Bottoming is a process - Helene Meisler joins Alpha Trader
This week's Alpha Trader podcast with hosts Aaron Task and Stephen Alpher features a return appearance by Wall Street technician and current Realmoney.com columnist Helene Meisler. Following that, it's Seeking Alpha's Daniel Shvartsmann talking tech with Chaim Siegel of Elazar Advisors and Nail Tech Earnings. That we might have hit a "V-shaped" bottom a couple of weeks back is generating plenty of chatter, but Meisler has spent her time studying a few other bear markets. What she found is that bottoming is a process that's likely going to take some time - weeks, if not months. To try and draw a picture, Meisler says the pattern tends not to be a "V," nor will it be a "W," but instead try to imagine the symbol for a square root. Among the indicators Meisler is looking at are moving averages, and not just for stocks. She takes note of AAII Investor Sentiment data, and the four-week moving average of bears a couple of weeks back got to 50% - the big bull move ensued shortly after. To gauge for when this rally might be petering out, keep an eye for when the average of bears begins to turn noticeably lower. Next up, Shvartsman and Siegel discuss whether the tech sector can continue to outperform. Siegel's approach is more trader-oriented, so he doesn't look for relative outperformance, but instead talks about why the sector has upside for the long term. He breaks down the various inputs the market will be looking at as earnings season begins, and which quarter will matter most. Lastly, he shares why he likes the video games subsector.