While there have been some real winners during the recent rally, the run off the lows from this fall has also left many stocks behind.
Value stocks, cyclicals, and blue-chip names have prospered for the past two months, as groups like financials and industrials have been the latest beneficiaries of sector rotation.
At the same time, mega-cap technology and the most-speculative growth areas of the market have continued to show relative weakness.
To be clear, it’s not like these stocks have been crashing lower while the rest of the market rallies. Of course, many have participated in the upside action.
But, on balance, the performance from growth stocks has been lackluster.
The disparity between the growth-heavy Nasdaq 100 and the value-heavy Dow Jones Industrial Average perfectly illustrates what’s taken place:
The 2020 V-shaped recovery has warped investors’ brains.
But this is nothing more than recency bias. In reality, bottoms are a process, not an event.
Don’t fall victim to what’s easy or comfortable. Instead, let’s focus on the facts.
Markets continue to send mixed signals, testing the resolve of even the most disciplined investor. Rather than fight the trend or trendless nature of the markets, I prefer to identify evidence that supports the next directional move.
And there’s one insightful chart atop my deck regarding the direction of the US dollar.
From the Desk of Steve Strazza @sstrazza and Alfonso Depablos @Alfcharts
This is one of our favorite bottom-up scans: Follow the Flow.
In this note, we simply create a universe of stocks that experienced the most unusual options activity — either bullish or bearish, but not both.
We utilize options experts, both internally and through our partnership with The TradeXchange. Then, we dig through the level 2 details and do all the work upfront for our clients.
Our goal is to isolate only those options market splashes that represent levered and high-conviction, directional bets.
Welcome back to our latest Under The Hood column where we'll cover all the action for the week ended November 25, 2022. This report is published bi-weekly and rotated on-and-off with our Minor Leaguers column.
What we do here is analyze the most popular stocks during the week and find opportunities to either join in and ride these momentum names higher, or fade the crowd and bet against them.
We use a variety of sources to generate the list of most popular names.
There are so many new data sources available that all we need to do is organize and curate them in a way that shows us exactly what we want: A list of stocks that are seeing an unusual increase in investor interest.
From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza and Alfonso Depablos @AlfCharts
Our International Hall Of Famers list is composed of the 100 largest US-listed international stocks, or ADRs. We’ve also sprinkled in some of the largest ADRs from countries that did not make the market cap cut.
These stocks range from some well-known mega-cap multinationals such as Toyota Motor and Royal Dutch Shell to some large-cap global disruptors such as Sea Ltd and Shopify.
It’s got all the big names and more--but only those that are based outside the US. You can find all the largest US stocks on our original Hall of Famers list.
The beauty of these scans is really in their simplicity.
We take the largest names each week and then apply technical filters in a way that the strongest stocks with the most momentum rise to the top.
Based on the market environment, we can also flip the scan on its head and filter for weakness.
Let’s dive in and take a look at some of the most important stocks from around the world.
In late September, we highlighted the prior-cycle highs for the top commodity contracts.
The question was whether these levels would hold as support. So far, they have. But it’s two months later, and we’re asking the same question as those 2018 highs come into play again.
Let’s check back in on these critical levels of resistance turned support for clarity heading into year-end.
For crude oil futures, 76 is still our line in the sand:
It coincides with its 2018 highs, its July pivot highs from last year, and this year’s September pivot lows. Former resistance has turned into support.
Bonds are bouncing off key levels of potential support.
For some, it’s a former low. And for others, it’s a downside extension level. Regardless, we can all rejoice that bonds have stopped falling.
That doesn’t mean we’re rushing out to buy Treasuries. Instead, it signals a constructive start to a potential bottoming process for the bond market and relief from downside volatility.
Let’s check out the charts!
First up is the long-duration Zero Coupon ETF $ZROZ:
ZROZ has rebounded above its former 2014 lows, posting a potential failed breakdown. Risks are to the upside above 82 with potential resistance at the shelf of former lows around 100.
It’s a similar story for the Treasury Bond ETF $TLT:
