By Chip Hanlon | August 18, 2008 | 12:09 PM | 5 Comments
Of course, this title is a take-off on my April article titled Ag Stocks' Pullbacks Could be Steep," but I'm just getting that tingly feeling that this commodities sell-off has gone a bit too far.
In fact, it would probably be useful to go back and take a quick peek at that article, particularly to compare the short-term technical condition of Potash (NYSE: POT) then vs. now. Here's today's 3-year daily chart of POT:
Now, these ag stocks went even a little higher after that article was written, but it does seem like we finally got the correction that "could be nasty enough to call the entire agriculture bull market into question," as I was looking for at the time.
Was this the end of that bull market? Experience has led me to believe the first big sell-off in a bull market is typically false, but that still begs the question: is this the first big sell-off in ag, or was January's pullback actually the big warning, in retrospect? Actually, there's no need for short-term traders to have an opinion as to whether today's trading buys might turn into longer-term holds.
Longer-term buyers should still wait for the biggest recent moves to correct--for the U.S. dollar and stock markets to correct, and for commodities and foreign currencies to bounce--before drawing (or re-drawing) their secular conclusions. Such moves should all get underway very soon.
Aggressive traders, however, should look at today's oversold conditions and be salivating over commodities, with stops based on risk tolerance being key.
Bottom line: today's commodity bounce/stock market pullback could easily be the start of a trend over the next few weeks. At the very least, such reversals feel like they should be very nearby. If the "MON Whisperer" chimes in with a comment about how he's loading the boat with Monsanto calls, then I'm probably wrong. Barring that, it's probably time to nibble on ag and other commodities for trades.
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