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.
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.
In this weekly note, we highlight 10 of the most important charts or themes we're currently seeing in asset classes around the world.
Equites Suggest Rates Roll
It’s not just commodities and the bond market that are disagreeing with the action from yields these days. We're not getting confirmation from the stock market either. The Equities For Rising Rates ETF (EQRR) always offers excellent information to either support or contradict what we’re seeing from the bond market. When we overlay EQRR with the US 10-Year Yield (TNX), they look almost identical.
What this chart tells us is that the stocks that tend to do well in a rising rate environment could not hold their former highs and are now stuck below overhead supply. This lack of confirmation supports our outlook for a pause and some corrective action from yields in the near future.
We retired our "Five Bull Market Barometers" in 2020 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.
Nifty FMCG is finally back in action. A close above the eight-month base adds positively to this sector. Today we're here to share a long idea from the same sector.
As we turn the page of another quarter in cryptocurrencies, we leave behind one of the most volatile 3-month periods the asset class has ever seen in its brief history.
Losing a whopping 56%, Bitcoin saw its second worse quarter in its history. Meanwhile, Ethereum lost 67% of its value in this period. By all accounts, this is now one of the most severe crypto bear markets by loss realization, wealth destruction, and capital leaving the ecosystem.
Our Hall of Famers list is composed of the 150 largest US-based stocks.
These stocks range from the mega-cap growth behemoths like Apple and Microsoft – with market caps in excess of $2T – to some of the new-age large-cap disruptors such as Moderna, Square, and Snap.
It has all the big names and more.
It doesn’t include ADRs or any stock not domiciled in the US. But don’t worry; we developed a separate universe for that which you can check out here.
The Hall of Famers is simple.
We take our list of 150 names and then apply our technical filters so the strongest stocks with the most momentum rise to the top.
Let’s dive right in and check out what these big boys are up to.
From the desk of Steven Strazza @Sstrazza and Ian Culley @Ianculley
So far, 2022 has been a historic year. That theme intensified during the second quarter, which is now in the books.
The bond market is working on one of its worst years on record. The S&P 500 just posted its worst quarterly return since 1970 with the index down more than 16% from January through March.
Bitcoin finished the quarter with its second-worst return in its short history. And now the energy sector – the market’s leader this year – just posted its third-worst monthly return since the 1990s.
The operative words here are “worst” and “return.”
That’s 2022 in a nutshell. The bears are in complete control.
However, one area that has held up through all this is commodities. It was the best-performing asset class in 2021, and it’s the only one to close the first half of 2022 in the green.
Let’s note that the first quarter of 2022 was far different from the second. And before we go running to commodities for safety, let’s put the group’s recent performance in perspective.
June asset allocation data from the AAII suggests that investors are beginning to act on their emotions. It’s not uncommon for sentiment to lead and positioning to lag, but the gap between the two had gotten historically wide. That is beginning to change as investors shift from equities to cash. The AAII asset allocation survey shows equity exposure dropping from 67% in May to 65% in June, while cash exposure rose from 19% to 21%. History suggests this could be the beginning of a larger unwind. When sentiment got to similar extremes in 1990, 2003 and 2008, stock exposure approached 40% from above and cash exposure approached 40% from below. By the March 2009 Financial Crisis low, cash exposure was above equity exposure. Even during the brief (though intense) COVID crash, equity exposure dipped to 55% and cash exposure jumped to 26%. If past periods are a guide, investors may only be in the early stages of adjusting equity market exposure.
