From the Desk of Alfonso Depablos @AlfCharts

2024 is far from being like 2023. 

While we’ve experienced some healthy sector rotation, the first quarter was characterized by waning momentum.

With these long-standing momentum divergences in place, so far, the second quarter has been characterized by selling pressure. 

Since last week, we’ve seen an increasing number of these divergences confirmed by price. 

Making matters worse is where this downside is taking place. We're also seeing a growing list of indexes and sectors lose key former highs.

Until the bulls can reclaim these polarity zones, markets will remain messy. 

Let’s talk about some of them.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

We held our April Monthly Strategy Session earlier this week. Premium Members can access and rewatch it here.

Non-members can get a quick recap of the call simply by reading this post each month.

By focusing on long-term, monthly charts, the idea is to take a step back and put things into the context of their structural trends. This is easily one of our most valuable exercises as it forces us to put aside the day-to-day noise and simply examine markets from a “big-picture” point of view.

With that as our backdrop, let’s dive right in and discuss three of the most important charts and/or themes from this month’s call.

From the Desk of Alfonso Depablos @Alfcharts

A major theme we've witnessed in recent weeks is a shift in leadership as sector rotation continues to spread across the US equity market.

One could argue it is more a general broadening of the rally than it is rotation.

Regardless, one of the major beneficiaries has been Materials.

With commodity markets getting back in gear, industry groups from copper and steel to agricultural inputs are showing strength again.

With broad participation beneath the surface, this is a group we want to be adding long exposure too in the coming days and weeks.

From the Desk of Alfonso Depablos @Alfcharts

One of the major themes we’re monitoring closely right now is the Growth vs Value relationship.

While Growth has dominated for the past couple of quarters, the technical setup suggests it may be time for value to take the lead.

The chart below shows the ratio testing a critical area of former resistance from above.

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

We held our March Monthly Strategy Session Monday night. Premium Members can access and rewatch it here.

Non-members can get a quick recap of the call simply by reading this post each month.

By focusing on long-term, monthly charts, the idea is to take a step back and put things into the context of their structural trends. This is easily one of our most valuable exercises as it forces us to put aside the day-to-day noise and simply examine markets from a “big-picture” point of view.

With that as our backdrop, let’s dive right in and discuss three of the most important charts and/or themes from this month’s call.

From the Desk of Alfonso Depablos @Alfcharts

In today's post, we're talking about a group of stocks that have emerged as the 'Generals' of the current bull market.

You are thinking, “it must be tech.”

It’s not.

Industrials have been just as strong as tech stocks but with far better internals. No other sector has experienced the kind of broad participation we’re seeing from industrials. These are the real market leaders.

Historically, the Industrial sector is the one with the highest correlation to the overall market. So, the strength of these stocks is also sending us very bullish information about the health of this bull market. 

This is great news, but today’s note is about looking under the hood and finding the best opportunities in the various industrial subgroups.

As one of the most diverse sectors, investors have plenty of options in the world of industrials. We did the work and dug into this space to find out what the strongest areas are and where we want to put our money.

Let’s get into it.

Here’s the Large-Cap Industrial Sector $XLI breaking out of a multi-year base:

...

From the Desk of Alfonso Depablos @Alfcharts

When assessing the overall market, we are always asking a lot of the same questions. One of the more common ones is, "how are the laggards doing?"

Many times, these will be the culprits of the last bear market. Other times, they are former leaders that have lost their way.

For a healthy and sustainable bull cycle to take place, we eventually need these laggards to participate.

For the 2021 and 2022 bear, speculative growth was the poster child. 

We’re talking about biotech, the ARK funds, the IPO index, online retailers, etc. These groups were absolutely decimated. 

Not only did they experience some of the worst bear market drawdowns, but in 2023, when new leaders emerged, and many areas of the market began to move higher, these laggards continued to struggle.

Fast forward to today, and these groups are still repairing the technical damage from the prior cycle. With that said, the seeds have been planted for some epic bearish-to-bullish trend reversals.

We think these transitions...

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

We held our February Monthly Strategy Session last week. ASC Premium Members can click here to watch the replay and download the chartbook.

Non-members can get a quick recap of the call simply by reading this post each month.

By focusing on long-term, monthly charts, the idea is to take a step back and put things into the context of their structural trends.

This is easily one of our most valuable exercises as it forces us to put aside the day-to-day noise and simply examine markets from a “big-picture” point of view.

With that as our backdrop, let’s dive right in and discuss three of the most important charts and/or themes from this month’s call.

From the Desk of Alfonso Depablos @Alfcharts

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.

Let's get into it:

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @sstrazza and Alfonso Depablos @Alfcharts

This is one of our favorite bottom-up scans: Follow the Flow.

In this note, we simply create a universe of stocks that experienced the most unusual options activity — either bullish or bearish, but not both.

We utilize options experts, both internally and through our partnership with The TradeXchange. Then, we dig through the level 2 details and do all the work upfront for our clients.

Our goal is to isolate only those options market splashes that represent levered and high-conviction, directional bets.

We also weed out hedging activity and ensure there are no offsetting trades that either neutralize or cap the risk on these unusual options trades.

What remains is a list of stocks that large financial institutions are putting big money behind.

And they’re doing so for one reason only: because they think...

From the Desk of Alfonso Depablos @AlfCharts

In today's post, we’ll discuss the importance of four key indexes and what they can tell us about the future direction of the overall market.

All these groups provide an excellent overview of the current market environment and risk appetite. 

If you want to know where the broader market is headed, these are the charts to watch.

Here they are:

From the Desk of Alfonso Depablos @AlfCharts

When we talk about market bellwethers, we are referring to large-cap equities that indicate the broader market's future direction.

These stocks often have a heavy weighting in the most important sectors and indexes, as well as a notable economic impact due to their size and influence.

The world's largest bank and financial institution, JPMorgan Chase $JPM checks all these boxes and more.

For that reason, we treat JPM as an index itself. Basically, as JPMorgan goes, the market goes.