Today will be a "big" day for markets as the Federal Reserve will announce their decision on the new target Federal Funds Rate.
Currently, markets are pricing in a roughly 80% chance of a 25bp cut and a 20% chance of a 50bp cut. This means market participants have assigned 0% odds to rates remaining where they are after today's meeting.
We've been pretty clear over the last few months about where we stand regarding the different asset classes, so there's not much left to do other than wait and see how prices settle by the end of the week.
With that said, here are a few charts we're watching through Friday's close.
Today we're updating our outlook for global markets and providing ideas to profit in the second half of 2019.
Part 1 of this playbook will provide our perspective on all four asset classes and update our views on the major themes within India that we're paying attention to.
The good news is the S&P 500 and several other large-cap US indexes are back at all-time highs, however, the bad news is there remains a lack of confirmation from breadth and momentum readings around the world.
Needless to say, it was easier to be buying stocks last month than it is today, but let's avoid getting into the weeds and simply look at the number of markets around the world above their 2018 highs.
Below is a table of the global equity markets we track prices in their local currencies. While there are performance stats from several key inflection points like the January 2018 and September highs in the S&P 500, as well as its bottom on December 24th, we want to focus on the left-most "Change From 2018 Highs" column.
This compares the market prices now to where they were at their highest point in 2018, or in other words, it gives us an idea of what the trend is.
Currently, the median stock market in the world is 6.22% off its 2018 high.
Canada, like a few other Major Indexes from around the globe, continues to churn around all-time highs. So which way will it resolve?
Let's go sector by sector and see what the weight of the evidence suggests, just like JC did for US Stocks.
First, let's start with the TSX Composite, which continues to hover near its 2018 highs as momentum diverges. After a ~20% rally off the December lows and the presence of a flat 200-day, it would be healthy to see some consolidation at current levels before breaking out
Excuse my play on words in the title, but I wanted to make the point that at 13% of the Nifty 500, the Fast Moving Consumer Goods Index is a big part of the bull case for Indian stocks.
We've talked about weak participation in this sector and since then it's deteriorated further as opposed to getting better.
A Doctor would never diagnose a patient without first seeing what's going on inside. A mechanic won't be able to tell you what's wrong with your car without lifting the hood. It's no different in the market. How can we possibly judge the S&P500 without opening it up first to see what's happening among its components.
Today we're going to focus on the sectors themselves. We're looking at weekly candlestick charts for all of the 11 major sectors:
Technology
Real Estate
Energy
Healthcare
Financials
Consumer Discretionary
Consumer Staples
Utilities
Industrials
Materials
Communication Services
How many sectors are making new highs? How many are making new lows? Are more of them starting to trend higher or are more of them starting to trend lower. In which direction are consolidations resolving, higher or lower?
Market Breadth means a lot of things to a lot of people. The way I see it, we're analyzing a market of stocks. There are a variety of tools to help us do that including the Advance-Decline Line, List of new highs & lows and the percentage of stocks getting overbought or oversold, which can be calculated in many ways. Today I'm joined by Andrew Thrasher in a video we shot earlier this month in New York. It's an important topic and I'm glad we had the chance to discuss it.
I saw a couple tweets yesterday about FAANG stocks and their "lack of participation" in the market's four month rally and just don't get it.
First it was a problem when the largest stocks in the S&P 500 were leading. Now it's a problem that most aren't hitting all-time highs with the S&P 500.
I just finished writing a free post for All Star Charts India following up on where we've been over the last two months and what this last week of price action means for Indian stocks in the near-term.
As I was writing up the post I noticed a lot of similarities between US Stocks today and where India was just a few weeks ago.
I'm going to summarize the key points, but I'd encourage you to read that post in full so you can really see what I'm talking about below.
Long-term, we're bullish Equities in India and around the world, but are remaining patient in the near-term due to momentum and breadth divergences we've been seeing across major indexes, sectors, and individual names. It's happening in the US too.
We've been writing about this for a few weeks, so I wanted to follow up today and show the progression of that thesis.
Last week's Chart of The Week discussed the "One More High" type setup we often see prior to price consolidations or pullbacks, providing some context around why we continue to remain structurally bullish, but not very aggressive in the short-term.
