These are the wrong questions to ask, in my opinion.
They're the ones I get most often, but I think it defeats the point of what we're trying to do here.
The question I find myself asking is whether we should be spending more of our time looking for stocks to buy, spending more of our time looking for stocks to sell, or should we be on vacation doing nothing in this market?
Those are 3 real options we have as investors.
For me, I think it's worth spending our time looking for stocks to buy.
From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza and Alfonso Depablos @AlfCharts
Our Hall of Famers list is composed of the 150 largest US-based stocks.
These stocks range from the mega-cap growth behemoths like Apple and Microsoft – with market caps in excess of $2T – to some of the new-age large-cap disruptors such as Moderna, Square, and Snap.
It has all the big names and more.
It doesn’t include ADRs or any stock not domiciled in the US. But don’t worry; we developed a separate universe for that. You can click here to check it out.
The Hall of Famers is simple.
We take our list of 150 names and then apply our technical filters so the strongest stocks with the most momentum rise to the top.
Let’s dive right in and check out what these big boys are up to.
Here’s this week’s list:
Click table to enlarge view
We filter out any laggards that are down -5% or more relative to the S&P 500 over the trailing month. ...
Many areas of the stock market have undercut their June lows. The largest company (Apple) and an ETF of small-cap stocks (IWM) stand out as exceptions. When we look over 3+ years (rather than just 3+ months) we see that small stocks are back to pre-COVID levels, while Apple has been consolidating its gains.
Why It Matters:
The post-COVID speculative bubble in small-caps has been unwound. For Apple, the work seems hardly to have begun. Apple’s resiliency could become a liability if stocks take another leg lower and investors look again for safe havens to sell. As it stands now, Apple is larger than 5 entire sectors in the S&P 500. Bear markets don’t usually leave anything unscathed.
The Outperformers is our custom-made scan that pinpoints the very best stocks in the market. It’s the fastest, easiest way to find quality names that are primed for significant moves.
The goal is that as the market rally progresses, the sector rotation within the market will reflect in this scan. So while our Top/Down Analysis helps us with the broader view of the market, this Bottom/Up scan makes sure that we catch the slightest change in sentiment.
If you can pry your eyes from the UK gilt and Credit Suisse articles, you’ll find it’s not all doom and gloom across the bond market – especially high-yield debt in the US.
A quick warning before we continue: You probably won’t see a similar message on the financial news. It’s just too optimistic for the current environment. It wouldn't get enough clicks.
But facts are facts. And right now, high-yield bonds are hooking higher, while stocks are also rising.
Check out the dual-pane chart of the Fallen Angel High-Yield Bond ETF $ANGL and the S&P 500 $SPX:
ANGL tends to bottom with the S&P 500 at significant turning points. That’s because high-yield bonds are risk assets more akin to small-caps than investment-grade debt or Treasury bonds.
A sustained breakdown in ANGL implies growing risk aversion among investors. But that’s not what we’re witnessing...