My grandfather always wanted to drive the length of the Alaska Highway.
One summer, when he and my grandmother were approaching 70, Paul & Doris bought a Ford diesel pick-up truck, installed a camper in the bed, and headed West from their suburban Washington, DC home in pursuit of adventure.
They made the journey in one piece. It was, by all accounts, the trip of a lifetime. I have a photo from that trip that I just love. It's the two of them sitting on a log with a lake in the background, surrounded by the Alaskan summer in all its glory. They are vibrant, robust and full of life.
One of the most anticipated moves that market participants have been waiting for, is a rally in the Commodities space. We had seen some signs of this in December '20-January '21, but those moves didn't sustain. On the contrary, the base metals moved below their resistances and consolidated for two months.
Aluminum was the lone star in this group that continued to power through, despite the overall weakness that was prevalent in this sector.
This was a major reason why we continued to hold out for a rally in the base metals- Relative Strength. Aluminum was displaying relative strength against the rest of the metals. Had it been a scenario of overall weakness, Aluminum would be moving south as well.
We've noticed a pick-up in activity in the same names that were correcting/consolidating and thought this is as good a time as ever, for an update!
The market hasn’t had to cope with disappointing news
Increased confidence raises the expectations bar
Rising yields & growth hiccups offer a challenge
The S&P 500 has benefitted from an unprecedented string of good news. The economic surprise index has been positive since June (the longest continuous streak on record) and for most of that time has been accompanied by a rising earnings revision trend. Since 2003, this combination of positive economic surprises and rising earnings revisions have occurred less than 30% of the time. But in that environment, the S&P 500 has risen at a 20% annual rate, versus an overall annualized gain of 8.7% since January 2003.
The Outperformers is our newest scan that pinpoints the very best stocks in the market. It’s the fastest, easiest way to find quality names that are primed for major moves.
The goal is that as the market rally progresses, the sector rotation within the market will reflect in this scan. So while our Top/Down Analysis helps us with the broader view of the market, this Bottom/Up scan makes sure that we catch the slightest change in sentiment.
Something we’ve been working on internally this year is using various bottoms-up tools and scans to complement our top-down approach. One way we’re doing this is by identifying stocks as they climb the market-cap ladder from small, to mid, to large, and ultimately to mega-cap status (over $200B).
Once they graduate from small-cap to mid-cap status (over $2B) they come on our radar. Likewise, when they surpass the roughly $30B mark, they roll off our list.
But the scan doesn’t just end there. We only want to look at the strongest growth industries in the market as that is typically where these potential 50-baggers come from.
The ASC team has been writing a lot recently about how markets are looking a bit "messy" right now. This isn't a bullish or bearish declaration, it's just an indication that many of the recent moves we've seen are likely to hit into some consolidation.
And as an options traders, the word "consolidation" should trigger thoughts of delta neutral credit spreads.
With this in mind, I've identified a good short strangle candidate.
Key takeaway: Optimism remains widespread from a cyclical perspective but history shows that it can (and in the past, has) remain elevated for extended periods of time. Options data show the record surge in call activity over the past year has stalled. If the speculative fever that has helped fuel recent gains is breaking, resiliency beneath the surface and the continued tailwind provided by better than expected earnings and economic data will be increasingly important. After an unprecedented period of positive surprises, we just don’t know how investors would respond to disappointment at this point. We do know that stocks are most vulnerable when optimism is being unwound.
Sentiment Report Chart of the Week: Speculative Fever Breaking?
On this week's episode of Bearish or Bullish, we talk about Year 2 of Bull Market cycles for stocks. Is this one those? Like 1976, like 1983, like 2004, like 2010?
What about Ethereum continuing to hold its breakout? Why is Ether doing so much better than Bitcoin?
Financials and European stocks breaking out of historic bases?
European Super Leagues? The Knicks don't suck?....what the heck is going on around here?
The messy market for stocks continues. Sure, a few stock indexes in the United States have made new highs, but how many stocks in those indexes are doing that?
Not as many, that's for sure, especially in small-caps and the Nasdaq, where we're only seeing a fraction of stocks still making new highs.
Divergences persist....
This environment continues to remind me of a lot of the "Year 2" of market cycles that we've seen before. Take the initial thrust off the 2009 lows for example. Notice the sideways chop in Year 2 of that cycle:
This is a theme we’ve discussed at length over the past six weeks. We've also discussed how we see similar developments in the Commodities and Fixed Income markets.
With this as our backdrop, are you surprised that we're also seeing similar action in the Forex markets right now?
We aren’t!
In this post, we'll highlight two traditional risk-on currency pairs, both of which are trading at critical inflection points.
Let's dive right in.
First up is the AUD/JPY cross. This FX cross is the classic risk-on/risk-off gauge within the currency markets -- and since last November, it has been sending a clear message of “risk-on!”
At the beginning of each week, we publish performance tables for a variety of different asset classes and categories along with commentary on each.
Looking at the past helps put the future into context. In this post, we review the absolute and relative trends at play and preview some of the things we’re watching to profit in the weeks and months ahead.
The weight of the evidence still suggests it's prudent to be a buyer, not a seller, of risk assets for more meaningful time horizons.
Shorter-term, the market looks increasingly messy. For the first time in over a year, defensive assets are beginning to stabilize at logical levels of support, while stocks and major risk groups achieve our upside targets. Even a handful of some key Intermarket ratios are potentially diverging from the broader averages.
