Economic Indicator

Brandon Wendell
Instructor, CMT

There is a lot of talk about the current status of the economy and whether there will be tapering by the Federal Reserve in its bond purchase program. We are constantly bombarded by data releases from the government and the private sector that often leave us scratching our heads.

While teaching an Extended Learning Track class this week, I referenced a technique I had written about several years ago. This technique is not to be used to time your entries long or short, but they can help you identify major shifts in the market sentiment and that will direct you to buy in up trends at demand or sell in down trends at supply.

Traders and investors will often anticipate the potential direction of the economy and adjust their positions accordingly. If you monitor the performance of the sectors they are putting money into, you can start to see which is leading. Certain sectors outperform the others when the markets are bullish and others will outperform in bearish markets.

According to Investopedia, the Consumer Discretionary Sector is, “A sector of the economy that consists of businesses that sell nonessential goods and services. Companies in this sector include retailers, media companies, consumer services companies, consumer durables and apparel companies, and automobiles and components companies.” They define Consumer Staples as, “The industries that manufacture and sell food/beverages, tobacco, prescription drugs and household products.” Therefore, during times of economic bust, one would expect the discretionary companies to underperform staples as investors would not buy companies facing slow or no growth.

Disc vs stap

Of course as the markets turn positive, you would expect the opposite.

bull disc vs stap

As a chartist, there is a way to use this relationship and fine tune turning points in the market. Tradestation has a useful technical indicator called the Spread Ratio. This tool allows the trader to see a visual representation of the price of one security divided by another. By using trend lines, a trader can observe changes in the performance of two securities and make decisions about the broad markets.

spread ratio 13

To see changes in the overall market, I use a spread ratio that divides the closing price of the XLY, the consumer discretionary ETF, by the closing price of the XLP, the consumer staples ETF. If the ratio line is rising, the discretionary are outperforming the staples and we are in a bullish trend. Should the trend break and the ratio line decline, we are experiencing a bearish move and trend in the markets. Support and resistance work the same on the ratio as they would on a stock.
Notice the monthly charts of the XLY and XLP with the spread ratio. The breaks in trend correctly identified the shifts from bullish to bearish markets. Although this technique will not give you exact tops and bottoms, it will alert you to major changes in the markets.

spread ratio monthly 13

The larger timeframes on charts show us the major trends and we can adjust our biases accordingly. However as traders, we often want to look at shorter timeframes to see smaller tradable trends. This ratio analysis will also help with that. Simply adjust the chart’s timeframe to your needs but keep in mind that the larger timeframe trends always dominate over the shorter.

spread ratio daily 13

By looking at the rotation between staples and discretionary, traders can gain additional insight as to the future direction of the markets. Until next time, honor your stops and may all your trades be green.
