From the desk of Steven Strazza @Sstrazza and Ian Culley @Ianculley
Cyclical stocks are all the craze.
If you're doing well this year, it's because you own these stocks. If you're not, it's because you don't own these stocks.
Whether we're talking about energy, agricultural inputs, or industrial metals, these are the kinds of industry groups that are showing relative strength.
And, to be clear, this is nothing new. This theme has been in place for over a year now.
The only new development is that we're seeing upside momentum in these names pick up. As a result, the gap between these winners and the rest of the market has widened to historic levels.
From the desk of Steven Strazza @Sstrazza and Ian Culley @Ianculley
Gold looks like it’s ready to run.
The largest gold miner in the world, Newmont Mining Corp. $NEM, has broken out of a multi-year base.
Silver and platinum have dug in at critical support levels and are catching higher.
And, most importantly, gold is in the process of reclaiming its former all-time highs from summer 2020.
These are all bullish developments, suggesting gold -- and precious metals more broadly -- are ready to join in on the party that most commodities have been enjoying for more than a year.
Last month, gold broke above its former 2011 highs near 1,924. Here’s a zoomed-out view of the chart:
From the desk of Steven Strazza @Sstrazza and Ian Culley @Ianculley
Commodities have been on a tear, with the Bloomberg Commodity Index recently posting its best week since 1970 and the CRB Index rallying more than 25% year to date.
Despite the broad strength from commodities, Dr. Copper – a key economic barometer – has yet to break out like so many of its peers.
After making a new all-time high last Friday, buyers were unable to sustain the move, and price retreated into its former range.
While it’s great to see so many other contracts trending higher, bulls really need to see copper join the mix. If this is truly a new commodity supercycle, it better break out from this consolidation.
It is that important to the overall asset class.
Let’s break down the various technical scenarios for copper’s recent move and discuss what they mean for the entire space.
First, the move could have been a premature breakout:
Commodities have been at the center of our analysis for over a year now. There have been times when base metals have done well. And here have been times when agri commodities have done well. But every single time, precious metals stayed out of it.
Precious metals have been the worst place to be in over the past one and a half years. But it looks as though things are about to change.
Why?
Gold and Silver seem to be interested in jumping on the bullish bandwagon. Are they there yet? Let's take a look!
Precious metals have been the worst place to be in for the longest time. But with commodities across the globe taking off, precious metals finally got the memo. The cargo is on the move, folks!
Not many people know this, but I used to be a gold bug way back in the day.
Mid-2000s and into the financial crisis and beyond?
I was Mr. Gold Bug.
Any good technician was. That's how price told us to behave.
But then a funny thing happened. A combination of price and common sense proved that being a gold bug was no longer a good idea. That was about a decade ago.
And you know how humans are. Many of those angry little buggers stuck around and held other people's bags this entire time, while stocks and other risk assets have ripped making everyone rich, except for gold bugs.
It's funny how life works.
Because I think we might be back.
It's hard not to be in the Rocks > Stocks club these days.
We held our March Monthly Strategy Session last Tuesday. Premium Members can click here to review the video recording and download the slide deck.
Non-members can see some highlights from the call by reading this post each month.
By focusing on long-term, monthly charts, the idea is to take a step back and put things into the context of their structural trends.
This is easily one of our most valuable exercises as it forces us to put aside the day-to-day noise and simply examine markets from a “big-picture” point of view.
With that as our backdrop, let’s dive right in and discuss three of the most important charts and/or themes from this month’s call.
