There has been a lot of talk about how the recent rally has been accompanied by a dramatic improvement in market breadth, so I took the time to see if the data I track supported that conclusion.
The first study on the major S&P 500 sectors and US Indices was completed by calculating how far the indexes were from their 52-week high compared to the average component in the index.
Contrary to popular belief, we're not here to be right. We're only here to make money. As market participants, we're not journalists or economists or side analysts. It's their job to be "right". So when they're wrong, they like to call it a "revision". But when we're wrong, it's called "a loss". See the difference? So since we actually put money to work and take real risk, we need to be responsible with how much risk we take. Therefore, we need to make sure that the potential reward far exceeds the amount of risk being taken at a given time.
Today we're looking at a good example of this favorable risk/reward scenario in a sector that I think gets crushed going forward:
The semiconductor index has likely caused both longs and shorts a bit of angst over the past several weeks as it failed to make any directional progress near the top of its 10-month range of 560 to 680. Analyzed on its own the index is providing little conviction for the bulls or the bears, but a look at the individual components may provide some clues regarding the next directional move in semiconductors as a group.
The daily chart provides a tactical look at the 560-680 range that prices have been trading in for roughly 10 months now. Whether this range will resolve to the upside or downside is unclear, but the presence of a flat 200 day moving average, a bearish momentum divergence, and prices consolidating in the direction of the underlying trend may all be early warning signs of a move lower in the short-term.
With the deterioration in market breadth throughout the entire month of April and bearish momentum divergences showing up in some of the most important stocks, sectors and countries in the world, I think some exposure on the short side here is warranted.
Today we're going over my favorite short of all the Dow 30 Components.
When the major U.S. Stock market indexes are making new highs, you want to see the list of stocks making new highs increasing along the way as well. This had certainly been the case throughout February and March, but has come to a complete halt this month. Looking across the board, the S&P500, Dow Jones Industrial Average, Nasdaq 100, Russell 2000, Mid-cap 400, etc have all made new recovery highs over the past couple of weeks, since our epic bottom in late January/early February. The problem is that 1) all of our upside targets have now been achieved where we wanted to take profits and 2) breadth in the market now stinks.
Utilities have been the monster in the U.S. Stock Market this year. While some sectors, like in the metals or energy space, have bounced back from horrific downtrends, others have kind of just muddled around, like Financials for example. Utilities, on the other hand, have been an absolute beast. They've been rallying since the beginning of the year and this month hit new all-time highs. Moving forward, I think the risk vs reward in this sector favors the bears.
Here is a chart of the S&P Utilities Sector Index rallying this year to get back up towards its early 2015 highs. Meanwhile, at the new all-time highs this month, momentum, as defined by a 14-week relative strength index, put in a lower high. This bearish divergence and failure to hold on to those all-time highs should be the catalyst to send share prices in utilities tumbling in the coming months:
I think a really important concept that too often gets overlooked is the power of keeping an open mind. Why must we stick to a bearish or bullish stance? What is wrong with neutral sometimes? Just because our upside get hit, does that mean we need to flip bearish and start shorting everything? I don't think so. I much prefer taking profits when objectives get achieved and then reevaluating once we get more price data. We don't know what is going to happen tomorrow or next week or next month. No one does. So let's appreciate the fact that the future is unknown and therefore all possibilities should be considered.
Today's Chart of the Week represents what I consider to be part of the bullish case for the S&P500 in 2016. I'm not ready to pound the table bullish, or bearish for that matter, but if this one plays out the way it looks, I would argue that it's a giant feather in the hat for the bulls. This is the mystery chart that I tweeted out yesterday, for those of you who have been asking.
Once a week I do my Global Macro review where I annotate and take notes on every country's index around the world. This analysis is on multiple timeframes so we focus on both the weekly timeframe going back 7-10 years and the daily timeframe over the past 6-12 months. The weekly charts are designed to get structural perspective while the daily timeframes are more for short-term to intermediate-term execution.
In this week's analysis, Brazil stands out as it gets back above the late 2008 lows. Over the short-term, Brazil has been a favorite long of ours since it first got back above the September lows. There was a major theme among global stock indexes, particularly in Latin America, where prices were getting back above previous lows in late January and early February. We saw a monster move higher in Brazil since then, as we did in Peru, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, etc:
This week I was over at the Nasdaq in Times Square discussing the current market environment with Frances Horodelski on Canada's Business News Network. The weight of the evidence is suggesting a cautious stance up here after all of our upside targets have been hit in recent weeks. Remember, we've been bullish stocks, globally since late January, and in the U.S. since early February. When our upside objectives are hit, it's time to reevaluate. That's what we're doing now.
The weight of the evidence has been building in favor of the bears over the last week or two, making the US equity weakness this week anything but surprising. Throughout the duration of this post I'll outline the evidence that I've been noticing over the last two weeks and what it means for us as market participants moving forward.
Yen Strength - The Yen broke out structurally late last year and hasn't looked back since. Tactically my upside targets were hit this week, but structurally this market has a lot more room to run. Given the high negative correlation between the Yen and US equities, this should continue to be a headwind for equity markets going forward.
We've had a heck of a rally in stocks over since late January, led by emerging markets, energy and metal stocks. Starting in mid-February the U.S. and other developed nations got the memo and started to play catch-up. We couldn't be happier with the performance of the stock market since then. But over the past couple of weeks all of our upside targets have been hit; all of the U.S. Indexes and sectors and about 90% of global indexes. So I've therefore been pretty neutral towards stocks since late last month, but I finally turned more bearish earlier this week.
Here is a market neutral trade that I think is definitely worth paying attention to. Whether you're bullish or bearish, this breakout is not something we should ignore:
