Is Wall Street repeating 2008? The Technical Traders’ Chris Vermeulen tells James Connor the S&P 500 could pop to 5,950 in a final “exit-liquidity” squeeze before plunging 30-50% in a stage-four bear market. Institutions are dumping on retail while freight volumes collapse, tariffs bite, and oil flashes recession. Yet, it’s not all bearish, as Chris also sees gold breaking toward $3,750 once the shake-out is done.
Key Topics:
- Exact chart levels Chris is watching for the crash trigger
- Why this is the “final leg” before a crash, mirroring 2008’s stage-four breakdown
- How Apple, Nvidia, and Palantir are flashing sell signals now
- Why retail investors are being used as exit liquidity
- The bullish setup in gold and silver, and the short-term correction ahead
- How oil’s collapse confirms recession signals
- Chris’s contrarian call on the U.S. dollar and its surprising strength in downturns
- Bitcoin’s next move if risk assets roll over, and why MicroStrategy is in the crosshairs
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Chris Vermeulen 0:00
We could see 234, months of the market trade sideways or go higher before it starts the next you know, the real precipitous stage four decline, like financial crisis stage, and that’s what I’m drawing here, is I think we could see the market bounce for a few, a few bars, and then eventually rolls over and we go into a huge financial crisis. I of
James Connor 0:24
course, Chris, thank you very much for joining us today. How are things in Toronto? Pleasure
Chris Vermeulen 0:28
to be here. James, things are great. Hot summer day. It feels like summer anyway, blue sky, warm shorts and T shirt. Can’t complain.
James Connor 0:36
I love this time of year. So we pretty well have q1 numbers out of the way, all the big companies have reported, and for the most part, we’ve seen a lot of weakness. Right across the board. Apple came out with the numbers last night. They were weak. They also said they were going to take a billion dollar charge associated with tariffs in the coming quarter. Many other companies, a couple of names that really stood out to me were companies like McDonald’s and Starbucks came out and just saying, their same store sales were lower year over year and quarter over quarter. So people are really hurting. If you’re not going to McDonald’s for a $5 meal deal, you’re, you know, you’re feeling some economic pain. And I even saw an interesting comment out of UPS, they’re laying off 20,000 workers because people are not ordering the same sort of products they were from Amazon that they were in previous quarters. So that’s interesting to see. The last time we spoke, you said the key level on the S P was 5600 you said you thought the S P would either top out at 5600 or possibly 5800 we tend to be hanging around this 5600 level on the s, p, and why don’t we just start right there and get an update? What are your thoughts? Yeah, well,
Chris Vermeulen 1:49
I mean, the SP, 500 is trying to put in this, this dead cap bounce, or this, I believe we’ve kind of broken down from a fairly significant level on the chart. We kind of put in a major topping phase. We had a big bout of selling, a full, measured move to the downside, using Fibonacci, we saw panic selling, which I’ll show you a really interesting chart in a minute here on this. But we’ve had this rebound, this, you know, fairly Strong, Violent rebound, and money’s flowing into the stock market right now and short term, yeah, you and I talked about this, and I talked about it continuing to push up somewhere into this 5800, level area, which is 150 day moving average. It’s a previous high. There’s, there’s potentially it’s going to want to push up into that area. And when we look at the short term chart, using just technical analysis like Fibonacci extensions to get an idea of the momentum here, we had this little, tiny run up and this pullback, it is pointing to about 5950 to the upside here on the SP, 500 and the markets love to always break previous highs or previous lows to run the markets out. So we do have a resistance right across this blue, this blue trend line from this kind of, you know, this previous high right here. The market’s probably going to want to try and run up and push through that. And I think there’s a lot of people putting on short positions, betting on this market going lower, which I do believe it will do, but the market’s going to probably try and run and hopefully squeeze higher. And I say squeeze because it’s going to squeeze the shorts out of the market. Everybody who’s short sold or sold short to profit from falling pricing. When it breaks this level, it’s going to be very significant. They’re going to be like, well, it’s now in an uptrend. We got to get out of this. And so the shorts will will cover, and it could create a little blow off, move here, and then from there, it could put, roll over and sell off. So, you know, I’m still, I’m looking bullish, still on this chart from when you and I talked a week or two ago, and I believe we’re going to see, you know, the market try and grind its way up and get the shorts out, get people really bullish again, going forward. Yeah,
James Connor 3:50
that’s what the markets do. Well, they always suck people in. So I just want to clarify. So once again, you think it’s going to top out around 5800 you do not see it taking out its previous high all time. High of 6100,
Chris Vermeulen 4:02
I don’t I mean, it might get back, it might get back up there and test those highs. And if it does, it might want to poke through it with a minor Pierce. But at this point, we can only take it kind of one leg at a time. And a leg is using these Fibonacci, these short term patterns, to give us the leg. The next leg up is right now, based on the chart. Pattern is about 5950 so that’s the next target. So you say 58 we do have to modify our analysis as the market evolves. So now it’s actually 5950 is kind of that upside target where momentum will run out. It’s kind of right, where the market had a huge reversal here through a lot of noise. So there is some upside. I mean, when we look at it as a percentage move. You can see here, based on where it is right now, it’s about a four and a half percent move. So there is some potential to squeeze some money out of this market, but I don’t think it’s going to make really new highs. I think eventually it’ll roll over, and I think we’re gonna have a series of a lot more bad news and for the economy to turn down and. The stock market going forward. Okay,
James Connor 5:02
so you think the market’s going to top out, and you said it’s going to go lower. So the the low we saw, what was it two or three weeks ago, was 4900 are we going to go through that low?
