When Consumer Staples are underperforming, what type of environment are normally in?

Staples are making new multi-decade lows relative to the S&P500 and flirting with a catastrophic breakdown relative to Consumer Discretionary stocks:

We retired our "Five Bull Market Barometers" in mid-July last year to make room for a new weekly post that's focused on the three most important charts for the week ahead.

This is that post, so let's jump into this week's edition.

It's Saturday Morning Chartoons time. 

This is the weekly post that aggregates all the charts we put together throughout the week and organizes them all into one, easy to flip through deck.

You can find the whole list of trades here.

Below you'll find the full PDF of this week's charts:

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza and Ian Culley @Ianculley

Pockets of strength continue to emerge within commodities.

This could be hard for some to believe when we see things like energy chopping beneath overhead supply.

Or the fact that precious metals persist in slumming it as some of the worst-performing assets on the planet.

But this is a diverse asset class with plenty of bright spots that suggest strength and support our thesis of a new commodities supercycle.

We’ve recently covered breakouts in Sugar and Feeder Cattle that are both still in play.

Even some of the laggards, like Silver and Lumber, recently defended critical areas of support.

This week, it was impossible to miss the chart of Oat futures. Let’s have a look!

From the desk of Willie Delwiche.

From the desk of Steven Strazza @Sstrazza and Grant Hawkridge @granthawkridge

For the better part of 2021, we've been pounding the table about markets being a chop fest. And we'd seen little evidence suggesting this was likely to change any time soon--until this week, that is.

Trendless… range-bound… call it whatever you want, but the path of least resistance for stocks and many other risk assets has simply been sideways!  

Alas, we’re seeing some strong bullish action this week that we simply can’t ignore. Let's talk about it.

Before we get there, though, let’s take a step back and look at small- and micro-caps, as they provide great illustrations of this sloppy stock market story...

SMIDs and micros have not been able to make any real progress for most of the year. 

In the early days of Crypto, we were taught to believe these were currencies.

And in the case of Bitcoin, maybe it is. But when you go down the cap scale, these things are no different than stocks.

For me they're "Tech" stocks. For Howard they're "Software" stocks.

Either way, we agree that these are just more stocks we can trade. And if you choose not to, well then you're leaving a lot of alpha on the table.

Why would you purposely choose to ignore this particular group of names?

Howard and I discussed all of this during a livestream this week.

Enjoy!

This is the video recording of our August 27, 2021, All Star Charts Crypto Weekly Strategy Session.

The ASC team published an Under the Hood report last week in which there were a bunch of interesting opportunities to choose from. But I held my fire -- until now.

After letting these ideas marinate a bit, I've been liking the pullback and solid support holding in one of the names. 

Let's get right to it.

The FMCG sector had hit the snooze button and was in a nice slumber until recently. With the index making a new all-time high and stocks moving up above their resistances, this is a good time to take a look at FMCG.

We've been absolutely clear from the beginning that in a messy market environment, one has to be careful with regards to their investments.

What we also know, is that FMCG is a defensive sector and tends to lead the market when the sentiment isn't in the most positive territory.

So let's take a look at the stocks which are making the cut in the current market scenario.

How about being clear about our levels in the sector first?

Here's the sector chart that we're tracking at the moment. On the weekly timeframe, we're observing an overhead target above 39,600. This is the 161.8% Fibonacci extension of the October 2018 highs to December 2020 lows move.

What's left to see is if this trend continues along - above its immediate resistance - with the strong momentum that we're witnessing at present.

Click on the chart to zoom in.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza and Ian Culley @Ianculley

As the rally in US Treasuries fizzles, we have to ask ourselves...

Where’s the alpha in the credit market?

It’s an important question, especially for those of us who maintain exposure to bonds. 

And for those of us who don’t, it’s always good to know what’s going on in the fixed income space, as it’s often very valuable information.

Frankly, as investors, it’s irresponsible and negligent to not know what’s going on in this asset class.

It’s the largest market in the world!

And right now we’re seeing evidence of a shift in leadership toward High Yield Bonds $HYG.

We know it’s in our best interest to pay attention to this development so let’s look at a couple charts that suggest bond investors are reaching further out on the risk curve for a higher yield.

This is the video recording of the August 26 Town Hall Meeting w/ Willie Delwiche

08/26/21 2PM ET