From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

For the week ended Friday, June 26, 2020:

Every week we publish performance tables for a variety of different asset classes and categories along with commentary on each.

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness."

It sounds like Charles Dickens could have been writing about today's market in his famous passage from A Tale of Two Cities.

Many areas of Growth and Technology are trading at or near record highs, and it's sure felt like the "best of times" for anyone who's been overweight these stocks in recent years.

On the other hand, cyclicals and Value were already hurting coming into the year and then endured serious structural damage during the Q1 crash. If you've been invested in these areas, particularly those groups directly impacted by Covid-19, it might just seem like the "worst of times."

Navigating the volatility hasn't been easy as even emperors of Industry like Warren Buffet have made some major...

Well, since we're all stuck at home for the foreseeable future, we might as well spend some money on making "home" the best we can make it. Those long dormant "some day" projects that have been rattling around our brains all seem to be taking on a smidge more importance these days.

Americans seem to be getting back to work -- at home, ON the home. The chart of Home Depot $HD share price certainly bares this out as we're currently hanging out at levels above the pre-coronavirus selloff:

In this post, we're putting aside our broader market thesis that we've outlined (June 28th, June 27th, and June 24th) and focus on a specific sector that may be presenting opportunity on a relative basis.

A few weeks ago we highlighted the Nifty Services Index, but this week we're taking a similar approach and thesis towards the broader Nifty Fast Moving Consumer Goods Index.

Let's get into it.

Here's the Nifty Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) Index relative to the Nifty 100 Index pulling back to its breakout level from earlier this year, quickly undercutting it, and quickly reversing. Combine this "failed breakdown" with the fact that momentum is...

From the desk of Tom Bruni @BruniCharting

We continue to focus on buying the strongest stocks, but we're also always playing devil's advocate by identifying risks to the bull thesis.

Two weeks ago, I outlined the "Island Reversals" and other areas of resistance in many global indices. Today, most of these indices are still stuck below those levels and instead are pushing towards multi-week lows.

Last week we looked at the weakness of US Financials on an absolute and relative basis and the S&P 500 failing to exceed resistance relative to two of its most liquid alternatives, US Treasury Bonds and Gold.

Today, I want to look at Crude Oil and why I'm adding it to our list of risks to the Equity bull case.

This post is a follow-on to our weekly Five Bull Market Barometers update, as there are specific risks to stocks worth highlighting as we head into July.

In early May we outlined the "Five Bull Market Barometers" we're watching to identify the beginning of a new bull market in stocks.

If you haven't read our initial post linked above, we'd encourage you to check it out so you understand what the rationale behind these five indicators is.

Now, let's see where we ended this week.

We take a consistent intermarket approach to stocks. Not only do we analyze all the Stock indexes, both domestically and around the globe, but we also compare stocks to other asset classes. This is historically very helpful information to determine the direction of the primary trend for stocks.

Today, we're taking a look at stocks running into major resistance relative to its alternatives. More specifically, stocks are failing relative to both Bonds and Gold.

As you can see in this chart, we saw significant support near this gray shaded area in late 2018 and then once again in August of last year. This "Support" finally gave way and broke in early March, almost 4 months ago. This former "Support" has now turned into "Resistance" throughout June:

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

When going over some of this week's content ideas with JC, I told him "I can't possibly write another post about Tech stocks, but I want to."

His response was simple: "That's information."

In other words, based on the thousands of US Equities charts I'm looking at each week, the strongest uptrends continue to be in Technology $XLK. The fact that it almost seems too good to be true, or that I feel like I'm beating a dead horse about "tech, tech, and more tech" - is all the more reason to remain bullish.

We can't change the fact that there's a lot of good stuff going on in the space right now. We can only interpret the data in front of us, and right now, it's saying we should keep buying Tech.

So is this.

The uptrend has definitely gone parabolic. But take a look at the data going back 20-years in the chart insert... we're still a long way off all-time highs in this ratio. We think...

Financials are what we're watching very closely this week as a warning of a more substantial stock market correction throughout the summer.

Our strategy has been to buy stocks that are going up. That's worked well. But if you noticed, that has NOT included financials. It's been mostly in the Technology, Internet, Social Media, Biotech & Mobile Payments sectors. That has been our go-to universe during this multi-month rally in stocks.

However, even though we haven't been buying bank stocks, that doesn't mean we just ignore them. Quite the opposite, in fact. If you recall, it was the bank stocks that helped us get so bearish in early February, well before any market crash. We are focused on this group again today for the exact same reasons: Risk Management.

Here is a chart of Financials flirting with that 23 level. That represents the former highs from April. If we're below that, the risk in here is down, and not up:

Outside of India, many major indexes like the S&P 500, have yet to recover above their resistance levels we outlined two weeks ago. With that said, prices have yet to collapse either.

Instead, what we're seeing is prices digesting their gains and setting up for their next move...in whatever direction that may be.

Inside of India, we're seeing the major indices experiencing their first real day of selling after a strong run off of the June 12th lows.

In this post, we're going to provide some perspective on the question many are seemingly asking, "was that it for stocks?"

From the desk of Tom Bruni @BruniCharting

When it comes to the analysis of Precious Metals, we can make it as simple or as complex as possible. There's no shortage of ratios, risk appetite measures, individual stocks to analyze, etc.

In this post, we're going to take a step back and focus on the assets we're trading rather than all of the other junk.

In the most recent ASC Monthly Conference Call, JC was bullish on Slack Technologies, $WORK. So, it's time to get to work on today's pullback and take advantage of the opportunity to participate at better prices.