U.S. Treasury Bonds have been in a beautiful uptrend for 35 years. This is nothing new. But within uptrends, we often see severe corrections that have presented very favorable risk vs reward opportunities in the past. I think today is one of those scenarios. Here are the details:
One of the things that I take most pride in is my ability to keep an open mind and consider every outcome. This goes for all markets, not just stocks. But today I have a solid if/then scenario that I think every U.S. stock market bull should be watching. If this particular index is above certain levels, not only do I see no reason to be bearish, but I think having above average long exposure is warranted.
Every 2 weeks I sit down with the good folks at Benzinga to chat about the markets on their morning radio show. Today we discussed the recent breakouts in important sectors like Technology and Industrials. The fact that we're seeing expansion in breadth across other countries, particularly in Emerging Markets and Latin America, suggests there is real risk appetite out there for stocks. There are many favorable risk vs reward opportunities out there today and we went over several of them this morning.
The market is a never ending puzzle that we are constantly trying to solve. It's not like a jigsaw puzzle where once you put the pieces together your job is done forever. In the case of liquid markets, the pieces of that puzzle are always changing and therefore the conclusions are appropriately evolving. I thought today would be as good of a time as ever to go over the evolution of my macro thesis about stocks over the past 15 months.
Since late March and early April, most of the major stock market indexes around the world, U.S. included, consolidated in a sideways range. The dilemma/argument among my friends and I was in which direction would these consolidation resolve? As it turns, out, it has been to the upside. We're not just seeing the S&P500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average breaking out to new highs, we're seeing similar behavior around the world.
Today we're looking at what I think is the most bullish chart on earth.
Throughout the week I did a ton of intermarket work comparing many markets with each other. This is a great exercise and really helps me get some perspective on the flow of money around the world. Remember, it doesn't just disappear. When money leaves one asset, let's say Japanese Yen or U.S. Treasury Bonds, it goes elsewhere. In this case, we're seeing that money flow towards banks as well as Japanese and European stocks.
There are two ways to use this information. First, simply take the money flow data as confirmation of other things we're seeing around the world, particularly those that we discussed in this week's conference call. Second, through execution purposes benefiting from narrowing or widening of these spreads. I personally use them in both ways.
Here are some of the more interesting developments that I found:
One of the biggest reasons why we've been hesitant to be bullish of stocks, particularly as an asset class, since early April is because of the severe underperformance from bank stocks. Not only do we need participation out of Financials during bull markets, but we need them to lead. Unfortunately, they've been doing the exact opposite, and dragging stock market indexes around the world lower.
Has something changed?
These are the details from yesterday's Mystery Chart
