There is something fishy happening in the bond market these days. Sentiment is hitting historic bearish extremes as US Interest Rates have fallen over the past month. This to me seems like a "too little too late" sort of thing from those who missed the bond sell-off that began last summer. If you recall, we had been ultra-bearish bonds (bullish rates) since the middle of the summer (see: August 3, 2016). That worked great and all of our targets were hit in the 4th quarter. Since December, we've been approaching the bond market from the long side and sentiment these days is reiterating why we would still rather err on the bullish side moving forward.
One of the things I've been working on behind the scenes is building the technology necessary to deliver my sub-sector analysis. Until now, you guys only see the end results. Through the Chartbook, I've been able give you access to my analysis on many things, including the sector and sub-sector ETFs. Once I've concluded that I like a particular sector, long or short, I'll then break down the components of that sector to find stocks that can participate in direction of my overall thesis. I share those with you on the weekly letters, monthly conference calls and quarterly playbooks. Moving forward, I'm going to be sending you individual deep dives into different US sub-sectors when I see something that stands out.
Today's deep dive analysis is on Media Stocks. This is a sub-sector of the overall Consumer Discretionary space:
Every month I host a conference call for All Star Charts Premium Members where we discuss ongoing themes throughout the global marketplace as well as changes in trends where new positions would be most appropriate. This includes U.S. Stocks & Sectors, International Stock Indexes, Commodities, Currencies and Interest Rate Markets.
This year has started off how we wanted it to and I will be following up on many of the big ideas we discussed in the Q1 Playbook that I published in late December. I've spent most of this week doing a deep dive into a lot of the sub-sectors to find where some of the strength lies underneath the surface. A good example has been the strength Medical Devices within the underperforming Healthcare space. But there are several more out there that we'll talk about.
This month's Conference Call will be held on Wednesday January 18, 2016 at 7PM ET. Here are the Registration Details:
I'm extremely fortunate to have a front row seat to the most incredible display of human emotions in the history of mankind. Every day I get to watch markets move up and down based on fear and greed competing with one another at all times. One of the things I find most interesting is how humans tend to behave at the beginning of a perceived cycle. For you guys who think these psychological events don't impact the stock market, you're crazy. Seasonality is something I study very closely, particularly when markets ignore seasonal tendencies.
US Treasury Bonds have been a market that we've been watching very closely over the past couple of months. Remember this had been a favorite short of mine since the Summer, but all of our downside targets were hit in the 4th quarter. Since then, it has no longer been a short, and we've been waiting for it to set up to be a long for a mean reversion. Here is what is now going on this week:
Here is a list of trade ideas organized by date, ticker symbol and directional bias. Please make sure you have clicked on the link and read the details surrounding the trade before acting upon any of them. Also, make sure you have checked with your financial advisor and tax accountants to make sure you are suitable to be executing what is discussed on this website. The risk management procedures and targets are detailed for each idea. Please read and review the terms and conditions page before making any trades of your own.
The year 2016 is now in the books. As market participants, it is our job to prepare for the coming quarter. We don't care much for year end targets. Those are just a marketing gimmick for wall street sell side firms. The media irresponsibly parades these historically wrong sell side analysts around on the tv and radio and have all sorts of gimmicky specials. We don't have time for that. We're here to make money in the market. So rather than making a list of the "Top 10" this or that, or blatantly making up a number to put as an S&P500 target for a year from now, I thought it would add value to walk you through my entire process as I prepare for the first quarter of 2017.
I like buying stocks that are going up. If there is anything that the market has taught us over the past hundred years is that market prices trend. The major averages, individual sectors, stocks, commodities, currencies, interest rates, they all trend. Sometimes these are uptrends that last years or even decades, sometimes they're downtrends, and sometimes there is no trend and it's just a sideways mess. Remember, recognizing a lack of trend is just as important as the first two. What I like even more is while a stock is going up the sell side likes it less and less. It's completely counter intuitive to us who specifically look for trends to follow. They don't think like us as market participants because they have different motivations.
I've been a full time technician for well over a decade. During this time, I've been lucky enough to meet and become close friends with some of the best and brightest technicians in the world. I regularly discuss the markets with them over email as well as the various conferences and speaking engagements that we all attend. We have spirited debates over what the market is going to do next, who has the better process for identifying opportunities and who nailed or missed the most recent big move. Without fail, I learn something new every time I have these types of discussions. So it got me thinking, and I realized that other traders and investors around the world would love to be a fly on the wall for these conversations and learn some new things too. It's been my goal for the past year to make this a reality, and that day has finally come.
I love technical analysis. I really do. There's no question that finding a nice chart brings a great amount of joy to my life. Today I want to share with you what I think is one of the most important developments to occur over the past couple of months. Interest rates have been ripping higher, yes we know this. But to me it's what is happening in Banks and Real Estate Investment Trusts that continues to grab my attention. These groups of stocks are doing the exact opposite today that they were doing at the beginning of 2016, when I was pounding the table about rates going a lot lower.
Interest rates have exploded higher into year-end from a low near 1.37% on the 10-year yield up to over 2.6%. But one of the big reasons that had me so bullish rates since July was that while the 10-year was making lower lows into the summer, the ratio between Regional Banks and REITs held the early 2015 low and started to rally:
