This weekend all of the Chartbooks on the site were updated, so this is a quick post to highlight some of the significant developments since they were last updated. In our last update summary we discussed the fresh breakouts in Financial Services, Consumer Goods, and IT, as well as the continued strength in large-caps relative to mid and small-caps. Today we're going to check in on those themes and also highlight some new ones.
I know the US Dollar isn't as sexy as Tesla's Elon Musk tweeting market moving information every few hours or Apple hitting a trillion dollar market-cap, but I have been waiting all summer for a resolution of this range in the Dollar Index and it looks like we might be finally getting it. Whether this move is successful and the Dollar continues higher, or it's a failed breakout that sends the Euro ripping, there will be significant cross-asset implications that are worth thinking about as this move develops.
If you've been reading our blog for a while, you're probably familiar with our process and how we identify reward/risk scenarios that are ridiculously skewed in our favor. With that said, the way we accomplish that doesn't always look exactly the same. Sometimes we're buying breakouts and trading with the trend, other times we're trading against the trend for mean reversion, and other times it's some combination of strategies.
This entire year we've been talking about under-performance in the mid-cap and small-cap segments of the market. To take advantage of that we've wanted to be shorting, or at least avoiding longs in, the weakest names in sectors like Public Sector Banks, Infrastructure, Metals, Media, Realty, etc. Last month many of our downside price targets were hit from a tactical perspective and we took a more neutral approach, waiting for better entries on the short side. Now that we've seen a multi-week bounce off the lows in the mid and small-cap indexes, we're going to revisit the space for the best reward/risk setups on the short side.
There's been a lot of talk about equity market breadth both in the US and globally, but one thing I've not seen mentioned throughout the debate is Dow Theory. While there are five tenets of Dow Theory, today I want to focus on the aspect regarding confirmation among the three averages: The Dow Jones Industrial Average, The Dow Jones Transportation Average, and The Dow Jones Utility Average, by assessing their primary trends.
Sector rotation in this market continues and the Agribusiness and Chemical Industries within the Materials Sector look to be heating up. While their performance on a relative basis is lackluster, on an absolute basis there are several setups offering reward/risk scenarios skewed in our favor.
First let's take a structural look at the Agribusiness ETF $MOO, which contains exposure to Chemical stocks as there is no ETF dedicated to that industry. Prices got back to their '08 highs earlier in the year and have been consolidating since. A breakout above 66 would signal the beginning of a new long-term uptrend that targets 94.25.
Earlier this year I discussed what I look for when picking a bottom in a stock using Twitter as an example.Today I want to look at The Container Store because it's exhibiting similar characteristics that suggest the stock has begun a new long-term uptrend.
We're witnessing yet another breakout attempt in the commodities market, and this time it's Cotton. This post is going to take a look at the setup, how it may develop, and how we can take advantage of it.
Every so often we hear the narrative that under-performance from China's stock market is a canary in the coal mine for US Equities, and the recent tariff tantrums have brought this discussion front and center. Today I want to look at this relationship to see if it has any merit or if it's just a smart sounding soundbite that you can use around the office water cooler.
We've been extremely vocal about the Medical Devices space on the blog, and rightfully so, with the sector continuing its long-term trend of out-performance throughout 2018. The index has 57 components, but because the top 10 stocks make up roughly 60% of the index, opportunities in the smaller components tend to be overlooked by many market participants. In this post I want to look at all of its components and highlight names where our risk is well-defined and the reward/risk is still skewed in our favor.
Let's start off with the sector ETF $IHI on an absolute basis for context. Prices are just off all-time highs after successfully retesting their breakout area near 203.50. As long as prices are above that level, short and intermediate-term momentum remains intact and our next upside objective is up near 248-249.50.
Most Nifty Indexes' largest components have a very large weighting on their performance, and Nifty Pharma is no exception. Sun Pharmaceuticals represents roughly a quarter of the index, so today we're going to look at it's role as a potential leading indicator for the rest of the sector.
Below is a daily line chart of the Nifty Pharma Index overlayed with Sun Pharmaceuticals. What we see from this relationship is that Sun Pharma generally leads the index, so when it's showing relative strength a move higher is likely, and when it's showing relative weakness then a move lower is likely. The two rarely separate from each other for long.
Interest rates are on the move, with the Ten-Year Treasury Yield breaking 3% once again after working off its failed breakout attempt from May. One relationship that's highly correlated with the Ten-Year Yield is Regional Banks vs REITS. We've written about this relationship in 2016 and 2017, but it's at an important inflection point so today's chart is going to revisit it.