Key takeaway: Evidence of excessive optimism abounds. Recent articles in the Wall Street Journal provide anecdotes for the data: Conservative German savers are increasing their exposure to stocks and investors in the US are crowding into the market, focusing more on chasing returns than managing risks. Cyclical views trend and strategic positioning point to elevated risks but stocks have been buoyed by a favorable news backdrop (positive economic data surprises and upward earnings revisions) and resilient breadth. If these falter and investor appetite for risk fades, those areas of the market where speculative fever has burned the hottest could be the most vulnerable.
Sentiment Report Chart of the Week: Long Equity Camp Crowded
It sure feels like a long time ago now, but it's been less than a decade since the European Union underwent a rather serious sovereign debt crisis.
This set off a roughly two year bear market for International Stocks as well as a rangebound mess for US stocks.
After this bout of volatility, most risk-assets carved out significant lows in 2016 and rallied higher until global risk peaked in 2018. Then it all fell apart again last year.
This brings us to today, where we're now seeing European countries and indexes trade right back up to their 2018 or pre-COVID highs left and right.
While diversified global indexes like MSCI EAFE $EFA and MSCI Europe $VGK recently reclaimed their former highs from 2014, 2018, and are already well above their pre-COVID peaks - they are now approaching a far more important area of overhead resistance at their pre-financial crisis highs.
Welcomeback to our latest "Under The Hood” column for the week ended April 30, 2021. This column is published bi-weekly and rotated on-and-off with our Minor Leaguers column.
In this column, we 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.
I've caught myself talking more and more about Cryptocurrencies since last Summer.
And there's a reason for that.
We like buying things that are going up in price, and selling (or not buying) the things going down.
That's really it.
You guys who have been around for a while remember me writing about, commenting and informing readers about Bitcoin back in 2016. I was talking about Crypto trading then even more than I am now. In fact, if you knew me back in 2014, I probably sent you some bitcoin as a gift. I was into doing that sort of thing back then.
BUT, in between 2018 and 2020 there wasn't really much to do in that space, so I stayed quiet and focused my efforts and attention elsewhere, like in Technology and Growth stocks for example.
More recently, we've been pounding the table about Bitcoin since last summer and then Ethereum more so throughout 2021.
From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza and Ian Culley @IanCulley
One major theme that we’re watching closely right now are the growing number of risk assets at or near critical levels or key former highs.
We continue to see a variety of world stock market indexes approach crucial inflection points. As the list keeps getting longer, our cautionary view of the potential for further choppiness in many markets gets stronger.
Where prices resolve from here in major indexes like the MSCI Emerging Markets, EAFE -- and even some major domestic indexes such as the Russell 2000, are about to provide us with some big-time information into the health of global equities and risk-assets in general.
Today, we’re going to look at one of these diversified international indexes that finds itself in this same boat as it approaches its pre-financial crisis record highs.
This week on the podcast I sit down with Meb Faber, Co-Founder, CEO and CIO of Cambia Investments. In addition to his "Day job", as he puts it, Meb has authored 5 investment books, a countless amount of white papers, and is also a very popular follow on Twitter @MebFaber.
This was really fun for me because Meb is an expert at a lot of things that I am just not, like what happens behind the scenes at ETFs, angel investing and academic studies. He brings up some great points about providing strategies that work, but that people also want/need.
He has some strong opinions about share buy backs instead of distributing dividends, learning through acting and participating, and how lucky him and I are that we took the CMT decades ago when it was a lot easier than it is today!
From the desk of Steven Strazza @Sstrazza and Ian Culley @Ianculley
Are Softs finally showing signs of life?
Base Metals, Grains, and even Energy have posted strong rallies over the last year. Yet the Softs -- Cocoa, Coffee, Cotton, and Sugar -- have continued to struggle below overhead supply.
But we’re seeing all the traditional signs of a structural trend reversal from this lagging group right now.
Let’s take a closer look at Coffee futures to pinpoint why we believe this bear-to-bull trend change is underway…
These are the registration details for our Live Monthly Candlestick Strategy Session for Premium Members of All Star Charts.
This month’s Video Conference Call will be held on Monday May 3rd @ 6PM ET. As always, if you cannot make the call live, the video and slides will be archived and published here along with every other live call since 2015.
We laid out our thesis and the key level we're watching to potentially prove it wrong... That is and has been 1.70 in the Russell Large Cap Growth vs Value ratio.
Once again this month, I’m going to share info on positions that were closed or managed in the month of April. As a reminder, our exit plans are always laid out ahead of time in each trade idea we publish. In every case, the exits mentioned below were all exited in accordance with the plan as laid out.
As we head towards May expiration, we only have one position remaining with May options.
