Earlier this week, I put out a note about what I've been telling friends and family when they come asking. It comes with the territory right? I'm sure many of you are being sought after in similar ways. It makes sense for this environment.
But the truth is, I underestimated just how much this post would resonate with people. So much so, that I figured I'd write a follow up about another popular, yet simple strategy that I learned a long time ago.
To recap, what the Family & Friends post was about, was the percentage of stocks on the NYSE above their 200 day moving average. Historically, it's when we're above 15% and rising that it makes the most sense to own stocks. When we're below that, it's further evidence that stocks are a mess.
With that said, if you're a trader taking advantage of this volatility then the following charts are those we'd watch to determine if the recent bounce can continue.
We're in that part of the cycle where friends from high school are calling me to ask about the market and family members I've never spoken to about the markets are now interested. It's funny what a little volatility can do to peak people's interests.
Anyway, these calls are coming early and often. Many of you in a similar position to me are probably having the same experience.
Today, I thought I'd just write a quick post about what I'm telling my loved ones when they ask.
First of all, I definitely stress that not having a plan is the first problem. This shouldn't be the time to try and figure out what to do. This is when stress levels are elevated and when we're most vulnerable to make irrational decisions. I try to remind them of this, but they don't care. They never do.
So moving on, the old, "JC, when do I buy stocks?" question keeps coming back. It's fair. Everyone wants to know.
In this post, we want to step back and see what some of the longer-term weekly and monthly charts are suggesting for stocks and the other major asset classes.
Here's the Nifty 50 which spent the last two years grinding slightly higher as momentum diverged negatively. So far this year, prices have fallen 40% and retraced 38.2% of their entire 2001-2019 rally...in three months. From a risk management perspective, bulls need to see 8,000 hold in the Nifty 50 or there is further downside risk towards 6,200.
When markets go through periods of elevated volatility/stress, many market participants look to catch the exact bottom, but a better approach in our view is to buy on the way back up!
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:
Every weekend we publish simple performance tables for a variety of different asset classes and categories along with brief commentary on each.
As this is something we do internally on a daily basis, we believe sharing it with clients will add value and help them better understand our top-down approach. We use these tables to provide insight into both relative strength and market internals.
This week we want to highlight our US Equity Index and Sector tables, as they are both showing continued evidence to support some of the trends we've discussed recently.
Did you see Consumer Staples go out at new multi-year relative highs yesterday? The strength is in Staples, not in Banks or Industrials, for example, which keep making new relative lows.
So why should we care?
"JC, no one cares about staples, why does this matter?"
Well, as it turns out, Consumer Staples relative strength is one of the most reliable indicators of market strength and weakness that exists. You see, when stocks are doing well, Consumer Staples tend to underperform the rest of the market. When stocks are doing poorly, Staples are the leaders.
Think about it. No matter how bad the economy gets, we're still going to brush our teeth, wash our dishes, smoke cigarettes and drink beer right? As a society, I mean. Well, those are consumer staples. This is the group of stocks that outperforms as stocks fall, which makes perfect sense.
Here is the chart of Staples breaking out to new multi-year highs relative to S&Ps:
As always, thanks to everyone for participating in this week's Mystery Chart. Almost all respondents were buyers. A few also mentioned they would only want to be long against potential support at the prior lows which is likely the same approach we'd be taking with a long-term timeframe.
The market rallied almost 20% in just three days after making new lows last Monday. Stocks recently sold off in record fashion so it's no surprise to see them bounce with the same ferocity. But with the VIX still elevated above 50, we're not out of the woods yet and should expect the swift moves in each direction to continue for now.
Some say we're in a new bull market, but the charts tell us we're actually at a logical level for what appears to be no more than a bear market rally to stop and reverse.
