Commodities and rates are at the center of everything right now. And why wouldn't they be? That's where the trend is clear. That's where the momentum is! Keeping this trend in mind, one specific commodity will be highlighted in this post.
This is a commodity that has made it to our trade ideas several times in the recent past. After a minor consolidation, the price seems ready for the next move. What are we talking about?
We debuted a new scan recently which goes by the name- All Star Momentum.
All Star Momentum is a brand new scan that guides us towards the very best stocks in the market. This time around, we have incorporated our stock universe of Nifty 500 as the base. Among the 500 stocks that we follow, this scan will pump out names that are most likely to outperform the market.
Key Takeaway: Price action has a way of changing sentiment, and the recent bout of strength has brought signs of hope. Optimism is on the rise with an uptick in bulls, a rebound in both the II and AAII bull-bear spreads, and an increase in exposure by active equity managers. Yet, bears linger and the drop in put/call ratios is driven by decreasing put activity. This speaks to less of a risk-off tone rather than a definitive sign of risk-on behavior. Though optimism is in the air, it’s going to take further improvements in trend, momentum, and breadth for bears to change their tune in support of a sustained rally.
Sentiment Report Chart of the Week: Breadth Backdrop Improving
JC had a great blog post out this week about zooming out. In a nutshell, he was reminding us that zooming out and looking at price action from a wider lens often makes the present murky waters look suddenly clear. It's easy to get distracted by the day-to-day price action and to look at only the last few months of daily charts and conclude that a stock or an index is in one sloppy clusterjam of price action.
But when you look at that same price action, instead with weekly or monthly candles, the more recent ones will often look like insignificant noise in an otherwise smoothly trending longer term pattern.
In the post referenced above, JC shared several current examples of instruments that look sloppy recently, but the bigger picture is still sitting pretty.
One of the stocks he mentioned is currently giving us a nice pullback to get a nice entry on.
One of the hallmarks of the beginning stages of new trends, irrespective of asset class, is the thrust.
Thrust: push suddenly or violently in a specified direction.
There are many different ways markets can thrust, but it's commonly one of two:
momentum; or
breadth.
In Monday's letter, we discussed that if Bitcoin could close in the green, it'd be the first time it's seen seven consecutive positive closes since the July short squeeze.
Fast-forward, we're now sitting on eight with a probability of nine green candles in a row:
Over the past half-decade or so, we've seen the US Dollar Index maintain a very high negative correlation with risk assets.
When stocks are doing well, the Dollar has normally been under pressure. And when stocks have struggled, as most of them have over the past year, the US Dollar has kept a bid.
Look how poorly the Dollar did when stocks ripped in 2020 off those pandemic lows. And then look at the strength in the Dollar over the last year as most stocks have struggled:
From the desk of Steven Strazza @Sstrazza and Ian Culley @IanCulley
Rates continue to move higher around the world as central banks do their best to combat inflation.
As investors, our best course of action is to position ourselves in those areas that benefit most from rising rates.
Commodities and cyclical stocks immediately come to mind. But there are also specific currencies that tend to excel in rising rate environments.
Today, we'll discuss a handful of emerging-market currencies with heavy commodity exposure.
We’ve been waiting on these currencies to catch higher and confirm the price action in commodities since last year… and it looks like it’s finally happening.
Let’s dive in.
First up is an overlay chart of the US 10-year yield and our equal-weight basket of EM commodity currencies:
Commodities catching up, but a long way from being caught up
Dynamic exposure allows trend following in a portfolio context
The first quarter still has two days of life left in it, though for many investors its end cannot come soon enough. The S&P 500 made a new high on the first day of the year, but has been underwater ever since. Bonds have been in the red all year, suffering their worst decline in decades. Commodities (and the minority of investors that have exposure there) enjoyed their best quarter in decades.
There are no called strikes on Wall Street. In other words, we’re not penalized for not swinging, like you are in baseball.
We have the ability to be patient, to a certain extent at least, depending on your mandate. But most of us don’t have mandates! Even one of the best hitters of all time struggled when he swung at bad pitches.
In this video from our Charting School, we compare Ted Williams’ batting average when he swung at good pitches versus when he swung at bad ones.
Why do we bring this up?
Well, what's the last few months been for crypto traders?
The largest insider buy on today's list is a Form 4 filing by William Clay Ford Jr., the executive chair of Ford Motor $F, who reported a purchase of roughly $4.5 million.
Coliseum Capital Partners continues to build its position in GMS Inc $GMS, as it just filed its second Form 4 in the last week.
