We have been writing a lot about risk-appetite lately as we're constantly trying to gauge the "animal spirits" at work in the markets. Right now we're seeing a lack of participation from risk-assets such as Small-Caps, Commodities, and the more cyclical sectors as well as a risk-off theme in many of our intermarket ratios.
We've covered the US plenty already, so this post will focus on what we're seeing from risk-assets in Equity Markets abroad.
This week's Mystery Chart was an inverted chart of the Frontier Markets ETF (FM). Thanks to everyone for participating. You were pretty much ALL buyers this week, which means you were actually selling Frontier Markets against their prior all-time lows.
Every weekend we publish performance tables for a variety of different asset classes and categories along with commentary on each.
As this is something we do internally on a daily basis, we believe sharing it with clients will add value and help them better understand our top-down approach. We use these tables to provide insight into both relative strength and market internals.
Adam Koos is a portfolio manager who uses Technical Analysis to make decisions for the clients he advises. In times like these, Financial Advisors all over the world are getting asked the hard questions. In this episode, Adam talks about how Technical Analysis has helped both his decision making and the communication with the families he works for. It's really cool to see these tools helping advisors everywhere, and especially a friend who I speak to regularly about markets and other common interests, like sports and wine.
Every weekend we publish simple performance tables for a variety of different asset classes and categories along with brief commentary on each.
As this is something we do internally on a daily basis, we believe sharing it with clients will add value and help them better understand our top-down approach. We use these tables to provide insight into both relative strength and market internals.
This week we want to highlight our US Equity Index and Factor tables, as they are both showing near-term reversions in some of the most robust long-term intermarket trends.
We're in that part of the cycle where friends from high school are calling me to ask about the market and family members I've never spoken to about the markets are now interested. It's funny what a little volatility can do to peak people's interests.
Anyway, these calls are coming early and often. Many of you in a similar position to me are probably having the same experience.
Today, I thought I'd just write a quick post about what I'm telling my loved ones when they ask.
First of all, I definitely stress that not having a plan is the first problem. This shouldn't be the time to try and figure out what to do. This is when stress levels are elevated and when we're most vulnerable to make irrational decisions. I try to remind them of this, but they don't care. They never do.
So moving on, the old, "JC, when do I buy stocks?" question keeps coming back. It's fair. Everyone wants to know.
Did you see Consumer Staples go out at new multi-year relative highs yesterday? The strength is in Staples, not in Banks or Industrials, for example, which keep making new relative lows.
So why should we care?
"JC, no one cares about staples, why does this matter?"
Well, as it turns out, Consumer Staples relative strength is one of the most reliable indicators of market strength and weakness that exists. You see, when stocks are doing well, Consumer Staples tend to underperform the rest of the market. When stocks are doing poorly, Staples are the leaders.
Think about it. No matter how bad the economy gets, we're still going to brush our teeth, wash our dishes, smoke cigarettes and drink beer right? As a society, I mean. Well, those are consumer staples. This is the group of stocks that outperforms as stocks fall, which makes perfect sense.
Here is the chart of Staples breaking out to new multi-year highs relative to S&Ps:
As always, thanks to everyone for participating in this week's Mystery Chart. Almost all respondents were buyers. A few also mentioned they would only want to be long against potential support at the prior lows which is likely the same approach we'd be taking with a long-term timeframe.
Wow what a weekend! Thank you all so much for your support.
We had 10,000 people register for Chart Summit, our Live Virtual Technical Analysis Conference. There were over 30 presentations and we raised over $50,000, just on the first day, to help fight COVID-19. You can still donate here.
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Just as we focus on the strongest markets and stocks to find opportunities during equity bull markets, we look to identify the weakest areas during bear markets. We just want to be in the strongest trends, regardless of their direction.
A few weeks ago we ran some statistics to highlight US stocks that were bucking the trend during the selloff, as those would be the areas to focus on if/when equities eventually regained their footing. While many names have fared well, we were a bit early as the market soon broke below our risk management levels, putting us in a position where we no longer want to be long stocks.