Chris Vermeulen 5:13
I believe we will eventually. I think we’ll go a lot lower after that. I think we’re going to see a very big correction. You know, 3040, 50% from from the all time highs at some point, is what I’m expecting. I mean, I’ll take it one bar at a time, but overall, that is what I am expecting is a huge financial reset. I think we’re going into a big one. There’s a lot going on with transportation that the tariffs have caused a ripple in the in the global universe, and it’s going to catch up to us in a few weeks. They’re talking about seven weeks or so. We’re going to start seeing shells being empty. We’re going to start seeing a supply chain. It’s going to be like a mini COVID In a way, except for, obviously, it’s not fear driven. It’s just pure you know, CEOs are saying pause on everything. They’re not wanting to put in orders. They’re kind of on hold. They don’t know if the tariff stuff is going to be lifted in two days or two months, what’s going to happen? So it’s going to be very interesting around but it’s going to create a slower economy, fewer sales. That’s not good. That usually means we’re going to see, you know, the economy weaken, and a lot of a lot of stuff going on in the whole transportation space in general, yes,
James Connor 6:16
and we saw a lot of people trying to go out and buy things like cars, for example, ahead of these tariffs, and that created like almost a false bump, if you will, in q1 but to your point, we’re going to see major ripples going through this entire economy, both in the US and in Canada. One of our GM has a large auto plant just east of Toronto, in a city called Oshawa, they just announced that they’re laying off 750 auto workers. So this is just the beginning. There’s going to be a lot more happening here, both in the auto industry and many other industries. So that’s a good overview of the s. P, why don’t we look at the NASDAQ now? Yeah,
Chris Vermeulen 6:55
if we take a look at the the NASDAQ, it’s pretty much the same thing. It really all these markets move together. They all rally, they all sell off together. Obviously, percentage wise, the NASDAQ can move more in both directions, but it, you know, it still has this similar upside potential. If we just look at the short term price action based on the most recent kind of run up in this little intraday, this whole kind of flush down in recovery, it is still showing the NASDAQ could run about five, 6% to 21,284, somewhere in that range, which, again, will break this previous high. It will create a big short squeeze. People will start to cover. People will become then very bullish on the market. They’ll probably start to move into the Russell 2000 small caps, big tech again, and really the market will run right into resistance, into this double top that we saw in the NASDAQ. And then I think it’ll eventually roll over. And that’s typically how the stock market goes. It’ll get everybody really bullish. The general public will pile in. They’ll buy the shares, institutions will be selling into this. And, the, you know, Wall Street, or Main Street, will be left holding the bag of stocks near these highs, and Wall Street will be selling into it. And we’ve seen this a lot. I watch the intraday charts all the time, and I watch how the market walks itself up. It gets people excited and bullish, and people start to get, you know, I have indicators that give me FOMO tell me when people are chasing prices higher, and then we see institutions heavy volume, block orders going on, big selling. So this is definitely a game. This, to me, is a bounce in institutions are lightening their portfolio, selling shares to the general public. And if we can get the markets to run above the high that we saw on the SP 500 and NASDAQ back in March, then I think we’re going to see that wave of people become very bullish. There’s gonna be a lot of people screaming like, you know, all time highs in the markets, but that’s probably going to create that liquidity for institutions to start dumping even more shares, so that that’s what I think is going to unfold. And NASDAQ, SP, 500 same same trade, same pattern, just more volatile than the SP 500
James Connor 9:06
so why don’t we take a look at some individual names now? And I want to look at Apple, just because this is the largest company in the world in terms of market cap, I think also revenues. But the numbers coming out of this company, like it’s doing about 100 billion a quarter. It’s just shocking. They also announced the the largest buyback. I think it’s the second largest buyback. They beat their own buyback last year, but it’s like $100 billion just think about that. They’re buying back $100 billion for the stock. But what’s your take on this stock here?
Chris Vermeulen 9:41
I mean, the whole market is kind of, there’s, there’s no doubt Apple is in a downtrend. We have a series of lower highs, a series of lower lows. That is the definition of a downtrend. So overall, I mean, it’s, it’s had a very similar pattern to the SP 500 and the NASDAQ, which is highly volatile bottom. So it’s, you know, it’s struggling under resistance. I’m not a big fan of the chart. To me, this still looks I think they got a lot, a lot of problems going on with the economy slowing. They’re going to get hit. But overall, it is, you know, in a downtrend, it’s pulled back to support. It does have big volume selling in the in the last couple sessions, obviously, that earnings, which creates even more selling or more volume, but overall, I mean, I’m kind of neutral on it. Overall, I think the market is going to be heading lower, and Apple, to me, just doesn’t I believe their time. There’s, you know, shining in the market, and the investor eyes like, there’s no doubt Apple’s a great company, but I believe that wave of everyone piling in and chasing Apple higher is kind of over. I think the sentiment has shifted. The economy is about to slow, and it’s going to go for a big correction. I do think if the stock market rallies, I do think we’re going to see Apple probably want to come up to this 220 area and break this high, and it could have a fairly significant pop and move up with the market, but overall, I do expect it’s going to eventually sell off, probably break all of these lows and go a whole lot lower, down into the the mid 100 range going forward. I same with like Nvidia. I believe all these stocks are pretty much going to still going to get cut in half from where they are if we we flip into this recession that I think is coming, and what all the charts are kind of pointing to, all the technicals and even the some of the economic data are all warning us that things are the music is about to stop. And right now it seems like people are scrambling, institutions are scrambling to kind of lighten their portfolios, to try and get out of equities before they really start to plummet. Yeah,
James Connor 11:39
this the one thing that mazes amazes me about Apple is this, Siri. Do you ever use that thing?
