From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

New Mystery Chart!

For those new to the exercise, we take a chart of interest and remove the x/y-axes and any other labels that would help identify it. The chart can be any security in any asset class on any timeframe on an absolute or relative basis. Maybe it’s a custom index or inverted, who knows!

We do all this to put aside the biases we have associated with this specific security/the market and come to a conclusion based solely on price.

You can guess what it is if you must, but the real value comes from sharing what you would do right now. Buy, Sell, or Do Nothing?

We're in that part of the cycle where friends from high school are calling me to ask about the market and family members I've never spoken to about the markets are now interested. It's funny what a little volatility can do to peak people's interests.

Anyway, these calls are coming early and often. Many of you in a similar position to me are probably having the same experience.

Today, I thought I'd just write a quick post about what I'm telling my loved ones when they ask.

First of all, I definitely stress that not having a plan is the first problem. This shouldn't be the time to try and figure out what to do. This is when stress levels are elevated and when we're most vulnerable to make irrational decisions. I try to remind them of this, but they don't care. They never do.

So moving on, the old, "JC, when do I buy stocks?" question keeps coming back. It's fair. Everyone wants to know.

The trend for stocks is down. When they do rally, they scream dead-cat bounce. And bonds keep going out at new all-time highs every week. Gold is at its highest prices in 7 years and Interest rates are in free-fall along with bank stocks. What type of environment does this appear like to you? Is it the kind of market where we want to be buying stocks aggressively, or is this the type of market where we want to be smaller, cash heavy and more defensive?

Let's try to figure it out together.

First of all, Industrials historically have the highest correlation with the S&P500 of all the S&P Sectors. This is what that group currently looks like. One of our most basic technical principles is that former support turns into resistance. We call that Polarity. You can see this taking place in this sector index:

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Every weekend we publish simple performance tables for a variety of different asset classes and categories along with brief commentary on each.

As this is something we do internally on a daily basis, we believe sharing it with clients will add value and help them better understand our top-down approach. We use these tables to provide insight into both relative strength and market internals.

This week we want to highlight our US Equity Index and Sector tables, as they are both showing continued evidence to support some of the trends we've discussed recently.

Click on table to enlarge view.

Did you see Consumer Staples go out at new multi-year relative highs yesterday? The strength is in Staples, not in Banks or Industrials, for example, which keep making new relative lows.

So why should we care?

"JC, no one cares about staples, why does this matter?"

Well, as it turns out, Consumer Staples relative strength is one of the most reliable indicators of market strength and weakness that exists. You see, when stocks are doing well, Consumer Staples tend to underperform the rest of the market. When stocks are doing poorly, Staples are the leaders.

Think about it. No matter how bad the economy gets, we're still going to brush our teeth, wash our dishes, smoke cigarettes and drink beer right? As a society, I mean. Well, those are consumer staples. This is the group of stocks that outperforms as stocks fall, which makes perfect sense.

Here is the chart of Staples breaking out to new multi-year highs relative to S&Ps:

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

As always, thanks to everyone for participating in this week's Mystery Chart. Almost all respondents were buyers. A few also mentioned they would only want to be long against potential support at the prior lows which is likely the same approach we'd be taking with a long-term timeframe.

Something we've hit on a lot lately which was also a common theme among the Technicians that presented at Chart Summit 2020 last weekend, is that the relative trends that have been in place have more or less remained in place throughout the recent volatility. Check out this week's podcast episode where JC and I discuss this and other key themes from the conference.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

The market rallied almost 20% in just three days after making new lows last Monday. Stocks recently sold off in record fashion so it's no surprise to see them bounce with the same ferocity. But with the VIX still elevated above 50, we're not out of the woods yet and should expect the swift moves in each direction to continue for now.

Some say we're in a new bull market, but the charts tell us we're actually at a logical level for what appears to be no more than a bear market rally to stop and reverse.

Last week we outlined why 170 in the Nasdaq 100 ETF (QQQ) was such an important level of interest if buyers were going to take control of stocks in the near term. Now that they have, we're looking for sellers to reassert themselves at current levels, which we wrote about yesterday.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

New Mystery Chart!

For those new to the exercise, we take a chart of interest and remove the x/y-axes and any other labels that would help identify it. The chart can be any security in any asset class on any timeframe on an absolute or relative basis. Maybe it’s a custom index or inverted, who knows!

We do all this to put aside the biases we have associated with this specific security/the market and come to a conclusion based solely on price.

You can guess what it is if you must, but the real value comes from sharing what you would do right now. Buy, Sell, or Do Nothing?

If you're one of these people who thinks the lows for stocks are in, which sectors would you expect to be leading the way higher? The big important groups that fell the hardest, and therefore should bounce the most? Probably.

Well, what if I told you that it's been the opposite.

The leaders off the lows are Utilities, Consumer Staples, Healthcare and REITs:

Wow what a weekend! Thank you all so much for your support.

We had 10,000 people register for Chart Summit, our Live Virtual Technical Analysis Conference. There were over 30 presentations and we raised over $50,000, just on the first day, to help fight COVID-19. You can still donate here.

We made it really easy to access the videos and organized them so you can go back and watch whenever you want. Just go to Chartsummit.com and click Watch The Videos and you're on your way!

Are you ready for Chart Summit this Saturday??? I've never been more excited to attend a financial conference in my life. And I don't even have to leave my house!!! And it's FREE. Are you kidding me?

THIS SATURDAY 3/28 8AM-6PM ET

ALL DAY!

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From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

This week's Mystery Chart exercise gives us a nice glimpse into the current sentiment amid the recent volatility, so thanks to all those who responded. The overwhelming majority of you we're either selling or doing nothing, which comes as little surprise.

Many of you wanted to sell this chart aggressively and even cited the current market environment as part of you're reasoning. But! The chart was inverted... so all those who were pounding the table to short it were actually buying the Nasdaq 100 (QQQ) relative to the Russell 3000 (IWV).

I'm curious to see how, if at all, this changes your perspective on the chart. Tweet me @sstrazza with your thoughts!