navigation of the current challenging trader and investor environment.
Back on June 17th, this is what we discussed about the TLT (20+ Year T-bond ETF)when it was trading at 112.53:
The TLT put in a big upside reversal day yesterday (6/16/22) from 107.80 to 111.72, closing RIGHT AT the High of 111.72, leaving behind a Bullish Engulfing Candle on my Daily Chart (not shown here). The last time TLT traded at 107.
On Friday June 17, Mike Paulenoff posted an alert to MPTrader members about an emerging setup in AMZN:
AMZN is one name that pops out at me that should benefit from an initial and sustained correction in traditional energy and transportation costs. AMZN needs to climb above and sustain 110 for my work to generate a more confident technical signal, otherwise, I cannot rule out another loop down that tests and breaks key May-June support at 101.26 to 101.
Back on May 13, amid a thrust in the price of Crude Oil from $95/bbl to $112/bbl, Mike Paulenoff alerted MPTrader members to an actionable technical setup in energy producer PSX (Phillips 66), writing:
My work has been extremely friendly since the beginning of May, looking for PSX to break out of its 11-month corrective accumulation pattern that will trigger a thrust towards a potential target zone of 110-115.
On Thursday May 19, in the midst of some serious weakness and carnage in the retail sector that had equity market-watchers doubting the resiliency of the almighty US consumer, Mike Paulenoff turned MPTrader members attention to PARA (Paramount Global), writing:
For the past 5 months, we could make the technical argument that PARA has carved out an accumulation-base formation that attracts buyers every time the stock dips beneath 29.00. We can also make the case that every time the stock climbs above 36.
On March 11, with AAPL in a month-long down-leg and trading at 156.34, Mike Paulenoff posted a relatively bullish analysis for MPTrader members, writing:
I am watching AAPL more closely than usual these days, as a bellwether for the health/vulnerability of the overall market.
