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.
From the desk of Steve Strazza @sstrazza and Louis Sykes @haumicharts
Over the last few months, there's been a distinct rotation into Financials and other cyclical areas across equity markets not just in the US, but across the globe.
This topic is nothing new around here as it's been a big theme for us recently. Consider some of our calls from this month:
Intermarket analysis is always an area of focus over here at All Star Charts. Right now, there are a lot of changes taking hold beneath the surface in some key cross-asset relationships.
For the longest time, the alpha has been in the US... it's been in large-caps... and it's been in growth stocks. That's been the playbook. We know because we've been running it back for years now.
Although, we're seeing strong evidence that this is no longer the case...
One of the best things about our approach is that it allows us to be incredibly flexible and adjust our views as new data becomes available.
We pride ourselves on never being dogmatic. Speaking of which, despite how much we've leaned on secular leadership from growth and tech stocks in recent years, the data is suggesting we reposition ourselves in favor of Value (read more about it, here).
Don't miss this weeks Momentum Report; our weekly summation of all the major indexes at a Macro, International, Sector and Industry Group level. As a reminder, we analyze this shorter-term data within the context of the structural trends at play.
Over the past few days, the narration around Bonds has really caught on. With bond yields across the globe recovering sharply from lows, there are a lot of questions about the current stock market rally, the impact of bonds on the bull-run, whether we should prepare for a sell-off etc.
Let's try and address some concerns through this post where we talk about the impact of bonds and the US dollar on the ongoing stock market rally.
Let's assume we know nothing about the correlations in the market and are basing our view on the simple activity of observing the historical price action and its subsequent impact.
Here we have India's 10-year Government Bond. When we look at the extremes of the movement, which comprises of the high and low clocked in the 2008 crash, the range lies between 9.30-5.25. Since then for 12 years, the range hasn't been breached and if this was any other chart with the name stricken out, one would say it's going sideways.
In the chart below, we have highlighted three instances where the bond yield has bottomed out and rallied. This has happened in 2009 and 2017 in the past. Can we expect the same in 2021?
The bottom line is breadth has been overwhelmingly bullish and is one of the main reasons we're in the camp that this is likely the early innings of a new cyclical bull market.
There are plenty of ways to take apart and dissect the move in the bond market that accelerated over the past week. From an investment perspective, if the 11% YTD decline in TLT holds, Q1 statements are going to be a jolt for investors who were led to believe that bonds are a portfolio stabilizer and that you can't lose money in Treasuries. From a market perspective, bonds are putting pressure on the Fed. It’s not yet showing up in the CPI, but Fed officials claiming not to see any inflation pressure strain credibility. It's not the rise in yields at the long-end of the curve that will catch the Fed’s eye, but the move higher in the belly of the curve. The short-end remains anchored by Fed actions, but this week saw 3-year, 5-year, and 7-year yields spike. The 5-year yield is approaching resistance at early 2020 levels, while relative to the 2-year yield (which is responsive to Fed policy) the 5-year yield is at its highest level since 2017. For all the talk of central bank omnipotence and bazookas, the bond market > Fed balance sheet. The Fed may need to adjust its approach.
Whenever I want to talk about bonds, I always know just who to call. Larry McDonald is a former bond trader at Lehman Brothers and author of the book, Colossal Failure of Common Sense. I highly encourage you to give it a read, especially if you're looking for some perspective on what really happened back in 2007-2008.
It's no coincidence that I reached out to him to come on the podcast. Larry and I had a very timely conversation in February of last year. So with the bond market recently losing 5-6 Trillion dollars in such a short period of time, who better to talk to than by favorite bond trader.
This was fun. We talked about the current move in rates and how that's impacting stocks and bond markets around the world. If you're looking for color on Credit Spreads and Yield curves, this is the episode for you.
What's better than a good conversation about bonds?
Our Top 10 report was just published; our weekly report highlighting the best 10 ideas and respective charts we are seeing across the markets this week.
1. Weakening Internals In The World’s Top Index
We’ve been vocal about the strong internals supporting US Equity markets and have pounded the table on one historic breadth reading after the next as they’ve continued to pop up in a variety of the major indexes and sectors since last summer. Surprisingly enough, one of the indexes that did NOT experience bullish initiation thrusts was the Nasdaq 100. This is likely because of the fact the bar was already set so high for this index due to its strong performance in years past. Regardless of the reason, unlike indexes that did experience thrusts, we’re paying attention to divergences in many of the Nasdaq’s breadth indicators. There’s been a notable deterioration in participation beneath the surface in what’s been the world’s strongest stock index for years. With the index finally showing some weakness and appearing to cede its leadership role to some of the more...