The year 2016 is now in the books. As market participants, it is our job to prepare for the coming quarter. We don't care much for year end targets. Those are just a marketing gimmick for wall street sell side firms. The media irresponsibly parades these historically wrong sell side analysts around on the tv and radio and have all sorts of gimmicky specials. We don't have time for that. We're here to make money in the market. So rather than making a list of the "Top 10" this or that, or blatantly making up a number to put as an S&P500 target for a year from now, I thought it would add value to walk you through my entire process as I prepare for the first quarter of 2017.
We're going to go step by step on how I analyze markets. First we'll start with the major US Indexes, both long-term and short-term. Then we'll move on to the US Sectors relative to the rest of the market followed by the US Sectors and sub-sectors on an absolute basis. Next we'll look at the globally to see if international markets are confirming what we're seeing in the US or if they are diverging. In order to finish up our macro analysis, we'll then take a deep dive into commodities, currencies...
I could not be happier to see this rally in stocks all over the world. The Transportation stocks in particular have been especially impressive (See here: Transports 8/24/16). But I want to point to some of the rotation we've started to see in other asset classes since last week.
One of the characteristics of bull markets and strong uptrends is sector rotation. While Technology was the first to start leading the market higher in July, Financials and Transportation stocks have recently held the leadership duties. You can start to throw in Industrials the past few weeks into the leadership category as well. Meanwhile, some of the mega-cap names have held back Technology, at least temporarily, from continuing to make new highs. But when you look underneath the surface, I believe there is a much different story to tell.
Every month I host a conference call for All Star Charts Members where we discuss ongoing themes throughout the global marketplace as well as changes in trends where new positions would be most appropriate. This includes U.S. Stocks & Sectors, International Stock Indexes, Commodities, Currencies and Interest Rate Markets. Transports and Copper continue to make new highs while US Treasury Bonds keep selling off on the back of higher interest rates. We'll discuss all of these issues and more.
This month's Conference Call will be held on Tuesday November 15, 2016 at 7PM ET. Here are the Registration Details:
Transports this week are hitting new 6-month highs relative to the S&P500. Remember, these guys have been the leader for years. To review, the Dow Jones Transportation Average peaked in late 2014, well before the S&P500 put in its final top in May of 2015. Moving forward, the Dow Transports put in their bottom in January of this year, the month before the S&P500. So yes, we want to continue to look to the Transports for leadership.
Today we are breaking down the Transportation stocks once again to see what is really happening underneath the surface: