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July's Strategy Session will be held on Wednesday, July 6th at 7 PM IST. As always, if you cannot make the call live, the video and slides will be archived and published here along with all of our past conference calls.
Over the last month we've spoken about weakness in small and mid-caps and the sectors we want to be involved in on both the long and short side. In healthy market environments we see sector rotation keep the broader market afloat as leaders correct through either time or price, however, we've not seen any of that over the last few months. The weakest sectors have not caught a bid as leaders correct, instead they've gotten even weaker. This is a problem.
As a result of the labor intensive process needed to maintain the Chartbook Notes and their lack of use by the majority of members, we have decided to discontinue this feature. We will be adding new tools and functionality to replace it by the end of the quarter. In the meantime if any of the charts in the Chartbook are unclear and you need further clarification, please feel free to contact us and we'll get back to you within 24 hours. Thank you in advance for your patience as we make these improvements to the site.
Over the last few weeks we've been making several changes to the site and will be adding more stuff over the coming weeks based on your feedback. One of the changes we've made is the notes in our Chartbooks. We've received several questions on how to interpret them, so today I want to use this post to quickly walk you through just that.
One of the most valuable parts of our research process in the US is our multi-timeframe analysis of the Dow 30 components. By analyzing 30 of the largest companies in the US markets we can quickly gain an understanding of the index's underlying trend and which sectors are showing relative strength and which are showing relative weakness.
In India, we perform the same exercise with the Nifty 50 and Nifty Next 50. Over the last few months we've pointed out the weakness in mid and small-cap stocks, but more recently our analysis of the individual stocks within the large-cap indexes has started to suggest that this weakness may be spreading. Yesterday we talked about weak stocks in the Nifty 50, so today we're going to perform the same exercise with the Nifty Next 50.
One of the most valuable parts of our research process in the US is our multi-timeframe analysis of the Dow 30 components. By analyzing 30 of the largest companies in the US markets we can quickly gain an understanding of the index's underlying trend and which sectors are showing relative strength and which are showing relative weakness.
In India, we perform the same exercise with the Nifty 50. Over the last few months we've pointed out the weakness in mid and small-cap stocks, but more recently our analysis of the individual stocks within the Nifty 50 has started to suggest that this weakness may be spreading to large-caps. Within this post I want to point out a few of the names in the Nifty 50 that have us concerned about the performance of the index and may even be offering opportunities on the short side.
Over the last two months the Rupee has rallied against several of the most widely traded currencies in the world, including the US Dollar, Euro, British Pound, Yen, and Australian Dollar. With that said, the Rupee's rally versus the US Dollar was short lived and the pair is now back toward 2.5-year lows, suggesting it remains vulnerable and that further weakness may be ahead.
The Nifty Energy Index is hitting 2.5-month highs relative to the Nifty 500, lead by Reliance Industries Ltd. which makes up 50% of the index and is making all-time highs. With a component making up that large a percentage of the index, it's inevitable that strength, or in this case weakness, of the other holdings may be masked by the overbearing influence of one stock.
The roughly 15% rally in the Nifty Pharma Index that's occurred over the last four weeks has a lot of people asking "was that the bottom?". In an attempt to answer that question I'll be looking not only at the index itself, but at its 10 components as well.
Before we get into that though, I think it's important to understand how this index is constructed. Despite there being 35 pharmaceutical stocks in the Nifty 500, the Nifty Pharma Index only has ten stocks in it that make up roughly 80% of the industry's market capitalization. Situations like this are why we useequal-weighted indexes to get a better idea of what stocks in this industry are doing, as only looking at the cap-weighted index which is dominated by large-caps can mask the positive or negative relative performance of its mid and small-cap companies.
But today we're talking about the cap-weighted index performance, so let's get right into it.
Mid and small-cap stocks have been under-performing their large-cap counterparts as of late, however, it's important to remember when looking at an index that it's basket of stocks and therefore looking at each of the components can unearth great opportunities. Yesterday we did a deep dive into mid-cap stocks for long opportunities, so today we're following that up with a look for similar setups in small-caps.
Before we get into individual stocks, I want to highlight the potential failed breakdown that we're watching in the index itself. Last week prices undercut the March lows as momentum diverged positively. If we can get back above 8,040, it would confirm a failed breakdown and likely be the catalyst to push this market to new all-time highs. The individual names within this index remain mixed, so a neutral stance remains appropriate in the index itself until this range resolves itself.
Mid and small-cap stocks have been under-performing their large-cap counterparts as of late, however, it's important to remember when looking at an index that it's basket of stocks and therefore looking at each of the components can unearth great opportunities. In this month's (Premium) Members Only Conference Call we spoke about the strength in the Financial Services, Information Technology, Consumer Goods, and Energy sectors, so this is a follow-up post looking at the mid-cap stocks, many of which are in these sectors, that we want to be buying.
Crude Oil has been in a strong uptrend since late last year and is now giving us an opportunity to get involved on the long side once again after our initial price target near 4,425 was exceeded in mid-April.
Over the last two weeks, prices have experienced a swift 13% decline that has brought them back to a confluence of support near 4,425. Given that they're are still above a rising 200-day moving average and momentum remains in a bullish range, we want to be buying this pullback. Our risk is very well-defined at last week's lows of 4,305 and our next upside objective is 20% from current levels at 5,335. We know where we're wrong and the market is likely to let us know very quickly if we are, but for now the primary trend continues to favor the bulls.
Typically we look to trade in the direction of the underlying trend as that increases our probability of success, however, occasionally lower-probability counter-trend trades offer reward/risk scenarios that are ridiculously skewed in our favor. Today we'll be looking at some of those setups where there are bullish momentum divergences and failed breakdowns that help us to define our risk and put probability in our favor.
A good example of this type of setup is Unichem Labs. Prices have been range-bound for most of the last three years and have been declining for most of 2018. Last week they undercut the 2017 lows and quickly reversed, confirming the potential bullish momentum divergence and failed breakdown. This suggests being long if prices are above the prior lows of 236, with a target near the middle of the range at 285.