Chris Vermeulen 11:47
Yeah, Siri is the worst.
James Connor 11:51
Shocking, the largest company in the world doing $100 billion a quarter, and they can’t come up with a better product, and it’s 2025
Chris Vermeulen 11:59
I know I think you and I even talked about this last year. I’m like, it is the absolute worst voice recognition. Every time I ask it to do something, it says, Sorry, I can’t get that for you right now. It is, I’ve cursed more at that phone than anything else. They better come out with something that is jaw dropping and better save their company, because they have just been letting that thing rot and decay. Nobody. I don’t think anybody uses it or relies on it, because anytime you need it, it can’t do anything for you. But it’s crazy. I don’t know how they’re not leading the way. They better. They better be with something that they’re holding back extra long with. So
James Connor 12:37
another company I want to look at is Berkshire Hathaway and Warren Buffett was one of the largest shareholders of Apple. He’s been selling down his stake, and he announced this weekend, during the Berkshire AGM that he is stepping down as CEO. He’s going to remain as the chairman, but just on the back of this news, the stock’s down four to 5% but what are your thoughts on this stock? I
Chris Vermeulen 13:00
mean, I’ve overlaid Berkshire Hathaway with with the stock market in general. If you overlay with the S, p5, 100, and you go back in time, it moves just like the stock market. When there’s a bear market, it sells off 30 to 40% when the stock market rallies, it is, it’s just a basket of stocks. He obviously selects ones with his own criteria, so it can hold up and do and do hold up better when a market becomes weak, like for example, you know, the SP 500 right now has, has, let me just zoom out a little bit here, has obviously, kind of put in more of a top, and has sold off and is bouncing up like this. It’s nowhere near the highs the SP 500 is here where Berkshire Hathaway is pushing up into a kind of a higher level, and that’s simply because he’s selected a certain group of stocks that can do well in dividend paying stocks. He’s huge into dividends. They tend to hold up better in this particular part of the market. There will be a point where dividend stocks fall off a cliff, and Berkshire Hathaway shares get their huge haircut, just like everything else is just delayed because of the type of positions he has. And it gives you this false sense that Berkshire Hathaway is doing really well. It’s a safe play, but it still loses 30 40% during bear market corrections, and it’ll do a lot of damage. So I think investors are dumping shares today in it for down four and a half percent, simply because they’re they’re worried that they the new person may not select the best stocks, although I’m sure he’s got a team that already has been doing that for a long time. But the perception is, if he’s stepping down, is it really Berkshire, anywhere? Any anymore? You know who’s actually picking these stocks, and is somebody going to stick to his really stringent rules of those companies? So people are nervous. It’s just some people locking in gains and nervous people emotional traders, but I don’t think it really changes the game. I think Berkshire Hathaway is still a very solid way to to invest. But they will get hit. They will crash with the old. World stock market, when, when a recession in a bear market does hit?
James Connor 15:03
He was asked about this pullback that we’ve seen in the last few weeks, and he said, it’s just a plain vanilla pullback. There’s nothing spectacular about this one. He said, during the 60 years that he’s been at the helm of Berkshire Hathaway, he has seen three pullbacks of 50% he said when, when he drops 40 or 50% that’s when he takes notice. But the pullback we’ve seen in the last couple of months, he said, it’s just insignificant, yeah,
Chris Vermeulen 15:33
during the tech bubble is down 50% the 2008 price financial crisis down 55% same as the SP, S, p5, 100, right? It’s, it’s a basket of stocks. He holds all the big brand names. So it moves very similar. There is no protection. People think they go to it for protection in a bear market. It doesn’t give you that protection. It’s a false sense of or just a misunderstanding in how it works. But, yeah, he will eventually move back in and buy on these pullbacks. There’s no doubt. I mean, that’s the right thing to do, is to buy after a bear market.
James Connor 16:06
Why don’t we look at Nvidia? This is the poster child for this current bubble that we’re in, and we’ve seen quite a bit of movement here in the last few weeks. Oh my God, look at that thing. Yeah, that’s the definition of parabolic totally.
