Interest Rates continue to stabilize in the US and globally, setting the stage for rotation into several beaten-down areas of the Equity market...particularly in small banks.
This was a risk to our near-term bearish thesis and suggests the major indexes could push marginally higher in the very short-term. And while we ultimately believe further weakness is ahead over the intermediate-term, we have to acknowledge and monitor this rotation under the surface to see how it develops.
Several stocks we're watching could benefit from this "dash for trash" trading environment taking place in the market. Not only are they attractive reward/risk opportunities on their own, but more importantly, how they perform will provide important information about risk appetite and the potential for the market to extend further to the upside. It's the same reason we were monitoring Autos and Media earlier in the month.
The Nifty IT Index remains subdued due to weakness in its largest components, like Tata Consultancy, but under the surface, there's been leaders like Info Edge (Naukri) trending well on an absolute or relative basis.
With that said, several charts are suggesting this leader may be transitioning into a laggard.
Let's take a look at the chart that sparked this thesis.
Below is a weekly chart of Info Edge (Naukri) relative to the Nifty Next 50. Since its breakout to new all-time highs in early 2014, we've seen the Fibonacci Extensions from its 2008-2009 base serve as solid support/resistance levels. Recently, prices hit our fourth upside objective at the 423.6% extension near 0.1056 and have not exceeded it yet.
It would seem that the "new" economy we live in -- one where we order everything online for fear of walking into stores -- would benefit the companies that provide the infrastructure and transportation to make that happen. Fundamentally, that makes sense. But we're chart readers here, and the charts are telling us something different.
Every weekend we publish performance tables for a variety of different asset classes and categories along with commentary on each.
This week we want to highlight the continued divergence between Energy stocks and Oil using our Sector and Industry ETF and Commodity tables.
First, let's look at some of the longer-term leaders. Biotechs (IBB) just broke out to fresh multi-year highs and are one of the top performers on our Industry ETF list across all timeframes.
Aside from Gold Miners (GDX), they are the only industry on our expanded list of over 50 ETFs already back at fresh 52-week highs. Definitely some relative strength worth paying attention to in these areas.
The Nifty Financial Services Index continues to show relative weakness.
In this post, we're going to update our risk management levels, targets, and discuss the components within the index that are showing the most relative strength and weakness.
When analyzing the Gold Mining Sector, I can't help but think about the 1993 movie Dazed & Confused. One of the more popular lines in the film is the perfect way to explain what is currently happening in today's market.
In this scene Matthew McConaughey's character is telling a couple of kids,
You heard about the party being busted right? Not to worry. There is a new fiesta in the making as we speak. It's at the moon tower. Full kegs. Everybody's gonna be there. You oughta go...."
The guys at ASC are out with a piece this week highlighting the weakness under the hood in some of the biggest sectors in the US Stock Market. Read it here.
One of the poster children for weakness we want to get short ahead of another possible leg down is setting up right now.
We have been writing a lot about risk-appetite lately as we're constantly trying to gauge the "animal spirits" at work in the markets. Right now we're seeing a lack of participation from risk-assets such as Small-Caps, Commodities, and the more cyclical sectors as well as a risk-off theme in many of our intermarket ratios.
We've covered the US plenty already, so this post will focus on what we're seeing from risk-assets in Equity Markets abroad.
This week's Mystery Chart was an inverted chart of the Frontier Markets ETF (FM). Thanks to everyone for participating. You were pretty much ALL buyers this week, which means you were actually selling Frontier Markets against their prior all-time lows.
Yesterday I wrote a post about deteriorating market internals. I discussed breadth divergences as well as the lack of confirmation of the S&P 500's recent highs from many important sectors and indexes.
In this post, we're going to focus specifically on the Large-Cap Sector SPDRs that failed to make higher highs and are showing early signs of cracking. To no surprise, these are some of the most cyclical areas of the market including Industrials (XLI), Financials (XLF), Materials (XLB), and Energy (XLE).
This speaks to the lack of risk-appetite we continue to see not only within equities but across all asset classes right now.
You can see the first three sectors in the chart below. With Crude Oil futures crashing below zero this week, we think it's prudent to stay away from the Energy sector until the smoke clears.
