JC and I are generally on the same page about a lot of things, but this week our brains seem to be very in sync as we're writing about the same topics with a slightly different spin on each subject.
With U.S. Large-cap Indexes breaking out to new all-time highs, many are wondering when, and if, the Small-caps are ever going to catch up. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P500 and Nasdaq100 have all taken out former highs and are currently in uncharted territory. The Mid-caps, Small-caps and Micro-caps, however, are still all well below their 2018 highs.
While we like to pride ourselves in looking at more charts per week than almost anyone on earth, I get a lot of value from regularly speaking to clients and colleagues. Tuesday was one of those days that I found myself on the phone speaking with people around the world. One theme that came up multiple times was the underperformance in Small-cap stocks throughout the late 90s. It's something we've seen before. U.S. Large-cap stocks can do very very well even with small-caps underperforming, like they have since last year.
Since early July stocks in India have come under more selling pressure, with the Mid-Caps and Small-Cap indices falling roughly 10% and the large-cap Nifty 50 falling about 6%.
This has exacerbated the relative underperformance of India versus other Emerging Markets which it had been outperforming up until late May.
Prices in many of the major indices are now approaching critical levels of support, begging the question will buyers will step in again to defend these levels or is more selling ahead?
Financials are a big focus of ours right now. We can make a strong case that this is the most important sector in America. Traditionally, Industrials are the most positively correlated with the S&P500 and Technology is the largest sector by market cap. But we don't have bull markets without bank stocks. That's the way this works.
When going through my chartbooks this weekend one chart stood out to me, highlighting a theme we've been pointing out to our Institutional Clients that's worth mentioning again.
While updating this Chartbooks this weekend there were a few stocks that we've spoken about in the past, but I wanted to follow up on given they're near actionable levels.
Several shorts, a few longs, and one to keep on your radar.
Remember last year, and the year before that, and the year before that, when Amazon would just rip higher all the time? That uptrend came to an abrupt halt last Fall, and $AMZN came tumbling down like many other stocks around the globe. After almost a year of consolidation, it appears as though Amazon shares are ready to get going again.
Last week I posted the mystery chartpicturedbelow to see what people were thinking once they removed the biases of knowing the security name, timeframe, or etc. and had only price to rely on.
Most people were on the same page as I am, thinking this is a structural trend change that we want to be buying, not selling. A few people were hesitant and wanted to see more before getting involved, but very few, if any, were sellers.
What do we know about new all-time highs? We know they're not a characteristic of a downtrend.
I often get that guy that comes to me and says, "Well every new downtrend must start from a new high". Yes, and that must be a great way to go through life.
You see, markets trend. That's why Technical Analysis works. That's why this is so valuable. Because if you can recognize the direction of the underlying trend, you're already way ahead of the pack. The likelihood for a trend to continue in its path is exponentially higher that for it to reverse. A 4-year old can recognize if a chart is going up, down or sideways. It's the adults that have more trouble with this.
As I went through all my weekly charts this weekend, I noticed an interesting underlying theme: New Highs.
The Dow Transports are the talk of the town due to their lack of trend on an absolute basis and their underperformance relative to the Dow Industrials, so I want to take a quick look and see if there are any themes we can take advantage of within its subsectors.