Chris Vermeulen 16:21
This is like Cisco Systems or something back in the day when they shot up and then they crashed and burned and never really recovered. But this looks like a pretty major top coming into into this, this play, like I look at as a giant head and shoulders formation. I believe the stock this, this, we could see the market have a little bit of bounce up, like I’ve talked about, this will be in the next shoulder. And this is called a neckline, where these two shoulders will kind of connect. And when you break this neckline, I mean, that is going to be like, lights out, whatever the depth of the height of this head and shoulders is. So you take this, you can, like, throw that to the downside as the momentum move, and like it will, you know, it will punish the stock of where it will go. And of course, all of this phase up here is where the mass is just piled into the stock. So it was a lot of people running and chasing it in. And when it starts to break down, it’s going to be the same thing. They all start running for the door, dumping shares. So I do think the whole market is in for more of a like a dead cat bounce that you call it, which is like it’s a bear market rally. And I think this could bounce and move up and to the right, but overall, I do think it’ll eventually roll over. And I talked about this months ago. I think I think my price, my downside price, the next stop after this bounce is probably $63 a share for Nvidia. So, I mean, it’s gonna be a big haircut from where it is. It’s down. It’s like, you know, 45% from where it is right now.
James Connor 17:51
Okay? And another one is Palantir. And this one, it’s also like, Man, this thing has been on fire. Look at that. Look at that. Move up so that we’re trade. We’re back to all time highs they report, I believe they report tonight, either tonight or tomorrow. But what do you make of this?
Chris Vermeulen 18:10
This looks like a massive double dot. I’m not, I’m not a fan of something that has a huge gap and it goes straight up and it comes straight back down. To me, it feels like a totally emotional like, pump and dump, like a just, it’s super volatile, something that just takes off like this. I could totally see it coming back down, unless Bitcoin, you know, really takes off and breaks out and runs then this. This could go higher, but this is like, the exact type of stock I never really touch. I don’t, I don’t care how much something moves, I don’t really get into super volatile stuff that is driven like this. So much so overall, I’d be very weary here. I won’t be surprised if it pushes a little bit higher. The market loves to do that and get people bullish, but what goes straight up usually comes straight back down. So I’d be very, very leery of getting involved. It could be back at 8085, you know, in a week and a half from now, based on how this thing moves. So I don’t know what the reason is. I don’t follow this, this company, but I would think it’s just herd mentality driving in and trying to play the big moves. I would think
James Connor 19:17
you mentioned Bitcoin in MicroStrategy is quite often used as a proxy for Bitcoin. What are your thoughts on this one?
Chris Vermeulen 19:25
Yeah, Bitcoin. Bitcoins holding up at resistance. It’s holding up fairly well. I think it has potential to push back up to around that 108. And if we look at mstr, it has obviously quite a different chart pattern. It’s holding up kind of at this, at a similar type of resistance just like Bitcoin was holding, whoops, at a resistance area. This here is holding into a resistance area. And if bitcoin starts to rally up, I wouldn’t be surprised if we see this push up higher, somewhere into this, you know, one to 454, 75, Uh, area as a resistance. It’ll be tied, tied to it. Yeah, it’ll, it’ll pretty much move, move with Bitcoin. Obviously, it has more of an individual stock sentiment shift to it versus Bitcoin itself, which is why it has a very different chart pattern. But overall, it’s in an uptrend. Here it is at resistance, but it, it’s still in an uptrend, and it’s likely to push higher here if bitcoin finds a bit.
James Connor 20:24
Hey, Chris, you just had the Bitcoin chart up there. Why don’t we take a look at that? I know you’ve been bullish on this. Are you still bullish on Bitcoin?
Chris Vermeulen 20:31
Yeah. I mean, I think, I think Bitcoin is going to, I think Bitcoin is one going to want to push up to this, 108 or 1105106, area. I think it has that potential. The big disconnect with Bitcoin, and you and I have talked about this before, is it’s the same with gold mining and silver mining stocks is sometimes Bitcoin and miners move with the stock market. So if the stock market sells off, like the NASDAQ, Bitcoin drops, and gold miners will drop. Other times, the stock market sells off and Bitcoin pops and gold miners pop, and so you don’t know if there’s going to be this disconnect. Overall, Bitcoin has pushed back into an uptrend. It’s been trading sideways here for about a week and a half. All the moving averages are sloping up, and they’re all layered nicely, and it’s holding at the five days. So it does have a bullish chart pattern, and it is pointing to, you know, a further push up and towards these highs. And if, if it does break out, I mean, the monthly chart of this is actually very bullish. If I pull up this monthly chart, just like we had this move here, this this rally using Fibonacci extension, this tells us where these targets, these upside targets, should be. And we played this move, this this multi month bull flag. We end up getting long here. We sold at 108, up here, and now the market is doing the same. We’ve got this new level. We got this rally up this high, we got this pullback, and this points to where the monthly chart could potentially go. So if bitcoin disconnects from the stock market and becomes a defensive play, an alternate kind of currency, like gold, that can move up while the stock market struggles. There is potential for about an 18 to 43% move that puts us up to $135 per Bitcoin. So there is potential. Is something I’m actually keeping my eye on, because it might be another trade to get in. I like we traded this Bitcoin move. It’s a very crowded trade. When it starts to go the whole world chases it. It’s headline news, which is free marketing for it to keep it pushed pushing higher. We saw the same over here, so I think the same scenario could play out. So I’m keeping my eyes on it, for it to strengthen up and potentially get long at a much higher price when it, when it shows momentum is fully shifted, and we could see this explosive move to the upside.
