Following are my personal comments on specific markets and issues. I chart markets for a hobby and my comments are the result. They are not recommendations to buy or sell anything and should not be thought of as such. They are for entertainment purposes only so enjoy.
Please remember, the following is pure speculation based only on my experience and chart patterns. "Every sunken ship has a room full of charts."
David Bruce Edwards
March 14, 2026
Note - I got a new wider screen monitor and when I look at this web site with the screen size in full, the site spacing does not come out properly. By making the window less wide all of the text and graphics slide into place. Perhaps you are having the same experience. DBE.
As usual, I will show pictures and graphs found on Zerohedge.com, Sentimentrader.com, which include the Seasonality charts and charts made on Barchart.com. I will also mention "cycle low timing bands" suggested by another market website to which I subscribe, Cyclesman.com.
War headlines dominated markets for the last two weeks. We got some economic data that fed into traders' decisions.
Personal Consumptions Expenditures (left side, blue line), the Fed's favorite inflation indicator, rose 0.3% last month and 2.8% on an annual basis. The core number (blue line) that subtracts food and energy rose 0.4% for the month and 3.1% annually. Both sets of data trended sideways for the last two years. Personal Income (right side, upper) rose 0.4% for the month and was matched by spending (lower).
The January payrolls number surprised to the upside. February surprised to the downside (left) with the government reporting a 92,000 loss for the month. Earlier in the week, ADP reported a gain of 63,000 for the month. December and January were adjusted down by 69,000 jobs. 228,00 people were unable to work because of the severe weather. The right side graph shows that this was a factor in the last three months.
Retail sales fell 0.2% in January which was expected because of the weather (left). When adjusted for inflation (right), sales rose.
The latest data on New Claims for Unemployment Benefits showed no sign of weakness in the labor force with a reading of 213,000 (left). The right side graph shows Housing Starts (green) and Permits for future starts (blue). Starts for new homes were stronger than expected. The overall sales rate for homes, especially existing homes goes up and down with mortgage rates.
Some traders focus on economic statistics, corporate earnings and analysts' assessments of industry groups that are referred to as market fundamentals. Others focus on chart patterns, moving averages, momentum oscillators, cycles and historical correlations. They are fans of technical analysis and some are fanatics. They think that chart patterns predict real life events. True believers are watching the graph of the U.S. Dollar Index. The left side chart shows the recent peak and decline. The right side focuses on the sideways consolidation over the last year. The Dollar could be making a classic "flat correction" in a down market. If reality follows art then it should end with a five wave advance. I drew in the red dashed lines for the update two weeks ago and so far, the Dollar is behaving as anticipated. For months, analysts were predicting Dollar weakness. Last week, they were universally bullish. This fits with the Dollar finishing wave 3 of the rally, a time when it looks like a market is unstoppable. We should be very close to wave 4, a sideways consolidation. What does this imply for reality? The Dollar rallied as the war escalated and estimates for how long the Straits of Hormuz will be closed grew from weeks to months. A wave 4 pull back implies that something will happen next week that is more optimistic such as a lull in military action from both sides. Wave 4 will be followed by 5, another rally. If you live by the charts, it means more trouble after the lull.
For those who believe in chart mysticism, the graphs of Crude Oil and Natural Gas futures are problematic. Both show five wave selloffs from the panic highs following our attack on Iran. Five waves down are supposed to be followed by an upward correction then a deeper selloff. We attacked Kharg Island last night (Friday night). It would follow that prices for oil and natural gas will open higher on Monday. By week's end, analysts were predicting that the Straits will be closed for weeks with much higher oil and natural gas prices. Will it be chart mysticism or the logic of war that determines prices?
Gold and silver are not behaving as expected. Fans thought that if the war didn't reach of quick conclusion, both metals would hit new highs. Analysts say that strength in the Dollar is hurting precious metals but during their up phase, they ignored a stronger Dollar. The red rectangles mark potential 21 day cycle lows as theorized by Cyclesman.com, my favorite subscription. If he is right, the next low is not due until early April. The most bullish interpretation of the charts is that the initial plunge, marked by the blue "a" on the gold graph, is part of a long sideways correction that will not take out that initial low point. Eventually, prices will rally to new highs. Silver looks weaker.
Platinum and Palladium are trending with gold on a weaker basis.
On the left is a graph of recent copper prices along with gold. On the right is DBB, an ETF that includes copper and other base metals. Fans of commodities always said that in times of war, commodities would rally. For now, they are subdued. One could argue that higher oil prices will severely crimp economic activity around the world which will result in less demand for industrial metals.
The best looking markets are grains. Fertilizer is made with Natural Gas. Qatar is the biggest exporter of LNG and its LNG plant is closed down. Iran allowed a tanker going to India to transit the Straits and Italy is reportedly trying to negotiate a deal. Some analysts are suggesting that over time, Iran will set itself up as a toll booth with a pay to play kind of deal for safe passage. Going back to the Dollar graph, if chart mysticism is right and we see a temporary break in the war with some tankers moving, wheat and soybeans could pull back a bit. Both have the added advantage of being weather related. We are coming into spring planting season which will be closely watched.
