After the indexes pressed to new marginal highs late in the week, we've finally gotten some downside follow-through to confirm the weakness we were looking for.
Let's review several key aspects of our bearish thesis and a few ways we're taking advantage of the volatility.
This is our monthly conference call for All Star Charts India Premium Members where we discuss ongoing themes throughout the India Share Market. We take a look at all of the NSE Indexes and Sectors as well as some of our own custom indexes. At Allstarcharts we have become known around the world for the top/down approach to stocks. After we analyze each of the indexes and sectors and have identified where the strength and weakness lies, then we break it down to individual stock opportunities. By having momentum, relative strength and market trend in our favor, the probabilities of success increase dramatically. The video of the call will be archived in the members section to re-watch any time and the PDF of the charts will be made available as well.
I'll do my best to lay out my weight of the evidence conclusions and walk you step by step with how I got there! This month's Conference Call will be held on Wednesday April 22nd at 7:00 PM IST.
Post #2 of 2 focuses on the absolute trends and stocks we want to be buying and selling.
In our first post, we talked about relative performance in Financials rolling over aggressively. On an absolute basis, the TSX Capped Financials Index is stuck below its December 2018 lows and 2015 highs, much like US Small-Caps, the German DAX, Euro Stoxx 50, and many of the other weakest markets out there. As long as prices are below 263, the bias is to the downside with a target near 210.
Post #2 of 2 focuses on the absolute trends and stocks we want to be buying and selling.
First, let's start with the TSX Capped Financials which represent 33% of the TSX Composite. This chart has spent the last four years putting in a major top and the underperformance looks likely to continue. From that perspective, can the TSX Composite continue to work sustainably higher if its best players are underperforming so drastically? I'd argue no.
For those new to the exercise, we take a chart of interest and remove the x/y-axes and any other labels that would help identify it. The chart can be any security in any asset class on any timeframe on an absolute or relative basis. Maybe it’s a custom index or inverted, who knows!
We do all this to put aside the biases we have associated with this specific security/the market and come to a conclusion based solely on price.
You can guess what it is if you must, but the real value comes from sharing what you would do right now. Buy, Sell, or Do Nothing?
We turned bearish on equities in February from a structural standpoint and have been tactically positioning ourselves in both directions since. We've taken advantage of the bifurcated market we're in by continuing to find opportunities on both the long and short side. Right now we believe the near-term risk is to the downside in equities.
Last week we put together a list of key levels that we want to see certain assets hold before turning bullish on stocks over any longer-term timeframe. We're using this as our risk gauge for now.
As promised, we put that list into a table so that we can easily track and update its progress. Let's dive in and see what the weight of the evidence is telling us right now.
Most of what you'll hear me talk about are things I've learned from other people. In some cases, they were predecessors of mine and in other cases they're buddies and colleagues. It's funny because I try to do a good job of giving credit when I can, where I remember specifically who I learned something from. You guys who have been following me for a long time know that about me. But the truth is that sometimes I simply forget where I learned it. It's just part of my arsenal and I always assumed it was there.
This is an intermarket world that we live in. If you think what happens in the commodities and bond market isn't directly tied with what's also happening in the stock market, you've got a lot of homework to do.
You guys who have been following around along time know that we start out every single conversation about the stock market with, "Okay, what are bonds and commodities doing". It starts there. And then we go into the asset in question.
Look at Crude Oil still crashing down to new multi-decade lows:
Most of what you'll hear me talk about are things I've learned from other people. In some cases, they were predecessors of mine and in other cases they're buddies and colleagues. It's funny because I try to do a good job of giving credit when I can, where I remember specifically who I learned something from. You guys who have been following me for a long time know that about me. But the truth is that sometimes I simply forget where I learned it. It's just part of my arsenal and I always assumed it was there.
Every weekend we publish performance tables for a variety of different asset classes and categories along with commentary on each.
As this is something we do internally on a daily basis, we believe sharing it with clients will add value and help them better understand our top-down approach. We use these tables to provide insight into both relative strength and market internals.
