From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Intermarket analysis is always an area of focus over here at All Star Charts. Right now, there are a lot of changes taking hold beneath the surface in some key cross-asset relationships.

For the longest time, the alpha has been in the US... it's been in large-caps... and it's been in growth stocks. That's been the playbook. We know because we've been running it back for years now.

Although, we're seeing strong evidence that this is no longer the case...

One of the best things about our approach is that it allows us to be incredibly flexible and adjust our views as new data becomes available.

We pride ourselves on never being dogmatic. Speaking of which, despite how much we've leaned on secular leadership from growth and tech stocks in recent years, the data is suggesting we reposition ourselves in favor of Value (read more about it, here).

Whenever I want to talk about bonds, I always know just who to call. Larry McDonald is a former bond trader at Lehman Brothers and author of the book, Colossal Failure of Common Sense. I highly encourage you to give it a read, especially if you're looking for some perspective on what really happened back in 2007-2008.

It's no coincidence that I reached out to him to come on the podcast. Larry and I had a very timely conversation in February of last year. So with the bond market recently losing 5-6 Trillion dollars in such a short period of time, who better to talk to than by favorite bond trader.

Here are the 3 most defensive assets I can think of, where money flows the fastest when it's scared and looking for a safe home.

It's hard to make the argument that a flight to safety is what's happening if they're all making new lows right? 

Some of us are old enough to remember a time when Value stocks were the place to be. The kids these days look at me like I'm nuts when I talk to them about banks and energy stocks!

There's a whole world of companies that used to do great. In fact, early in my career these were the names to be in: BTU, WLT, LEH, MER, BSC..... Good times!

Tech and all that other stuff came much later and has been the big driver in the U.S. over the past decade. But the rest of the world has suffered, without that exposure to Tech and Growth, and instead loaded with banks and natural resources, the worse places on earth for some time now.

Fast forward to today and we continue to get more and more evidence suggesting that it's changing.

It's no longer US over International and EM. It's been EM and International over US. It used to be Growth over value for so long.

That's just no longer the case:

It's not about a virus or any economic reports. It's about Credit.

We've said it before and we'll say it again.

Look at last year, for example. By the time the S&P500 finally put in its high in February, everything else had already been falling apart. Small-caps, Mid-caps, Micro-caps, Financials, Transportation, Emerging Markets, New Highs list, Advance-Decline Line, the Value Line Index and S&Ps relative to its alternatives had all been pointing to stocks falling.

There was more data early last year suggesting to be completely out of stocks, and in bonds instead, than before any other crash in stock market history. We discussed this last week.

But even if you ignored all of those factors. And you just looked credit, you would have seen Treasuries significantly outperforming the rest of the bond market. Credit told you:

From the desk of Steve Strazza @sstrazza

At the beginning of each week, we publish performance tables for a variety of different asset classes and categories, along with commentary on each.

Looking at the past helps put the future into context. In this post, we review the absolute and relative trends at play and preview some of the things we’re watching to profit in the weeks and months ahead.

Every major asset class on Earth continues to illustrate risk-taking behavior on the part of market participants.

Yields, Oil, Equities, Base Metals, the Australian Dollar -- there's an overwhelming amount of new highs in offensive areas of the market right now. The weight of the evidence continues to suggest that we want to be buyers, not sellers, of stocks.

What does the market environment look like if stocks are under pressure, and loading up on stocks is probably a bad idea?

Well, I'd argue we'll probably stop seeing new highs in Aussie Dollar and US 10-yr Yields:

It's hard not to laugh a little when we say ridiculous things like,

Regional Bank Stocks continue to be the market leaders during this Global Pandemic...."

Especially in front of a group of investors who think they're smart.

This is like the "least smart" comment you can make, according to some circles...

From the desk of Steve Strazza @sstrazza and Louis Sykes @haumicharts

In a recent post discussing cyclicals, we posed the following question:

Are Energy and Financial stocks about to lead the market?

Cyclical groups are catching all the right tailwinds in this environment.

Crude Oil and Yields are pressing to new 52-week highs as investors continue to favor more economically-sensitive stocks and commodities in general. This is a bullish development and supports higher prices for some of the most beaten-down risk assets... even Financials and Energy.

As participation has expanded, we've been vocal about looking for the winners in each group without a sector bias based on relative strength.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza.

We recently held February’s Monthly Conference Call which our Premium Members can access and rewatch here.

In this post, we’ll provide a summary of the call by highlighting 5 of the most important charts/topics we covered along with commentary on each.

Let’s dive into it.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @sstrazza

At the beginning of each week, we publish performance tables for a variety of different asset classes and categories along with commentary on each.

Looking at the past helps put the future into context. In this post, we review the absolute and relative trends at play and preview some of the things we’re watching to profit in the weeks and months ahead.

In last week's report, we played "devil's advocate" and laid out some of the more bearish developments we could find out there.

But all-in-all, the market is still providing bears less room to make a sound argument. We continue to find that any bearish evidence is primarily isolated to shorter timeframes... and even then, still overwhelmed by the abundance of bullish data points.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @sstrazza and Louis Sykes @haumicharts

In a post last month JC discussed the recent strength in Commodities and posed the following question...

If the CRB Index is above its 2016 lows and Crude Oil is above all those former lows from the past decade, how can we be bearish commodities?

Over the last few quarters, we've seen more and more intermarket relationships make a significant shift in favor of risk-assets.

Many are showing early signs of a structural reversal and others simply accelerating in the direction of their underlying trend.