I thought that a flight to safety would result in higher U.S. longer dated notes and bonds being bought. Instead, they are selling off which means that interest rates are rising. Above and to the left are the paths of rates on ten year notes and 30 year bonds. The upper right right chart shows the MOVE Index. It is a VIX for bonds, tracking anticipated volatility. Directly to the left is a picture of the yield spread between highly rated corporate bonds and riskier ones. One of the big worries for bonds is the problem with private credit. Investors were extremely confident that all loans would be paid until recently. Now, there are more and more reports of problems in the sector and investors wanting their money back.
Higher rates, expectations of higher volatility and widening credit spreads make refinancing existing debt more difficult. This means that global liquidity, the amount of money sloshing around they system, available for borrowing, is tighter. This is usually bad for risk assets such as Bitcoin, gold and leveraged stock positions. Often, there is a lag between the change of direction in liquidity and markets.
As with oil and natural gas, stock market charts are at odds with what you see and hear about the war with the headlines looking terrible and no end in sight. The upper left graph shows daily bars of the Dow Jones Industrials. The red arrows point to timing bands for Cyclesman.com's 39 trading day cycle lows. Friday's session fell in the middle of the timing band for the current cycle. These cycles can run short or long. 39 days is the average.
The upper right graph has daily bars with a simple RSI momentum oscillator. It is sitting at 21. The 20 level is considered "over sold." You can see from the graph that RSI reached more extreme levels at times in the past. The red lines highlight recent touches of 20 so that you can see subsequent market action. A casual observer would come to the conclusion that betting on a big downside move from these levels comes with elevated risk.
Directly to the right is a weekly bar chart of the Dow Jones Industrials with arrows pointing to Cyclesman.com's 22 week cycle lows. We are in the middle of a timing band for one of these lows right now. The band is plus or minus a few weeks so stocks could continue to get hammered next week. The other major averages have a similar timing cycle.
On the left is a graph of the S&P 500 with daily bars going back 9 months. With all the bad news, it is amazing that the index is still above its weakest points from the fall. On the right are one hour bars covering last week. After all the talk about the market hitting the skids, I was surprised to see that by week's end, the S&P 500 was only slightly below Monday's intra-day low.
The Mega-Tech companies of the NASDAQ 100 were the first to top in the fall. Their earnings held up nicely in the last quarter which means that their price to earnings ratios came down to more reasonable levels. Last week, they outperformed other sectors and ended the week above Monday's low.
The left side graph shows the Russell 2000 Index over the last three months. The last update showed the contracting triangle pattern between the red lines with a question mark. It broke to the down side like everything else. Sometimes these contracting forms are the kick off to large waterfall declines following a major top. They can also be the middle leg of an a,b,c correction. When this is the case, the rally that follows is often the final rally before a more meaningful selloff. The rally following last Monday's low was a five wave advance. If you are a true believer in chart mysticism you think it signals a change in trend to the upside for now.
For months, I have been skeptical about AI and negative on the companies investing billions of Dollars in data centers. Big money sold the group over the last few months and rotated into industrial and materials stocks that have a track record of slower growth than big tech. Last week, tech held up relatively well compared to other industry groups. That tells me that if there is a stock market rebound, some of the big tech companies could be winners. Coreweave is very leveraged to the AI story and borrowed so much money that it's debt is regarded as risky. I think that Coreweave could fail in the future but too many others agree and sold short 20% of its shares. All it will take is a bit of upside action to spark a short covering rally. Microsoft's price earnings ration is down to 25.1% and Amazon's is at 29.2. Amazon sold $50 billion Dollars worth of bonds last week. The offering was oversubscribed with $126 billion in demand, indicating confidence in the future of the company.
As I finish writing this on Saturday afternoon, I don't see anything in the news indicating that chart mysticism will win next week. In fact, given today's headlines I would anticipate stocks opening lower on Monday and plunging throughout the day.
However -
Best Guesses -
Stocks - The cycles are bottoming and despite bad news all week, many stocks hit their lows on Monday. If there is a hint of good news between now and Monday morning we could see a rebound. I expect any rally to be counter trend and only last into early April before another down phase.
Bonds - War usually brings higher interest rates as risks around the world increase. Other sovereign bond markets are doing worse than ours. Bonds should trade counter to oil.
Dollar - We should be close to the end of the third wave of a five wave up move.
Gold and Silver - The charts don't look good. Investors have a short attention span these days and when they are not immediately rewarded for owning something they start selling. This is what we could be seeing in the metals. We might also see some central bank selling from countries that need cash to buy or subsidize more expensive energy for their citizens.
Commodities - Grains look good. Other commodities didn't do as well. For some reason, war and social unrest are often accompanies by poor weather and crop failures. I will keep my WEAT ETF for now.
Oil - The news points to higher, much higher prices. The chart patterns favor another sell off. Retail investors are loading up on energy sector companies and corporate insiders are selling shares.
Best of luck,
DBE