PSU Banks are generally slow to catch up on a bullish trend. But speed is not what we're after. We're trying to lock into accuracy. So we wait patiently until the alarm bells go off and then we look into PSUs.
Well, its that time again! We have some stocks here that are displaying strength and some that are just breaking out. Let's take a look at this list, shall we?
Let's start off with an index view, just to see where we're at in the trend.
Guess what we have at an index level when it comes to the PSU Banks? 2-year highs, folks! PSUs had been struggling to sustain above the crucial level of 2,700. As you can see, the price movement in the recent past has been full of whipsaws. We finally have new highs coming off of those whipsaws as well.
With the price gaining momentum, we're looking out for targets close to 3,445 and 3,730.
Getting back to “Yes” on our Bull Market Re-Birth Checklist still requires some heavy lifting.
Beneath the surface, stocks are getting back in gear.
The Fed isn’t a friend and overcoming higher bond yields could be a challenge for stocks.
Stocks turned higher last week, and while Friday saw more new highs than news on the NYSE for the first time in two weeks, it was not enough to prevent a third consecutive week of new lows outpacing new highs (on both the NYSE and NASDAQ). Friday’s strength was sufficient to produce an encouraging up-side volume thrust and our short and intermediate-term risk indicators moved back into positive territory last week. If stocks can build on that progress, we could soon be hitting “Yes” on a number of our Bull Market Re-Birth Checklist criteria. But there is still plenty of work to be done.
We've had some great trades come out of this small-cap-focused column since we launched it back in 2020 and started rotating it with our flagship bottom-up scan, Under the Hood.
For the first year or so, we focused only on Russell 2000 stocks with a market cap between $1 and $2B.
That was fun, but we wanted to branch out a bit and allow some new stocks to find their way onto our list.
We expanded our universe to include some mid-caps.
To make the cut for our Minor Leaguers list, a company must have a market cap between $1 and $4B.
This is one of our favorite bottom-up scans: Follow the Flow.
In this note, we simply create a universe of stocks that experienced the most unusual options activity — either bullish or bearish, but not both.
We utilize options experts, both internally and through our partnership with The TradeXchange. Then, we dig through the level 2 details and do all the work upfront for our clients.
Our goal is to isolate only those options market splashes that represent levered and high-conviction, directional bets.
We also weed out hedging activity and ensure there are no offsetting trades that either neutralize or cap the risk on these unusual options trades.
In this weekly note, we highlight 10 of the most important charts or themes we're currently seeing in asset classes around the world.
Finding Support with Fibonacci
US equities appear to be regaining ground after giving back some of their gains from this summer. Following the corrective action of the last few weeks, the Nasdaq 100 ETF has finally found support at the 61.8% Fibonacci retracement level of the June-to-August advance. These levels represent a logical place for demand to show up and halt prices from falling further. We’re watching closely to see what kind of follow-through we get in the coming days. If this was really the bottom, we should see a higher high in the near future. On the other hand, a break below 294 would signal increased downside risk and likely lead to a retest of the June lows. From a tactical standpoint, this is our line in the sand for the Nasdaq 100.
Check out this week's Momentum Report, our weekly summation of all the major indexes at a Macro, International, Sector, and Industry Group level.
By analyzing the short-term data in these reports, we get a more tactical view of the current state of markets. This information then helps us put near-term developments into the big picture context and provides insights regarding the structural trends at play.
Let's jump right into it with some of the major takeaways from this week's report:
* ASC Plus Members can access the Momentum Report by clicking the link at the bottom of this post.
To close the week, we saw a remarkable rally that drove Bitcoin prices up more than 10%. This was the largest single-day gain going back to February 28.
This came after Bitcoin tested the shelf of support near 19,000, while equity markets bounced on an important inflection point.
In last week's letter, we pointed out that buyers needed to step up and defend these levels, which they clearly have.
