As we exit the best three-month period for the stock market, we're looking to our risk appetite indicators to help us determine the next directional move.
The charts below are all excellent tools for helping identify what kind of environment we are in.
During bull markets, investors embrace risk. In bear markets, they reduce their risk.
Understanding and analyzing the balance between defensive and offensive assets helps keep us on the right side of the trend.
Breaking News: "Dow Futures fell 100 points and the VIX rose this Friday on news of new all-time highs for the stock market"
The breadth continues to deteriorate with every week that goes by.
You notice?
You can see it in our trades as well. While the puts on our $SPY and $QQQ haven't started to work yet, the bearish trades on individual stocks are all either working or flat.
It's interesting. What you see in happening in the portfolio, you can also see happening in the market itself.
We saw new all-time highs this week for the S&P500. But we had the fewest stocks in the S&P500 above their 200 day moving average since December. And the fewest above their 50 day moving average since November.
Our Hall of Famers list is composed of the 150 largest US-based stocks.
These stocks range from the mega-cap growth behemoths like Apple and Microsoft – with market caps in excess of $2T – to some of the new-age large-cap disruptors such as Moderna, Square, and Snap.
It has all the big names and more.
It doesn’t include ADRs or any stock not domiciled in the US. But don’t worry; we developed a separate universe for that. Click here to check it out.
The Hall of Famers is simple.
We take our list of 150 names and then apply our technical filters so the strongest stocks with the most momentum rise to the top.
Let’s dive right in and check out what these big boys are up to.
Whenever a fellow parent asks what I do, I tell them I comment on interest rates.
I’m not involved in the semiconductor industry or the AI revolution. I don’t rob community banks (a personal favorite, despite mixed reactions). And I certainly do not analyze fixed-income, forex, and commodity markets (that’s a show-stopper).
The only thing people want to know these days – whether they’re navigating Wall St. or Main St. – is where rates are headed.
But no one seems to be listening to the one person who has a direct impact on the direction of US Treasury yields…
Another day goes by in the market, and more selling came in.
Investors are making a habit of this whole selling thing.
You notice?
In yesterday's trading we saw the fewest amount of stocks in longer-term uptrends since mid-December. We also had the fewest stocks in short-term uptrends since mid-November.
You may not see the selling pressure as much at the index level, but for those of you who actually take the time to count what the stocks themselves are doing, you know.
Take a look at the new highs list, essentially non-existent throughout the month of January, even with the S&P500 and Dow hitting the highest levels ever.
You can also see the divergences in Consumer stocks, Small-caps and Emerging Markets currencies:
Welcome back to Under the Hood, where we'll cover all the action for the week ended February 2, 2024. This report is published bi-weekly, in rotation with The Minor Leaguers.
What we do here is analyze the most popular stocks during the week and find opportunities to either join in and ride these momentum names higher, or fade the crowd and bet against them.
We use a variety of sources to generate the list of most popular names.
There are so many new data sources available that all we need to do is organize and curate them in a way that shows us exactly what we want: a list of stocks that are seeing an unusual increase in investor interest.
If silver doesn’t come to play, precious metals won’t win the day.
Gold’s resilience has been impressive lately, especially as its two main headwinds – the US dollar and real yields – catch higher.
But while all eyes are following gold as it coils just below all-time highs, I’m tracking silver. Because gold’s doggedness is all for naught if silver breaks down.