When assets are in strong uptrends, they tend to not just do well on an absolute basis, but they also outperform their alternatives. In the case of stocks, some good alternatives would be Bonds and Gold. No, not bitcoin.
So with stocks all over the world breaking out to new highs, more and more stocks participating, and even the biggest laggards around the world catching a bid, how are they performing relative to their alternatives?
Well, here is Gold vs the Nasdaq Composite breaking down to new 19-year lows. The trend is strong in this one:
During bull markets I always get asked about when it's going to stop. I don't get asked about stock market bubbles and unsustainable valuations during bear markets, that's for sure. Those environments come with other kinds of funny questions.
This morning I woke up to one of my college buddies telling me that tech valuations are too high and that this has to be a bubble.
Journalists ask me every day how this can possibly continue. "Too high", they say. "Too fast", they tell me. "Fed Printing", they claim. "It's only 5 stocks!!!"... I can't.
Anyway, maybe this is the top. Maybe we are about to crash. Maybe valuations are too high....
But there's no evidence at all that this is the top. New All-time highs are not characteristic of downtrends. They are things we see regularly in uptrends. In fact, new highs are perfectly normal, and should even be expected in this type of environment.
Every month we get a fresh batch of Monthly Candlesticks. It only happens 12 times a year.
I promise you guys from the bottom of my heart that there is no other part of my entire process that provides as much value and information as my monthly chart review. Premium Members can access the Chartbook here. Stay tuned as we'll be adding more workbooks of charts this week to the Chartbook section.
In the meantime, my friend Josh Brown and I have been doing these short monthly videos since the summer. They're fun and I like how he pushes back against me sometimes. In other interviews they make it too easy on me. I like these!
This month we talk about the breakout in Biotech, Market-cap rotation into Small-caps, European Stocks performing well and what we're doing about Gold & Bitcoin.
Today a conversation came up about whether Gold is an "investment" but Bitcoin is just "Speculation".
Come on...
Let's be serious. One is a useless rock and the other is an almost useless currency. Both of these are speculations. Both of these can be considered "investments". But the only reason to buy either of these is because you think someone else will pay you more for it in the future.
If you don't think a greater fool will pay you more down the road, there's no reason to own either of them.
On another note, the behavior we're seeing in both of these is eerily similar. Keep in mind, since earlier this year we were bullish on both of them, betting that Bitcoin and Gold would trade much higher. Our targets? The former all-time highs: Gold's 2011 peak and Bitcoin's 2017 peak.
Mission accomplished. Great trades! Since then, they're someone else's problem.
Look at both of these and tell me they're not behaving exactly the same. Granted, on different time horizons, but as they say, "The markets are fractal", meaning that you'll see the same behavior patterns across timeframes.
As we come into the week of Dhanteras and Diwali, and the celebrations that go with that, let us talk about some of the financial decisions we may consider at this time. I heard Swarup Mohanty at Mirae Asset Management say this a few weeks ago: "Dhanteras is the time for our Annual SIP into Gold." It's true and I'd never thought of it that way.
Buying Gold has been a traditional investment for many. But financial markets have developed to the point that we look at buying Gold as a financial decision - complete with its risks, rewards, and top-down analysis.
(I'm not sure if Mr. Mohanty came up with that expression or if I should have credited someone else. I heard it from him. Please forgive any mistakes in this.)
There was a lot of movement across asset classes over the last week, but more importantly, the market gave us some key inflection points to trade against.
In this post, we're going to look at Precious Metals and review how we should be approaching them.