Ok, so the market is bouncing and its offering a nice reprieve to those who've been caught on the wrong side of the recent slide. Does this mean the bottom is in?
It's far too early to tell. And that's not the bet we're making just yet. In fact, today's trade is to take advantage of a nice bounce in a name we're bearish in to position for a retest of recent lows.
From the desk of Steven Strazza @Sstrazza and Grant Hawkridge @granthawkridge
Defense wins championships.
It’s important to remind ourselves of this as risk continues to come off the table.
The largest stocks in the world are losing critical support levels, and even the leaders are coming under pressure. Bonds are catching a defensive bid, credit spreads are as wide as they’ve been in years, and investors are fleeing to the dollar for safety.
Meanwhile, the classic risk barometer – the AUD/JPY – is breaking to fresh lows.
There are always some groups of stocks that are doing better than the others. Whether that means going up in price faster, or going down in price slower.
In some cases, like more recently, some stocks do well on an absolute basis well others lose value altogether.
This year we've seen the largest dispersion of returns among US Sectors in over 20 years. The difference in returns between Energy and some of the Growth areas like Communications or Tech have been historic across the board.
Here's Energy relative to Technology, as well as Energy relative to the overall market, as defined by the S&P500:
Global markets have been in a mess for a while now. For some time there, India was displaying resilience when it came to the broader market indices. But that has changed over the past few days.
We have seen a selloff come through in the market and it is time to revisit the levels that could be crucial going forward.
Volatility is on the rise and some of the reactions we’re seeing are entirely predictable.
For instance, I’ve seen multiple versions of this chart shared in recent weeks:
It claims to show how hard it is to effectively time the market. Advisors and strategists use this to scare investors with a seemingly straightforward message: If you miss just a handful of the best days in the market, your returns will suffer.