From the desk of Steven Strazza @Sstrazza and Grant Hawkridge @granthawkridge

Outside of the large-cap averages in the US, most stocks have been stuck in sideways trends for much of 2021. We’ve seen breakouts fail in both directions over the past two months, as sloppy price action continues to govern the broader market.

As we discussed in our last intermarket post, this range-bound action has not just been the case for stocks on an absolute basis. We’re seeing the same thing from commodities, cryptocurrencies, and even our risk-appetite ratios. Risk assets have simply been a mess.

Let's take a look at one of our favorite risk-appetite ratios, as there's been an important development in the discretionary versus staples relationship. 

Here is large-cap consumer discretionary $XLY versus consumer staples $XLP: 

From the desk of Steven Strazza @Sstrazza

It's been about a month since small- and mid-caps resolved to the upside and made fresh highs.

As we all are aware, these were simply massive head-fakes. We're right back to where we started--stuck in the middle of the same range we've been in all year.

There was also plenty of evidence from our intermarket relationships and ratios to support these moves. Discretionary-versus-staples ratios broke to fresh highs. Copper versus gold. Stocks versus bonds. Inflation expectations. They all made new highs recently. But, just like most stocks on an absolute basis, many of these breakouts have since failed.

Of all these developments, it's hard to argue that any is more important than the stocks-versus-bonds ratio retracing back beneath its Q1 highs. With long rates making new lows and stocks selling off, let's talk about how we are approaching both of these asset classes right now.

Here's the S&P 500 $SPY relative to long-term Treasury bonds $TLT, zoomed out to the early 2000s.

From the desk of Steven Strazza @Sstrazza and Grant Hawkridge @granthawkridge

Everything's falling into place for the bulls.

Mid-caps and small-caps finally joined their large-cap peers at new record highs earlier this month. A bullish expansion in breadth is confirming these breakouts at the index level.

We're also seeing strong confirmation in the form of other risk assets resolving above key levels of interest.

As suspected, our risk checklist has moved up to its highest level since we began tracking it this summer. This list does an excellent job summarizing the global landscape.

Here’s a look at where things stand presently:

From the desk of Steven Strazza @Sstrazza and Grant Hawkridge @granthawkridge

Most risk assets peaked during Q1 or May of this year and have consolidated in sideways ranges ever since.

But the bulls have started to take control of many of these trends. We're seeing more and more upside resolutions -- and this phenomenon isn't limited to Crude Oil, Rates, AUD/JPY, and cyclical stocks. Similar patterns are also playing out when we look at intermarket ratios, particularly those we use to measure risk appetite.

In today’s post, we'll dive into one of our favorite risk-appetite relationships and check for price confirmation in a variety of ratios.

First up is none other than large-cap consumer discretionary versus consumer staples stocks: 

From the desk of Steven Strazza @Sstrazza and Grant Hawkridge @granthawkridge

In today's post, we’re going to do an update on some of our favorite and most essential intermarket indicators. We’ve also updated our risk checklist so we can discuss the changes that have occurred over the past week or so.

Are market participants embracing more or less risk these days? 

We’ll get there.

We've been obnoxious about our theme that this remains a messy environment for stocks, which is nothing but classic "year two" bull market behavior.

But guess what: That’s just what it is right now. You have to play the cards you’re dealt, and right now they’re not the best. This is particularly true for trend-followers like ourselves.

Let’s talk about why.

Our custom “Risk-On” and “Risk-Off” indexes have been a perfect illustration of the 2021 market environment.

This is what a hot mess looks like… and it’s true for both custom indexes as well as the ratio of the two!

From the desk of Steven Strazza @Sstrazza and Grant Hawkridge @granthawkridg

Money really likes to flow where it's treated the best… and as far as sectors and even most industry groups go, there simply isn't much alpha out there at the moment.

In analyzing relative trends, we’re always aware of how the overall stock market is performing against defensive assets. 

In today’s post, we’re going to check in on those sectors investors pile into when seeking safety as opposed to positioning for risk.

Utilities, Real Estate, and Staples... the “bond proxy” groups. Let's dive in.

Here's a custom index of them all charted relative to the broader market.

Notice how the relationship has stopped trending lower since it bottomed back in July.

From the desk of Steven Strazza @Sstrazza and Grant Hawkridge @granthawkridge

For the better part of 2021, we've been pounding the table about markets being a chop fest. And we'd seen little evidence suggesting this was likely to change any time soon--until this week, that is.

Trendless… range-bound… call it whatever you want, but the path of least resistance for stocks and many other risk assets has simply been sideways!  

Alas, we’re seeing some strong bullish action this week that we simply can’t ignore. Let's talk about it.

Before we get there, though, let’s take a step back and look at small- and micro-caps, as they provide great illustrations of this sloppy stock market story...

SMIDs and micros have not been able to make any real progress for most of the year. 

From the desk of Steven Strazza @Sstrazza and Grant Hawkridge @granthawkridge

In today's post, we’ll discuss some of our favorite and most important intermarket ratios and see what they’re suggesting for markets and risk appetite around the globe.

One thing we found interesting when digging through these charts is that many of them look a lot like stocks do right now. 

Sideways. Range-bound. Messy. But, within the context of underlying uptrends.

So these are basically just continuation patterns on shorter timeframes.

But, after consolidating for months and even quarters now, we are beginning to see some resolve higher… kind of like we’re seeing from stocks on an absolute basis.

Coincidence? Probably not.

We think this makes a lot of sense and bodes well for risk assets. Let’s take a look at some of these charts now.

Here’s one of the most important cross-asset ratios we track, and it’s a great example of exactly what we’re talking about. 

This is the stocks-versus-bonds ratio $SPY/$TLT:

From the desk of Steven Strazza @Sstrazza and Grant Hawkridge @granthawkridge

One of the main themes we discussed in the Q3 Playbook we published last week is the lack of any directional bias for equities on a relative basis.

We’ve been obnoxious about the trendless environment for equities on an absolute basis... and now we’re noticing a lot of the same play out in many of the relative trends we monitor.

When there is no edge on absolute terms, we can at least try and generate alpha by taking advantage of relative trends through pair trades.

But, right now there’s really nothing out there giving us an opportunity to do so. This is about as rough of an environment for money managers as you’ll find.

All we see is sideways, sloppy, range-bound action… Standard year-two stuff!

To illustrate what we mean, let's take a look at each large-cap sector SPDR relative to the S&P.

We'll start with the “growthy” sectors.