In a further effort to identify individual equities that fit within our larger more Macro thesis, we couldn't be happier to roll out and share our latest bottoms-up scan: "The Minor Leaguers."
We'll also be writing a post every other week where we outline some of our favorite setups from the watchlist. This is the first edition.
Moving forward, we'll be rotating this column with "Under The Hood" each week.
In order to make it onto our Minor League list you must have a market cap between $1 and $2B. There are also price and liquidity filters.
Then, we simply sort the stocks by their percentage from new highs. Easy.
And what better time than now to launch a small-cap focused column!? We've seen very strong evidence of a structural rotation down the market cap scale, suggesting a new period of outperformance from small-caps in recent months/quarters.
This should be a great way to take advantage of that trend. Let's dive right in!
It's that time of the year again. This is when we hear things like the "January Effect", the "First 5 Days of the Year Indicator", "Santa Claus Rally", "January Barometer" and all sorts of seasonal-type conversations.
Remember, we're right in the heart of "The Best 3 Month Period of the Year". You always hear, "Sell in May and Go Away", but as we pointed out on Nov 6th, it's waaaay more important to "Remember to Buy in November", or "Buy in October and Get Yourself Sober". Either one of those works.
Wall Streeters have all kinds of silly sayings to help remember important things. "The trend is your friend", "Don't fight the Fed", and "Bottom Fishing Can Be Hazardous To Your Wealth" are all good ones that you've probably heard before.
Today I want to talk about the significance of the Santa Claus Rally, and the fact that it might not even come at all. And that in and of itself would be the signal.
This week Howard and I discuss what "Technology" actually means. With companies like Google, Amazon and Facebook representing ZERO PERCENT of the Technology Index, people continue to group them into Tech regardless.
Is that right? Should we ignore Dow Jones and their weightings? Or is it important to acknowledge which stocks are in these indexes and which ones aren't?
When asked about underperformance from Europe and Emerging Markets, Howard says "I filter the world to only see what's working. I'm all about investing for profit and joy, not misery and pain"
From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza and Louis Sykes @haumicharts
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 in order to profit in the weeks and months ahead.
We continue to pound the table on leadership down the market-cap scale. There's been strong evidence over the past few weeks/months suggesting this is a structural trend reversal in the large vs small-cap ratio.
Many key indexes - both large and small, sit at crucial inflection points. Many of the small and mid-cap indexes are also extended and sporting extreme momentum readings, making for a logical level for sellers to step in.
It would be a healthy development for SMIDs to take a breather here and pass the baton back to large-caps for a bit.
Many of you know that one of my favorite bullish setups is a stock making new all-time highs, with $100 per share within our sights. So many times stocks are attracted to that big round psychological number. It doesn't make any sense (like stocks rallying on the announcement of a stock split), but we don't care. It's something we've observed time and again and betting on a stock getting there is practically money in the bank.
While $100/share is typically where we see this behavior, the same principle holds when a stocks approaches $200, $300, $400, etc.
With this in mind, a stock mentioned in recent Under the Hood report is finally popping today and we're getting involved.
After drastic underperformance since March, one chart suggests that Gold could be setting up to outperform large-cap Indian stocks in the coming weeks and months.
We retired our "Five Bull Market Barometers" in mid-July 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.