Raoul Pal is someone whose work I've admired for years, both for his global macro perspective on the markets and the amazing job he and his team have done with Real Vision. I like how they've removed a lot of the conflicts of interest that come with traditional media reporting and the sensationalizing that comes along as a result.
When was the last time Small-caps were not a mess? At least a year now right?
The bearish argument has been that small-caps (and others) are underperforming the large-cap stocks and therefore, the divergence is a warning signal that the market is about to fall apart. Along the way, I've asked the question,
What if we get rotation into small-caps rather than the rotation out of large-caps that you keep promising me?"
In other words, instead of the last ones finally falling, what if the stocks down in the dumps get their act together and start playing catch-up?
What does the market look like in that scenario?
Well, I'm still in the camp that we see the latter, rotation into small-caps, not the former where the S&P500 crashes and we go into recession. Here are small-caps relative to large-caps. If we are going to start to see outperformance from the little guys, this would certainly be a logical place for it to start:
It's my favorite exercise each month. There is nothing else I do throughout my entire process that provides as much value as my Monthly Chart Review. Here's what stood out to me this month:
Let's start with Papa Dow. The Dow Jones Industrial Average has gone nowhere for 20 months. Flat for over a year and a half:
In this Episode of Allstarcharts Weekly, Steve and I talk the relative performance of stocks. When assets are in strong uptrends, they not only perform on an absolute basis, but they tend to outperform their alternatives. With new highs in the S&P500 last month, we've seen nothing but lower highs relative to both Gold and US Treasury Bonds. In fact, on a relative basis, the S&P500 is actually down to its late December 2018 lows. Will they hold or confirm a massive distributive top? I think the resolution will tell us a lot about the strength of the current stock market.
This week I've seen a chart of High Yield relative to Investment Grade Bonds floating around with various conclusions, but I wanted to use this to highlight some things to consider when using Bond ETFs as a proxy for what's happening in the market it's meant to track.
Assets in the strongest uptrends not only do well on an absolute basis, they tend to outperform relative to their alternatives as well. In the case of the S&P500, with new all-time highs last month, we've just seen lower highs relative to both Gold and US Treasury Bonds. This is NOT evidence of a strong uptrend.
The question today seems clear to me: Is the underperformance of stocks relative to other assets "The Divergence" that we'll point to in the future as the heads up that something was changing? Or will we get relative rotation back into equities and this was just a temporary blip while stocks consolidated their massive 2016-2017 gains?
Here is the video from my BNN Bloomberg interview this week. They asked me if I thought the media was making too big of a deal out of an inversion of the yield curve and I agreed that of course they did. That's what the media does, irresponsibly exaggerate things that don't need to be exaggerated at the expense of their audience. I'm happy to come on TV to bring some sense of reality to the conversation. Someone has to. In this video we discuss the ongoing Cyclical Bear Market in stocks and what we're waiting for to confirm that a new Cyclical Bull is getting started.
What is the best chart in the world right now? I don't know. I guess that really depends on your time horizon, risk tolerance and overall market goals. These are different for all of us.
Today, I want to share what I think are collectively the 120 best charts. The way I see, there is no ONE chart that can tell today's story. But as a unit, these 120 slides give us a good look at the current market environment.
Todd Sohn is one of my favorite guys to talk to about the markets. He often sends me charts that no one else is looking at and points out important data that most people aren't talking about. His unique perspective on the market definitely makes him stand out from the rest. Todd and his team at Strategas do great work and it's a real pleasure to have him on the podcast. In this conversation we discuss the current environment for US Stocks, Interest Rates, Precious Metals and the sentiment driving current trends. He offers good advice for both new technicians and seasoned veterans. If you're at all interested in the market, this is an episode you can't miss. Enjoy!
