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.
They say that you shouldn't kick someone when they're down. But in the markets, that's actually the best time to kick them, when they're already down.
We call that "Relative Weakness". When we're shorting stocks, those are the ones we're looking for.
In the case of Small-caps, they've been a heads up of a problem in the stock market since almost 3 months ago. They suggested stocks would struggle and would go sideways, at best.
And that's exactly what we've seen. Many stocks and sectors going sideways, and a bunch of them going down.
BUT, if we're going to go from Bad to Worse, then Small-caps are most likely the ones getting hit the hardest.
You can see in these breadth numbers that the internals in Small-caps have not been improving, they've actually been getting worse.
Key takeaway: Sentiment continues to shift from optimism to pessimism. Unlike the March optimism unwind, the current situation is associated with a waning risk appetite on the part of investors and a more challenging liquidity environment. This argues for patience from a tactical perspective and warns against a premature conclusion that the speculative excesses have been removed from the system. While the pullbacks in some of the speculative areas may seem substantial, they still pale in comparison to the run-ups that were seen in late 2020 and early 2021. In such an environment, less may be more. Surviving such unwinds is not only about preserving capital, but also maintaining mental health.
Sentiment Report Chart of the Week: Risk Appetite Wanes
From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza and Ian Culley @Ianculley
We’ve recently pointed out the possible double tops in the Dollar index and the USD/CAD, along with our overall outlook for further weakness from king dollar.
But can we find other areas of the market that could provide further insight into the US Dollar’s direction?
After all, many market participants are fixated on the direction of the US Dollar right now as it approaches its key mutlti-year lows.
Why does the Dollar matter so much to investors?
Firs of all, USD and risk assets have had a very strong negative correlation over the last several years. The USD Index bottomed in early 2018 as stock markets around the world peaked. Conversely, the dollar topped during the Covid sell-off when stocks bottomed out at their March 2020 lows.
To gain a clearer picture of the USD, we need to go beyond the Dollar Index and developed currencies.
We've already had some great trades come out of this Small-Cap focused column since we launched it late last year and began rotating it with our flagship bottoms-up scan, "Under The Hood."
To make the cut for our Minor Leagues list, a company must have a market cap between $1 and $2B. After applying price and liquidity filters, we simply sort by proximity to new highs in order to focus on the best players.
From the desk of Steven Strazza @Sstrazza and Ian Culley @Ianculley
Gold has been one of the last places we have wanted to put our money over the past eight months, second only to Bonds.
Other areas of the commodities space, like Base Metals, Energy, and Ags, along with risk assets in general have experienced an explosive rally. While Precious Metals have gone nowhere. But are we starting to see signs that this could be changing?
Last week we pointed out that Lumber had reached our target and could be due for a pullback. And we’re seeing that play out.
It's always nice to sit down and talk about what the future is going to look like.
Currently, the largest hotel chain in the world doesn't own any hotels (Airbnb). The largest taxi cab company in the world doesn't own any taxi cabs (Uber).
Will the largest bank in the world not own any banks? Howard Lindzon says yes, "Banks aren't dead, they're walking dead".
This was fun. I learned a lot.
It gives me more reason to keep an eye on opportunities in the Crypto Markets.
I'm a chart guy, as you're all well aware. Price drives all of my decision making. But if you're interested in what's happening behind the scenes (I am), then this one is for you!
From the desk of Steven Strazza @Sstrazza and Ian Culley @IanCulley
Check out our latest Mystery Chart!
What we do here is take a chart that’s captured our attention, and remove the x and y-axes as well as any other labels that could help identify it.
This chart can be of any security, in any asset class, on any timeframe. Sometimes it’s an absolute price chart, other times it’s on a relative basis.
It might be a ratio, a custom index, or maybe the price is inverted. It could be all three!
The point is, when we aren’t able to recognize what’s in front of us, we put aside any biases we may have and scrutinize the price behavior objectively.
While you can try to guess the chart, the point is to make a decision…
So let us know what it is… Buy, Sell, or Do Nothing?
From the desk of Louis Sykes @haumicharts and Steve Strazza @sstrazza
The Crypto space just experienced its worst day since the height of the Covid crash.
Bitcoin was down over 30% on an intraday basis, while Ethereum was almost cut in half.
We see this recent action aligning Crypto with what's taking place throughout the market. Bulls have had a more challenging time in recent months, and risk assets are coming under increasing pressure.
From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza and Grant Hawkridge @GrantHawkridge
In recent months, we've seen a rare bid in defensive assets as investors position for more mixed markets and messy action in the weeks and months ahead.
These defensive areas of the market have stopped trending lower on relative terms and many are rebounding off of very logical support levels... Gold Miners and Bonds are two examples of safe-haven assets that we recently got involved with on the long side in order to express this view.
As the market has become increasingly mixed, it's time to switch up our strategy a bit.
As we outlined in our post yesterday, for the first time in about a year, we are shorting stocks.
But this statement requires an asterisk...
We are shorting some stocks. And at the same time, we're still buying the leaders as plenty of stocks continue to show impressive strength -- particularly those with cyclical or value characteristics. That's where we're focusing for long ideas.
As for shorts, it's all growth. That is where the weakness is. We're not only seeing deterioration and relative weakness at the index level for growth stocks -- the internals are also deteriorating beneath the surface.
This is simply a tale of two markets. As growth-heavy averages like the Nasdaq roll over, the leadership areas are registering bullish breadth thrusts and carrying on higher like business as usual.
