Stocks are getting destroyed all over the entire world. Things could turn on a dime but, for the moment and for good reasons investors are selling risk assets. The selling is global, the Volatility Index has spiked. Over the weekend social media was dominated by talk of the crash, the tariffs and the need to get off this path as fast as possible before we do more permanent damage.
As I discussed in real time last week ("Sound the Alarm") there was a single flash point for this crash: the ridiculous, clumsy, catastrophic moment the POTUS held up his chart.
Why was the placard so bad. Well, I wrote about it here and my friend @The-Real-Fly on Twitter rather neatly sums up the point here:
The Rules of the Casino
That about covers it. Trump changed the rules of the international finance casino. In markets of all kinds participants value "stable" over "fair". Meaning they'll deal with slightly...
The S&P 500 posted back-to-back -4% down days last week.
Here’s the chart:
Let's break down what the chart shows:
The black line is the S&P 500 index price.
The red lines highlight the days the S&P 500 posted back-to-back -4% down days.
The Takeaway: At the end of last week, we experienced some significant daily declines. On Thursday, the market fell by 4.8%, and things worsened on Friday, with a decline of 5.9%.
When we take a look at the data, consecutive days with drops of -4% or less are relatively rare. However, this kind of weakness in a bear market could indicate that the worst may be behind us.
It's important to keep in mind that the sample size is small, so we should approach this information cautiously. Nonetheless, historical data tells us that after such big back-to-back declines, future returns tend to be very strong.
On average, one year later, stocks typically rise by over 30%.
I'm in Miami this week, where I grew up, visiting family and I'm feeling nostalgic.
So I wanted to share a chart that I've kept with me for a long long time. I even used the same Stockcharts.com chart, that I originally annotated a handful of cycles ago, so you can see just how long I've had this one with me.
We're looking at the percentage of stocks on the NYSE that are above their 200 day moving average.
The idea here is that we are NOT interested in buying the indexes on their way down below 20% of constituents above their 200 day.
The goal during these times is to buy them on the way back up.
I've been having this debate with some of the world's top portfolio managers and strategists for over the past 2 decades.
Some of these arguments have even gotten pretty heated throughout these cycles. I remember one private back and forth during the late 2018 period where the strategist was pounding the table about the 20% level, while I was much more focused on the 15% mark.
On Wednesday, the United States announced new tariffs against dozens of countries. This set off a wave of selling pressure, which appears to have no end in sight.
It sure is acting like it. I'm very impressed with how Bitcoin has held in this week. Yes, it's down for the week like everything else. But the damage relative to tech stocks is minor.
Feels like now might be a good time to wade in with a mildly bullish bet.
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.
Here’s this week’s list:
*Click table to enlarge view
We filter out any laggards that are down -5% or more relative to the S&P 500 over the trailing month.
What's not selling off as much as you'd think it would be?
These are the types of questions I like to ask during environments like this.
I've seen this many times before. I can tell you that the assets showing relative strength in this market will likely be the leaders during the next recovery.
In the meantime, below overhead supply is still the key theme right now, particularly for U.S. equities.
It has been since the Dow and S&P500 lost their key levels and were unable to reclaim them. Remember the Nasdaq100...
Global markets have sold off in response to Trump's sweeping tariffs.
This is no longer just a regular dip in a bull market, it is turning into a significant cause for concern for more sustained weakness.
Two key industry groups to demonstrate this is housing $ITB, which has broken down and is now trending lower.
And semiconductors $SOX which has completed a major topping pattern.
Arguably the two most important industry groups have broken down, and are now in defined downtrends.
This isn't just a regular dip; unless we see risk assets take a significant rebound (and quickly), we're transitioning into a deeper correction that could last months, if not quarters.
Markets have sold off as Trump announced his sweeping tariffs to America's trading partners. There's certainly a lot of fast moving action hitting the tape and we're at a crossroads; does the market continue its selling or reverse on what was a monumental announcement?
While we certainly entertain these moves, the beauty of these rankings is that it adopts a longer-term horizon and smooths out the noise we're seeing this week.
More U.S. growth thematic ETFs are falling on the leaderboard, as technology breaks to new relative lows.
But despite this, a theme that's remained persistently strong is the video gaming and esports space. VanEck's $ESPO ETF, while pulling back, has exhibited fantastic relative strength in a market that's punished growth.
So long as ESPO is above its prior cycle highs near 80, this is an investment theme that remains a leader.
Technology $XLK is well into the red now as U.S. growth underperforms.
Most interestingly, Technology $XLK just broke down relative to the S&P 500 while Financials $XLF is still outperforming.
While the conditions in U.S. equities hasn't been favorable, it's not indiscriminately bearish. In other words, as technology underperforms, sectors like financials and communications are still holding in.
As investors find out more information on the Trump tariffs today; considering much of this recent money flow out of U.S. stocks has been driven by this rhetoric, it isn't outside the realm of possibility that tech bottoms here on a classic "sell the rumor, buy the news" event.
Of course, for now, the relative trend in tech is now down and we need to wait for confirmation of a trend reversal.
The average stock in the S&P 500 is currently in a bear market, with a decline of -20.8%.
Here’s the chart:
Let's break down what the chart shows:
The blue line in the top panel is the S&P 500 index price.
The red line in the bottom panel shows the average 52-week drawdown of S&P 500 Stocks.
The Takeaway: Yesterday, the S&P 500 experienced a massive decline, dropping by 4.8%. This marks the largest one-day decline for the index since June 2020.
2025 has been quite the ride so far. In early February, the S&P 500 was at all-time highs. However, just 31 trading days later, the index is down over -12%.
And right now, the average stock in the S&P 500 is in a bear market… Down -20.8%
If you took the time to look under the hood, you'd see that most stocks have not been rising for a while. While some stocks have performed well, the majority have not.
Breadth has been telling us that the market was weak…