You're hearing a lot these days about weakening market breadth.
But if you've noticed, those lies are only coming from journalists and other types of people with no formal training or experience in technical analysis.
That's like me pretending to be an expert in chess because I watched some people playing this one time in Washington Square Park.
If you think that the Equally-weighted S&P500 underperforming is evidence of deteriorating market breadth, you fall into this category of the misinformed and confused.
It's not a market breadth thing. It's simply a sector rotation thing.
Former resistance turns into potential support – and vice versa.
That’s Polarity 101. It’s a pattern found throughout the market. It doesn’t matter the asset class – Bitcoin or Berkshire. It’s simply human psychology at work.
These levels often mark missed opportunities. And, in the process, they create price memory that fuels increased activity. Traders and investors are driven to transact at these levels, highlighting supply and demand zones that act as support or resistance.
Why does this matter right now?
Because gold futures have sliced through near-term support, careening toward a level etched in the minds of goldbugs everywhere…
I’m talking about the 2011 highs!
Gold futures recently undercut a key level marked by the February pivot highs and last month’s pivot lows – a polarity zone.
From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza and Alfonso Depablos @AlfCharts
Our International Hall of Famers list is composed of the 100 largest US-listed international stocks, or ADRs.
We’ve also sprinkled in some of the largest ADRs from countries that did not make the market cap cut.
These stocks range from some well-known mega-cap multinationals such as Toyota Motor and Royal Dutch Shell to some large-cap global disruptors such as Sea Ltd and Shopify.
It’s got all the big names and more--but only those that are based outside the US. You can find all the largest US stocks on our original Hall of Famers list.
The beauty of these scans is really in their simplicity.
We take the largest names each week and then apply technical filters in a way that the strongest stocks with the most momentum rise to the top.
Based on the market environment, we can also flip the scan on its head and filter for weakness.
Let’s dive in and take a look at some of the most important stocks from around the world.
Classic intermarket ratios – copper versus gold, regional banks $KRE versus REITs $IYR, and the Russell 2000 $IWM versus the S&P 500 $SPY – all point to lower yields.
This has been going on for months. Some may argue that these ratios are broken or no longer carry significant insight into the direction of rates.
It may be true that the strong relationship between the above ratios and interest rates has indeed decoupled.
But it’s not solely relative trends hinting at declining yields.
The stocks that benefit the most from a rising rate environment also look terrible on absolute terms…
The ProShares Equities for Rising Rates ETF $EQRR tells the story:
I'm continuing with my recent bent of positioning carefully in speculative names that have the potential to rip if the market resolves higher out of this Washington nonsense.
Today's trade is in a name that is showing signs of squeezing higher. It just needs a spark.
I’m a serial tinkerer with trading strategies, particularly in index options trading. In most cases, I’ll start with a simple concept and iterate from lessons learned along the way.
Each iteration is done with good intentions as I’m finding holes in the process and trying to fill them as I go along. I’m like a deckhand moving around the boat, patching small leaks with spackle.
This goes on for a while. And it happens slowly. But like compound interest, it grows stealthily… then mightily.
Unfortunately, I too often find myself in a situation where my PnL is going the wrong way and I’m suddenly handcuffed because I’ve created too many patchwork rules that are doing nothing now but causing confusion and slowing me down.