James Connor 22:50
So, Chris, I just want to ask you about this. Okay, you’re negative on the S, P and the Nasdaq. Bitcoin is highly correlated with the NASDAQ. And if you see a pull, a pullback of 3040, or 50% in the s, P and the Nasdaq. How do you reconcile Bitcoin going higher and making all time highs? I
Chris Vermeulen 23:10
doubt Bitcoin will go higher if the stock market crashes and goes into a bear market. I think bitcoins is going to get sucked down, and it’ll be back down at the 50 or $30,000 level. I think it’ll it’ll just get totally wiped out again. Now that there’s futures on Bitcoin, Bitcoin is now sucked into the financial world, into the manipulation and the emotions of money flowing in and out. Now that it’s stuck in the financial system, when there is panic selling in the streets and it goes on for extended periods of time, it naturally pulls anything in the financial system down with it, because just people start just selling off everything and liquidating, moving to cash. So this, this move in Bitcoin, to me, means the stock market has to trade sideways or go higher, and Bitcoin could have this explosive pop. But if the stock market just rolls over and dies and starts to sell off month after month, Bitcoin is probably not going to rally here at all. It’s gonna roll over and it’s gonna go into a swan dive, and, you know, have a 50% haircut.
James Connor 24:07
Okay, why don’t we talk about gold? Now, gold’s been hanging in. And I know you think gold is topped out, but if your views changed at all, it’s actually hanging in pretty good. It is
Chris Vermeulen 24:18
hanging in good. I believe, I believe, I believe gold’s pretty much put in the top the pattern that we’ve seen. Now this the monthly chart. I’m just going to drop back down to the daily chart. So there’s I’m not saying to pick the top in short gold, I have to keep restating that, because people keep saying, you said it’s top. Now, gold is in a very strong bull market and a very strong uptrend. It has hit its measured moves. But it doesn’t mean it’s fully topped. I just anything beyond this is pure icing on the cake. If you’re long, you know you need an exit plan for eventually, when it rolls over. But overall, like we’ve we’ve had a few different patterns, very high momentum patterns, where we hit these 100% measured moves and is rolled over. We also have this little move over. Here, where it’s protect, showing that we could drop down to about 3145 still, the first level of support is going to be right here, where it actually found support last week, and it’s finding support as we’re speaking right now. It’s starting to bounce off here, but gold is still in a bowl stage. This is just a three wave correction at this point, it could continue to go higher. I’m still bullish on gold. I do believe it’s telling us a big warning sign that I think we’re going to see a big financial reset. It is generally a leading indicator for that. Based on this chart pattern, if we have to draw the next level of where gold could pop and rally to, I mean, it’s fairly significant. Based on these chart patterns, it’s showing that we could see gold go from where it is right now all the way up to 3750 and this is why you don’t want to try and pick a top in gold. You want to just understand that this parabolic move that’s happening in gold is usually what happens right before it reverses and we go into a recession, but there’s still potential for another leg higher, like this is a strong bull flag pattern in the market. A bull flag is a halfway point, so whatever this run up is this flagpole that is usually what you stack on as the next move for the second half of that. That’s how kind of Fibonacci theory somewhat works. So overall, I mean, still bullish on gold, don’t pick a top, don’t sell it short, because it could continue to go it is somewhat in bubble phase. And the phase that we’re in right now James is is very similar to, if I was to just zoom out to previous time frames, this kind of move. We hit our measure, our massive measured move right here at 27 to 2800 this, this move that we have right here is a very similar type of blow off move that we’ve seen over here. We saw right over here, and it doesn’t look like it, because it was the charts are stretched from the high price. But there was another blow off phase here, all of these are similar setups where the markets become weak and people pile into gold, and they create this huge move, and they already hit all of their measured moves before that. So we are kind of in this, you know, blow off phase where who knows where the top is, nobody knows where a bubble is going to like finally burst, or when just know that it’s right now screaming, there’s economic crisis coming, and that’s why people are moving to gold and expect a sharp reversal at some point.
