This is an intermarket world that we live in. If you think what happens in the commodities and bond market isn't directly tied with what's also happening in the stock market, you've got a lot of homework to do.
You guys who have been following around along time know that we start out every single conversation about the stock market with, "Okay, what are bonds and commodities doing". It starts there. And then we go into the asset in question.
Look at Crude Oil still crashing down to new multi-decade lows:
Today's Chart of the Day, High Yield Bonds (HYG) vs Short-Term Treasuries (IEI), is one of our favorite risk-appetite ratios.
Credit Market investors favor High Yield Bonds over Treasury Bonds during the "good times" - periods of strong economic growth, rising rates, etc. On the other hand, we know treasuries are a safe-have asset and outperform in environments where investors are uncertain and want a place to park their capital until the smoke clears.
The trend for stocks is down. When they do rally, they scream dead-cat bounce. And bonds keep going out at new all-time highs every week. Gold is at its highest prices in 7 years and Interest rates are in free-fall along with bank stocks. What type of environment does this appear like to you? Is it the kind of market where we want to be buying stocks aggressively, or is this the type of market where we want to be smaller, cash heavy and more defensive?
Let's try to figure it out together.
First of all, Industrials historically have the highest correlation with the S&P500 of all the S&P Sectors. This is what that group currently looks like. One of our most basic technical principles is that former support turns into resistance. We call that Polarity. You can see this taking place in this sector index:
This week's Mystery Chart exercise gives us a nice glimpse into the current sentiment amid the recent volatility, so thanks to all those who responded. The overwhelming majority of you we're either selling or doing nothing, which comes as little surprise.
Many of you wanted to sell this chart aggressively and even cited the current market environment as part of you're reasoning. But! The chart was inverted... so all those who were pounding the table to short it were actually buying the Nasdaq 100 (QQQ) relative to the Russell 3000 (IWV).
I'm curious to see how, if at all, this changes your perspective on the chart. Tweet me @sstrazza with your thoughts!
As we look for signs of a tradeable low in Equities, we're not only looking at breadth and the stock market's leaders, we're also looking to the Commodity market for a signal of what's to come.
Let's get into why Copper needs to be on your radar.
As we look for signs of a tradeable low in Equities, we're not only looking at breadth and the stock market's leaders, we're also looking to the Commodity market for a signal of what's to come.
Let's get into why Copper needs to be on your radar.
Every month I host a Conference Call for members of All Star Charts Pro. From the feedback we get from our readers all over the world, this one feature of our Membership is a fan favorite.
A lot has happened in the past month. You hear things about interest rates getting slashed to zero, viruses impacting stocks all over the world and many things that none of us could have predicted a month ago. However, Technical Analysis gave us the ability to get out of the way and avoid this entire mess. Not only did we want to buy bonds, but we simultaneously wanted to sell stocks!
Today I want to share with you the video of last month's Live Conference Call. I've unlocked it so anyone can watch it, not just Premium Members. I've gotten a lot of requests to do this, even from paid subscribers, because opening it up serves as a great educational resource for the future. We can all learn from this, myself included.