Last night was our Live Conference Call that I host at the beginning of each Month.

It gives us an opportunity to take a step back and identify the direction of primary trends.

This is helpful, because without understanding the environment we're in, how could we possibly pick and choose which tools and strategies to incorporate?

This step often gets forgotten about by investors.

Many would rather just shove their strategy down the market's throat whether it makes sense for that environment or not.

I find that foolish.

One chart that I thought told an important story last night was the Nasdaq Composite plotted with the New Highs - New Lows list.

It shows the bottoming "process" taking place beneath the surface:

Monday night we held our August Monthly Conference Call, which Premium Members can access and rewatch here.

In this post, we’ll do our best to summarize it by highlighting five of the most important charts and/or themes we covered, along with commentary on each.

Let’s get right into it!

This is our ASC Research Q2 2022 Playbook.

With the current market environment giving us many mixed messages, what better time to dive in and see what's happening underneath the surface?

• Stocks (International & U.S.)
• U.S. Sectors & Industries
• Market Breadth & Sentiment
• Commodities
• Currencies
• Intermarket Analysis
• Cryptocurrencies
• New Trade Ideas
• Overall Strategy

This is the video recording of the March 2022 Mid-month Conference Call.

• The Inflation Trade Persists - In Bonds & Commodities
• Bearish Sentiment in Stocks - Setting Up For Further Squeeze
• Stocks for Rising Rates Showing The Most Strength
• Metals & Mining Stocks Still Showing Leadership
• A lot of Bullish Retests In Global Markets Ex-U.S.
• My Favorite Gold Stocks To Own Right Now
• Which Growth Stocks to Bottom Fish Down Here
• Why Aussie/Yen is so important to watch right now
• Bitcoin AVWAP at 46K

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

One of the most important themes these days is the rotation between growth and value stocks. Groups like energy and financials have been breaking to new highs while growth and tech indexes have come under serious pressure.

So far, 2022 has been a true tale of two markets.

While cyclicals and value stocks appear to be gearing up for a momentous year, it looks like the party is finally coming to an end for the growth trade.

We want to lean on the value-heavy leadership groups for long opportunities in 2022. As for growth, we think it's likely to remain messy as interest rates continue to rise.  

When we look beneath the surface at growth and value stocks right now, our breadth data is confirming the action we’re seeing at the sector level.

Let’s dive in and discuss... 

Here's one way to visualize the opposing paths of large-cap value and large-cap growth right now. This indicator shows us the percentage of stocks above their 50-day moving averages for each of these indexes:

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

Last year was all about bullish breadth thrusts.

The percentage of new highs and other internal indicators spiked to historic extremes in 2020, indicating that we were in the early innings of a new bull cycle.

But 2021 has been a very different environment, characterized by corrective price action and lackluster market internals. Believe it or not, this is completely normal during year two of a bull market.

Sideways and choppy price behavior has been the theme this year. We haven’t come close to the high-water marks achieved by our breadth indicators last year, so, naturally, there are divergences. 

Indeed, these breadth divergences are to be expected. Market internals tend to peak early in a cycle. What bulls don't want to see is a meaningful downside expansion in breadth.

During the recent selling pressure, we experienced some of the highest readings in new lows since the COVID crash.

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

Over the past few weeks we’ve seen a handful of major indexes, like small and mid-caps, resolve higher and kick off a fresh up leg. But breadth has really cooled off since then, as participation has been declining despite the major averages rallying.

This week, we’re finally seeing that weakness show up at the index level -- particularly from SMIDs and cyclicals.

When we were reviewing our breadth charts, we noticed the deterioration in energy sector internals has been particularly bad. Not only is breadth not confirming the new highs from energy stocks… but there are actually some pretty ugly divergences in our new high indicators. 

Energy stocks are currently vulnerable, sitting just above their breakout level at former resistance. Considering the lack of support from internals, this group is on failed breakout watch.

Let’s take a look under the hood and discuss what we’re seeing.

Energy has been coiling in a continuation pattern above its year-to-date highs around 56 for over a month now. You can see this in the upper pane of this chart:

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

Last week, we pointed out some mixed signals in our breadth indicators. 

Despite the new highs from almost all the large-cap major averages, we had yet to see new highs in their corresponding advance-decline lines.

We also hadn’t experienced the kind of expansion in participation that we’d expect to accompany the indexes to new price highs.

Our new high indicators were still muted, even on shorter timeframes.

But that was last week. This week, mid-caps and small-caps have joined their large-cap peers at new record highs after making decisive upside resolutions from their year-to-date ranges.

And guess what? We’re finally getting that breadth confirmation we were missing.

Let’s talk about it.

First, here’s a quick update on the advance-decline lines that we covered in last week's column:

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

While breadth has improved in recent weeks and months, the bulls still have their work cut out for them.

When we consider all our breadth indicators in aggregate, the evidence remains mixed. What else is new!?  It’s been that way for the majority of this year.

Many of the major indexes made new all-time highs this week. Meanwhile, some advance-decline lines are moving higher, but others are moving lower. Some are at the top of their range, but others are at the bottom of theirs.

The advance-decline line measures stock market breadth based on cumulative net advances. In other words, it takes the number of advancing stocks on a given day and subtracts the number of declining stocks. That number is then added to the previous day’s value, creating a cumulative advance-decline line.

A/D line divergences occur when price is making new highs and the A/D line is NOT.

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

September saw significant selling pressure in equity markets. The S&P 500 suffered its worst drawdown since last year, and many of the major indexes made a lower low. But when we look under the surface, it really wasn’t that bad. 

We didn’t get an expansion in new lows to confirm the new lows in price. Instead, these readings remained muted across most of the major averages in the US.

Since then, the bulls have regained control. Breadth has improved throughout October as the indexes have rallied back toward their former highs. Although we haven’t seen a real expansion in participation at the index level, things have definitely been moving in the right direction.

Let's talk about it.

Here’s a look down the cap scale at new 52-week highs for all three S&P indexes, from large to small:

This is the video recording of the October 2021 Conference Call.

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

Using the S&P 500 as your investment proxy, you’re probably happy with your returns so far this year.

That's even with the 5% pullback we finally saw last week -- the first 5% pullback for the S&P 500 in 2021, and it took 229 trading days.

But the averages aren’t telling the whole story. Some stocks are going up, but most are not. We've been pounding the table about this for months already, and it's been the main theme during the first three quarters of the year.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you already know the current environment is an absolute mess, as the weight of the evidence continues to hang in the balance.

In this post, we’ll show you why the S&P 500 is not the stock market and the stock market is not the S&P 500. 

When we analyze equities as a “market of stocks” rather than “a stock market,” it becomes clear that we're in the thick of a correction that started as early as Q1.  

Here at All Star Charts, we like to call this a stealth correction!