James Connor 27:33
Okay, so I just want to clarify you. Are you bullish on gold or bearish
Chris Vermeulen 27:41
law? Like, if I had to look forward eight months from now, I’m bearish, but right now I’m still bullish. Okay, so it’s still in an uptrend. It has a tight pattern. It looks like it still wants to push, to go higher, but if I mean for to buy right now, I believe you’ll be able to buy a cheaper six, eight months from now. So it just depends on the on the outlook that you have the time, time horizon. And Chris,
James Connor 28:02
why don’t we take a look at Silver? Get your views on that? Once again, silver is legging big time. People always talk about this all time high of $50 that was set back in 2011 and here we are in 2025
Chris Vermeulen 28:14
and yeah, we’re still nowhere near Yeah. Silver’s. This is a monthly chart. Silver’s. It is trending. It does have some mixed signals. I’m just going to flip back to the daily chart. Silver was oversold. You can see on the 30 minute chart here on the left, this lime green is saying Silver’s oversold. Likely we’re going to see bargain hunter step in it and buy it up. Silver does have a fairly decent chart pattern unfolding here. We’ve had a nice move up. It’s now building a bull flag pattern or or a pennant formation, that it could have a nice pop. So just based on on this move, there is potential for silver to have one more big squeeze and push up to about 30, $38 an ounce, which is percentage wise, is very big. Let me just zoom way back on the charts here, it’s best if I just drop down to a monthly chart. If we take a look at where that price level extends to that 38 is right up into this high over here that we saw so definitely a very significant level in this major, major top where price came down, it has a bars opening and closing, starting and ending here and then over here in a peak high. So that will definitely be a major resistance area. It’s a measured move. There is potential for that squeeze. I’m not a big fan of haven’t been a big fan of silver. I’m just not a fan of of the price action. Up until about a week ago, it’s starting again to show a bullish pattern where this could hook up and turn and start to run. And if it does, we’re going to see probably gold miners and silver miners do well also. So you know, the only silver is really volatile. It can just in two days, three days, you can lose 20% like. Click of a, you know, click of a fingers. So it carries a lot of risk. Whereas gold is bigger, slower moving beast, it keeps making all time highs. I mean, if something’s working really well, I don’t know, I generally don’t want to change something, right? So gold, to me, is the gold standard of the play, right? Now, if you want to be in precious metals, just play the one that is constantly making new, all time highs and that the whole world is moving into, versus trying to get something go into something more, more volatile, because you want to make more, that doesn’t mean you’re going to make more. It probably means you’re actually probably going to lose more, or you’re going to ride a wild roller coaster. It might not even make anything in the end. So that’s the way I see it. But silver does have a bullish outlook over the next month or so. It is pointing to higher pricing if it starts to turn up here, okay,
James Connor 30:50
Chris, let’s take a look at oil. Oil is finally broke. $60 a barrel, and I’m paying about $1.35 a liter at the pumps should be significantly lower. Once again, we’re getting screwed by our government. But and just for our American viewers, that works out to like 375 us a gallon. Okay, so, and I know our friends in New York and Michigan are paying a lot lower than that. What’s your take on oil here?
Chris Vermeulen 31:18
I mean, oil, oil had the big breakdown. We had talked about this on this channel a long time ago that I think it was way back over here. I was saying eventually, when oil breaks, clearly breaks below this $65 level, it is going to be an early warning sign that the economy and businesses everything is slowing. We had the big breakdown a month and change ago, and now we’re starting to see things actually slowing down. It is looking very weak overall. This to me, oil is telling us that the economy is slowing, and that means stocks will should eventually follow, and then eventually economic data will follow, because stocks move first. Usually commodities and stocks move first. Investors are smart. They can sense and look at numbers and momentum slowing and fundamental data and economic data, and be like, you know, things are coming to an end. I think I might start getting out of some positions. So we always see the price of the assets move first, and then we start to hear the news, and then it shows up in the GDP and general, economic data, and that’s what we’re starting to see. We’re starting to see it in the earnings. As you mentioned the beginning here tons. I think it was 50 S, p5, 100 companies reported one day last week, earnings, and things aren’t looking the greatest. Things are slowing down. And yeah, oil is just telling us be careful. Gold’s up, oils down, that is not a good sign.
James Connor 32:46
Yes, well, let’s hope the price of the pump keeps going lower. That’s one positive. Yeah, okay. What else should we look at here? We looked at Gold, we looked at Silver, we looked at oil. Yeah,
Chris Vermeulen 32:55
there’s, there’s, there’s one chart here that I’ll bring up that’s kind of interesting. This goes back to 2008 so this is the top chart. Is the SP 500 monthly chart. This is of 2006 to 2009 the low in 2009 the bottom. And then we have the SP 500 which is right now, where we are right now. And I’ve overlaid the Google search trends of people going into Google and searching bear market. And it’s funny because I’m talking about, I believe we ventured a bear market. My technical strategy says we ventured a bear market for a long term investor to get out of the markets and don’t touch it for a long time. And it’s funny because people are like pushing back, saying, Well, everybody’s already super bearish on the market. The sentiment is really high, and that means they’re already sold and the bear market is over. There were people are saying we should see a bottom the market, put in a high volatility bottom. My argument is, well, if you look back in time, the last time we saw in 2008 we had the first big break to the downside. We had that like a month ago, and we had everybody search back in 2008 a bear market, because they’re like, whoa. I think things might have changed. Well, we just saw that right now, and just because people are searching it, and it seems like anybody within the financial industry is worried about a bear market, and the sentiment indicators are all telling us like the masses are bearish. So a good example of this is, like, think of the ocean tide going down. Say, you know the tides going down today at like five o’clock. Now, just because we know the tides going down doesn’t mean the tide is not going to go down. It’s still going to go down. It is a cycle. It is a process that we can’t stop just because we know it. And that’s what is starting to happen. We’re coming into one of these massive economic, global economic cycles that once it starts, you can’t really just stop it, just because a whole bunch of people think a bear market is coming or and so that’s where we’re at. We’re at this tipping and turning point, and we could see the market bounce and move sideways. This is the monthly chart