This week's "Chart of The Week" is exploring the potential 20% upside in Tata Motors, however, I want to use this post to explore the rest of the Automobile Sector for potential opportunities.
For us, the big question going into the weekend was whether or not the most recent leg higher in U.S. Stocks is the beginning of something bigger, a breakout of epic proportions, or just a major whipsaw that will lead to further selling into September and October, two of the most historically volatile months of the year.
We see various crowds. On one hand, you have the bearish cult who for many reasons have fought this uptrend the whole time. Whether they just missed the last couple of years in stocks or, worse in some cases, missed the entire decade, they've been very wrong. There's even a group who wishes harm on the United States and elsewhere around the world, just because they disagree with decisions being made in D.C. They certainly don't want stocks to rise. And then you have another group, who is indifferent and is just looking for a favorable risk vs reward shorting opportunity and they think this is finally it.
This has been the big theme throughout this bull market: Money flowing into Consumer Discretionary stocks at a more rapid rate than towards Consumer Staples. By our work, this is characteristic of an uptrend in U.S. stocks and has been a great tell for a long time. You guys following along for the past few years know that well. We even nicknamed the Staples underperformance as, "The Most Bullish Chart On Earth" (See May 2017).
For most of this year we've been writing about the overwhelming amount of bullish evidence for US Equities, however, as part of our "weight of the evidence" approach we're always questioning our thesis (i.e. here and here).
In today's post I want to share that exercise as I perform it, outlining some current concerns and what the market would potentially look like in an environment where stocks as in the US as an asset class are falling. We're going to stick with our top-down approach and start with International Equities and inter-market relationships, then drill down into specific examples that help illustrate what we're talking about.
I'm in Texas all week talking charts and watching college football. I will be presenting at the local chapters of the CMT Association, including Dallas, Austin and Houston. If you're in the area, I invite you to join us one of these evenings for a walk through what we're currently seeing in the market. I'll show you how I incorporate a top/down approach looking at global stock indexes and U.S. sectors & industry groups to ultimately find individual stocks to buy and sell.
Here are the details:
*Note the time for the Dallas meeting has been changed to 4PM ET
This week I'm thrilled to have my pal Todd Gordon on the show. He is what I like to call an "Elliottician", meaning he approaches the market using the Wave principle developed by Ralph Nelson Elliott throughout the 1930s. Todd Gordon, of TradingAnalysis.com walks us through his wave counts for the S&P500, Gold, and Semiconductors. In this episode, I think we demystify and answer some of the questions we all have about Elliott Wave and its practicality. I encourage you to have the charts with you when you listen to this one because Todd goes over several Elliott Wave counts that will make a lot more sense if you're following along visually. He does a good job of explaining things so you can also go back and listen again with the charts in the future. I hope you enjoy this one. I really did!
Last week I wrote about the Canada's Energy markets to introduce our new Canadian Chartbooks (Major Sectors & Indices and TSX 60). In today's post I want to focus on the Banking and REIT sectors, which are showing relative strength and continue to offer opportunity on the long side. Not to mention I've been itching to use this Toy Story pun as a title since JC hired me.
First let's take a look at the TSX Capped REITs Index vs the TSX Capped Composite. It's spent the last 2 years bottoming and is now breaking out above a confluence of resistance. If this ratio is above it, the bias is to the upside with a target at the '15-'16 highs.
The Baseball-almanac calls the 7th Inning Stretch, "Perhaps the most mundane, yet physically rewarding moment of every baseball game". Over time, I've learned to respect this time of the stock market calendar year in a similar manner. The timing of it is very close too, as we approach about 2/3 of the way through the game, or year in this case.
I've found that it's a great time to reflect on the decisions we've made so far in 2018 and mentally prepare for the rest of the year. This period I'm referring to specifically is the week before Labor Day weekend and the week after. Things historically get back to normal around September 10th-11th.
This week I had the chance to visit Toronto for the first time. I spent a couple of days meeting with investors, doing a TV spot and taking in some of the things Canada has to offer.
I was invited to speak at the Toronto CFA Society to talk about my Technical Analysis. It was an event put on by the Canadian Society of Technical Analysts and the CMT Association. The crowd was great, interested in charts and eager to learn. Everyone was so nice.
While in Toronto, I caught a Blue Jays game (they beat the Orioles 6-0) and ate too much sushi. All in all, mission accomplished!
Before the event on Thursday I went by the BNN Bloomberg studios for a TV interview with Catherine Murray. It was a lot of fun.
This week we added Canadian Stock Market and Sector Indexes and the entire TSX 60 to our chartbook coverage. To kick that off, I want to take a look at the Canadian Energy market and share what we're seeing.
