The recent pullbacks we've seen in a number of momentum names is offering us some advantageous opportunities to buy into some stocks we like at better prices.
One stock in particular is making a beautiful sound as it attracts my attention.
The Indian Rupee has been strengthening against its counterparts and that has been an interesting change in trend from what we were seeing in early February.
With that in mind. let's take a look at some important levels to track as this trend continues to play out.
March in Wisconsin (especially here in Milwaukee close to Lake Michigan) is a season of it being already and also not yet Spring. Depending on whether the wind is blowing out of the warm Southwest or coming at us right off of the lake, temperatures can swing dramatically. But the consistent warmth of the Sun heats the Earth and gets the soil ready for planting.
It’s one of the most exciting times of the year for me, full of promise & expectation. I’ve already been at work in the garden (the areas, that is, that are already receiving enough sunlight to soften the dirt). One of several changes in my life over the past year was last Fall’s rebuilding & re-arranging of the raised beds in our backyard. I’m excited by the new layout but it means more work getting them ready for planting. The beds are pretty barren at this point. Rhubarb and horseradish will soon provide some evidence of life, and I tried to work around the asparagus, so hopefully that survived. Garlic, unfortunately, did not get planted.
Markets across the globe have been taking a breather as the momentum cools off. Taking a closer look back home, the indices have been largely choppy and have consolidated over the past two months.
Is this merely a consolidation? Or are we looking at a minor correction ahead? Let's take a look at what the charts have to say.
In our Three Charts for the Week post, we talked about the resistance Nifty had been facing at 15,400 and also highlighted the crucial support at 14,460. We noticed a divergence in Nifty in January and that has continued to play out as the rally progressed. Within the current setup, the price hasn't been able to move past the 15,400 mark, in addition to now challenging the support level of 14,460.
Despite stress points, growth heading in a favorable direction
Apparently, there is a ship stuck in the Suez canal. Pictures show the “Ever Given” container ship turned sideways in the narrow waterway, with its bow wedged on one bank and its stern close to the other bank. This ship, according to the Wall Street Journal, is one of the largest in the world. It’s 400 meters long (longer than the Empire State Building is tall) and can normally move 20,000 containers. In the current situation not only is it not moving its 20,000 containers but has ground to a halt all traffic in both directions in one of the world’s busiest waterways. On average, 55,000 containers travel through the canal on a daily basis, in addition to numerous ships carrying oil and liquified natural gas. The goods are there, but they are not moving.
At the beginning of each week, we publish performance tables for a variety of different asset classes and categories along with commentary on each.
Looking at the past helps put the future into context. In this post, we review the absolute and relative trends at play and preview some of the things we’re watching to profit in the weeks and months ahead.
We continue to reiterate the same themes and pillars that support our bullish macro thesis. This would include an abundance of evidence pointing to risk appetite, rising developed market yields, strength from commodities, and of course the ongoing rotation toward cyclicals, value, and international stocks, among others...
Just about anywhere we look, we're seeing investors gravitate further and further out on the risk spectrum.
Bear Markets are environments where a majority of stocks are falling in price for a prolonged period of time.
Sometimes you'll hear lies about a 20% decline defining such things, but that's just bullshit.
The number 20 is a completely arbitrary number that has absolutely no meaning. Thinking it does is foolish. Why 20? Why not 19.5? or 20.2?
There is no reason. They're just lies.
If you ever hear anyone say that, "A bear market is when it falls 20%", you know it's because they're in the entertainment business, not in the truth business.
Stay away from those kinds of people. They're not here to help.
It's their job to distract, it's our job to ignore.
In reality, expansions in the new low lists are things you’ll find near the beginning of market declines. You’ll see spikes in these lists that haven’t been seen in years.
Here's what this looks like coming into the week. It's still a ghost town:
Key takeaway: After a healthy unwind over the past few weeks that allowed sentiment to reset to neutral, we are seeing optimism rebuild. This uptick in optimism has been accompanied by (as we show in our chart of the week) another breadth thrust. There is room for a further expansion in optimism before it becomes an excessive headwind - and continued broad market strength diminishes such a signal in any event. The combination of breadth thrusts and persistently elevated optimism is reminiscent of the late-2016 to early-2018 period. Then, equity ETFs saw 20 consecutive months of in-flows - we are currently in our 10th consecutive month of inflows (although the pace is quickening, with a record $100 billion over the past four weeks). Equities ran into trouble in early 2018 when breadth thrust tailwinds subsided but elevated optimism remained.
Sentiment Chart of the Week: Another Breadth Thrust