look at. 2008 we could see 234, months of the market trade sideways or go higher before it starts the next, you know, the real precipitous stage four decline, like financial crisis stage, and that’s what I’m drawing here, is I think we could see the market bounce for a few, a few bars, and then eventually rolls over and we go into a huge financial crisis. And of course, lots of people will be searching the term bear market and and all of that stuff, but people just do the opposite, and they get very emotional. There’s actually a really good indicator here this. Check out this chart. So this is the SP 500 This is the daily chart. And we had a Friday close on this red bar, James. And after that close, I was telling everybody. I was like, listen, the markets closed on the low for the week. It was a bloodbath in the stock market. And now people are going to go home and they’re going to digest and panic over the weekend, and that means they’re going to sell their stocks at the open, and they’re going to dump everything the next day, on the Monday. And so over the weekend, everybody did that. We saw the market open sharply lower, and then they dumped all their shares, and it sold off even more in the morning. And the search term here was inverse exchange traded fund. And everybody was looking on how to bet on a falling market. We’re in a falling market. They literally sold their shares on the day of the pivot low, and the market has screamed higher ever since. And this just goes to show how sentiment and emotions and news just completely drive people’s decisions. And it’s funny, because if we go back in time to February and March through here, I was talking about, don’t be a bottom picker. And if we look at this, this is telling us how many people are piling into the long leveraged ETFs, meaning people are buying leverage, leveraging their positions, betting on the market bottom. And if we look back in February and March, huge money was piling into the into these leveraged ETFs. They’re trying to pick a bottom. And of course, if I just go back to the SP 500 or this chart, right? Everybody’s piling into the leverage ETFs right here, and you can see it on the charts. You could see it in the sentiment. And I’m like, Guys, don’t pick a bottom, because the bottom is not in and it’s going to be a painful drop, and then you’re going to be lucky if you get back to break even. But it just goes to show the sentiment of what people do. They literally panic and buy the wrong position on the on major pivot days. And then, of course, it’s the same with the market pullbacks. They they bet on, they’re betting against the trend. The trend is down, yet they’re buying leverage. So my whole point is the whole sentiment of what’s going on right now in the big picture of I believe we’re going to go into a 2008 financial crisis, a huge sell off, 3040, 50 plus percent, and we’re at the tipping point. We just had the first like shot across the bow of everybody getting a taste of what a little you know, bear market kind of feels like. And now the economic data is starting to follow. So I think we might see a little bit of a relief, and some move sideways. But overall, this move sideways and this pause is just going to be institutions unloading into the general public, trying to make people feel bullish that the market’s going to go higher. But then eventually the institutions kick in and the big money has to start dumping shares. And then eventually the general public does all their dumping down near the bottom when they can’t take the pain anymore. So like this is the whole emotional cycle, which you and I have talked about before. We’ve, you know, they go into this anxiety, this whole sell off phase, this emotional phase, and it gets very painful down over here, in a stage four decline. And there’s four stages to a market, and a stage four is what to the tech bubble was the financial crisis, 2008 and we’re going to go into one of those again. And I have a color green here, because there’s a huge opportunity we make. We can make big money on trends, whether the trend is up like a bull market, or the trend is down like a bear market. If you know what you’re doing, you can pull money out of it, but you just have to be patient, let the trades unfold. And unfortunately, I believe we’re going into a stage four, which is going to hurt a lot of businesses, a lot of individuals. It’s going to blow up millions, 10s of millions of people’s retirements and retirement accounts, all of that stuff. So that’s the most interesting chart, you know, just to show where I believe we are in the overall financial crisis. And it’s, you know, it’s a process. It’s going to take a long time to unfold and play out. But sentiment seems to be have shifted, along with the price charts. Yes,
James Connor 39:30
I think the real pain comes in q2 with the q2 numbers, because once again, there’s a lot of uncertainty setting in right now. We saw some false revenue bumps in q1 because everybody was trying to spend ahead of these tariffs being imposed, but even the non farms that came out last week were stronger than expected. I was really surprised, but it’s going to be interesting to see what non farms are like next month. Okay, why don’t we got a Fed meeting coming up here in a couple of days? Why don’t we take a. Look at bonds and also interest rates, and take a look at the TLT. What are your thoughts here?
Chris Vermeulen 40:05
Yeah. I mean, TLT is definitely struggling. Bonds are struggling. They’re pretty much the inverse chart of the 10 year yield. So, I mean, we had the COVID Spike. It’s been in a, you know, it broke down from a massive topping pattern. We talked about Head and Shoulders patterns before, when you break the neckline, it’s it’s lights out. You go into a stage four decline. I believe bonds are trying to put in a bottom, a stage one, a base, but they’re not there yet. The chart pattern is still looking pretty bearish. It is. It’s a it’s a pretty ugly chart. It’s all over the place, but it is pointing to lower pricing, hitting some lower lows. And I think that’s going to shock a lot of people when they see the value of their portfolio, their bond side, potentially go down and hit those lows we saw in 2023 and potentially even go further than that. So it’s going to create some huge panic in the markets. And simply, if we zoom in on this chart, and use a Fibonacci extension, we can get an idea of where this downside move for bonds are. Percentage wise, for TLT, it’s showing we could drop down to 81 per share. That is a six and a half percent drop from where we are, which is pretty much the flip of the 10 year yield. If we go and take a look at the 10 year yield, it has a bullish chart pattern. It has had lots of volatility, and it is pointing for us to, you know, see, see a move of the yield to go all the way back up, probably towards these highs of potentially four, 480, so as yields go up, bonds go down, they have an inverse relationship. So that’s what it looks like could happen here. And of course, if bonds hit New like, multi year lows again, then is going to cause so much, so much havoc for investors and retirees, just because they’ll be like, Wow, my bond portfolio is down like 58 or 49 50% more or less from the highs back in COVID, that is a huge cut for what’s supposed to be a safe haven play. So it’s going to be a game changer. It’s going to get headline news, and it’s going to create a huge shuffle of investors to move to cash, not even in bonds, I think.
James Connor 42:16
And once again, we have a Fed meeting come up in a couple of days. It’s going to be I’m looking forward to the commentary, and I’m looking forward to the the comments out of the President, because there’s some good back and forth going on. Yeah, the president, the president referred to as the Fed Chairman this weekend, as a stiff, but he said he’s not going to fire him, so that’s good. Yeah,
Chris Vermeulen 42:37
yeah. I don’t follow it, but I’ve seen notes of people talking about it. It’s definitely interesting times. All
James Connor 42:44
right, so why don’t we just summarize your views on the markets and what investors should expect in the coming days and weeks? So once again, the s, p, you think there might be a possibility of it moving higher to the 5900 level? Yeah,
Chris Vermeulen 42:58
I think short term people invested in stocks, I think you could expect the stock market to push a little bit higher for a couple of weeks. As a long term investor, we’ve already had the stock market kick into a bear market phase. Our long term bear market chart, it is broken down, and we’re in a bear market rally, a dead cat bounce. And I believe we’re going to eventually see a big sell off in the market. So short term investors, stocks should bounce. Long term investors, I wouldn’t touch the stock market. I’d be out of it and let the market, let this bear market take hold. It’s, there’s, you know, there’s, it’s very important to understand that if you’re, you know, if you’re in a rising tide environment, a bullish environment or a bearish we were in a bullish really, just till about a month and a half ago. Now we’re in a bearish environment, and I believe we’re going to see a very big wipe out. So, yeah, you just have to understand the time frame, short term bullish, long term bearish,
James Connor 43:51
right? So once again, a possibility of going up to 5900 then it’s going to top out, come under pressure, and it’s going to take out the previous low of 4900 on the s, p. And then in terms of Bitcoin, you’re bullish on Bitcoin, you see the possibility of it going up to 107 or 108 possibly even higher, depending on the market dynamics. In terms of gold, short term positive, long term bearish, yep. Okay. And bonds, you think the bonds are putting in a level here, we should probably look at one more chart, and that’s the US Dollar Index, D, X, Y,
Chris Vermeulen 44:29
yeah. It’s definitely been a rough ride. It looks like it’s trying to carve out a bottom. It has a little inverse head and shoulders. It does have a very tight little bull flag that that points to potentially having another little push higher and see if that’ll turn, turn this around and start to send it up. But again, the dollar’s been so hated, and that’s why it’s had this huge drop. You can see the the waves of selling on the red volume bars and the massive spikes here. It’s definitely like one of the most hate. Had hated plays and currencies right now, and I think people have maybe, you know, just sold the heck out of it. But I do believe that that that move is coming to an end. It’s still in a downtrend, but overall, I think it’s trying to carve a bottom out based on everything that’s happening. I think when we go into a recession, we see chaos in the financial systems, we tend to see the US dollar actually rally and become a defensive play. This was happened almost all the previous times where we’ve had massive fear and and bear markets and all of that stuff. So I think, I think it’s going to eventually put in a bottom and rally. And, you know, the the fact that everybody hates it right now and and just the opposite, like everyone loves gold. I believe those are, those are two extremes. And I believe the sentiments are at extremes. If I say, I like the dollar, everybody jumps down my throat. So usually that means we’re probably the bottom is getting put in. Same with gold. If I say, I don’t, not a big fan of gold at this price. You know, everybody jumps, jumps down me and says, you know, what are you talking about? And that’s because people are so strong with the sentiment. And when sentiment is strong, it’s a crowded trade, and that trade is usually on its last few breaths, and then things go back the other direction,
James Connor 46:17
yes, and this is one of the things that’s so interesting about this time period that we’re going through, it’s like a financial hurricane, and you got stocks under pressure. Bonds are under pressure. The USD is under pressure, and so investors need some help trying to make sense of a of it all. Well, Chris, I want to thank you very much for spending time with us today and helping to understand these markets during these crazy times, and if somebody would like to learn more about you and the services that you offer, where can they go? Yeah, the best
Chris Vermeulen 46:47
is just go to YouTube, type in the technical traders. I share, usually a daily video there the analysis of short term charts and trade setups and what I’m doing. You can go to my website, the technical traders.com and I have a free newsletter if you want to follow along, get some of my videos, you know, delivered to your inbox. And I have a premium newsletter there as well. If you want to copy my portfolio, see what I’m trading, how I’m holding it, my stops, my targets, my allocations, you can do the exact same trades I do with my portfolio. That’s what the newsletter is, is I ride the coattails of the markets. Subscribers ride my coattails. We all do the same trades together, and it’s super educational. On top of that, if you want to learn how to read the markets and understand charts and and cycles and all of that stuff, Chris,
James Connor 47:32
once again, thank you. Always. Pleasure. Take care.
