From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

We have been writing a lot about risk-appetite lately as we're constantly trying to gauge the "animal spirits" at work in the markets.  Right now we're seeing a lack of participation from risk-assets such as Small-Caps, Commodities, and the more cyclical sectors as well as a risk-off theme in many of our intermarket ratios.

We've covered the US plenty already, so this post will focus on what we're seeing from risk-assets in Equity Markets abroad.

This week's Mystery Chart was an inverted chart of the Frontier Markets ETF (FM). Thanks to everyone for participating. You were pretty much ALL buyers this week, which means you were actually selling Frontier Markets against their prior all-time lows.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Yesterday I wrote a post about deteriorating market internals. I discussed breadth divergences as well as the lack of confirmation of the S&P 500's recent highs from many important sectors and indexes.

In this post, we're going to focus specifically on the Large-Cap Sector SPDRs that failed to make higher highs and are showing early signs of cracking. To no surprise, these are some of the most cyclical areas of the market including Industrials (XLI), Financials (XLF), Materials (XLB), and Energy (XLE).

This speaks to the lack of risk-appetite we continue to see not only within equities but across all asset classes right now.

You can see the first three sectors in the chart below. With Crude Oil futures crashing below zero this week, we think it's prudent to stay away from the Energy sector until the smoke clears.

Click on chart to enlarge view.

Reliance Industries is in the news this week due to an investment from Facebook in JioMart.

Regardless of the fundamental merits or impact of this deal, let's analyze the charts and see how the market's digesting this information.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

We don’t need to dig too far into the internals to know breadth has been deteriorating since last week even as the S&P 500 was making new incremental highs. Most large-cap sectors failed to make new highs with the S&P as well as many other major indexes, including small-caps, mid-caps, and Transports.

We’ll talk about this more below. First, here is a new breadth indicator we’re looking at using the Anchored Volume Weighted Average Price (AVWAP).

Over the last few weeks we've been outlining what conditions would warrant us getting more aggressive on either the long or short side, and last Wednesday we got our signal to get short again.

After the indexes pressed to new marginal highs late in the week, we've finally gotten some downside follow-through to confirm the weakness we were looking for.

Let's review several key aspects of our bearish thesis and a few ways we're taking advantage of the volatility.

From the desk of Tom Bruni @BruniCharting

It's been a while since our last post on Canadian stocks, so today we're going to take a look at the trends that matter and the related trends.

Post #1 of  2 focuses on sector relative trends.

Post #2 of 2 focuses on the absolute trends and stocks we want to be buying and selling.

In our first post, we talked about relative performance in Financials rolling over aggressively. On an absolute basis, the TSX Capped Financials Index is stuck below its December 2018 lows and 2015 highs, much like US Small-Caps, the German DAX, Euro Stoxx 50, and many of the other weakest markets out there. As long as prices are below 263, the bias is to the downside with a target near 210.

Click on chart to enlarge view.

From the desk of Tom Bruni @BruniCharting

It's been a while since our last post on Canadian stocks, so today we're going to take a look at the trends that matter and the related trends.

Post #1 of  2 focuses on sector relative trends.

Post #2 of 2 focuses on the absolute trends and stocks we want to be buying and selling.

First, let's start with the TSX Capped Financials which represent 33% of the TSX Composite. This chart has spent the last four years putting in a major top and the underperformance looks likely to continue. From that perspective, can the TSX Composite continue to work sustainably higher if its best players are underperforming so drastically? I'd argue no.

Click on chart to enlarge view.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

We turned bearish on equities in February from a structural standpoint and have been tactically positioning ourselves in both directions since. We've taken advantage of the bifurcated market we're in by continuing to find opportunities on both the long and short side. Right now we believe the near-term risk is to the downside in equities.

How defensive should we be and what will it take for us to turn bullish again?

Last week we put together a list of key levels that we want to see certain assets hold before turning bullish on stocks over any longer-term timeframe. We're using this as our risk gauge for now.

As promised, we put that list into a table so that we can easily track and update its progress. Let's dive in and see what the weight of the evidence is telling us right now.

Most of what you'll hear me talk about are things I've learned from other people. In some cases, they were predecessors of mine and in other cases they're buddies and colleagues. It's funny because I try to do a good job of giving credit when I can, where I remember specifically who I learned something from. You guys who have been following me for a long time know that about me. But the truth is that sometimes I simply forget where I learned it. It's just part of my arsenal and I always assumed it was there.

This is an intermarket world that we live in. If you think what happens in the commodities and bond market isn't directly tied with what's also happening in the stock market, you've got a lot of homework to do.

You guys who have been following around along time know that we start out every single conversation about the stock market with, "Okay, what are bonds and commodities doing". It starts there. And then we go into the asset in question.

Look at Crude Oil still crashing down to new multi-decade lows:

Most of what you'll hear me talk about are things I've learned from other people. In some cases, they were predecessors of mine and in other cases they're buddies and colleagues. It's funny because I try to do a good job of giving credit when I can, where I remember specifically who I learned something from. You guys who have been following me for a long time know that about me. But the truth is that sometimes I simply forget where I learned it. It's just part of my arsenal and I always assumed it was there.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Every weekend we publish performance tables for a variety of different asset classes and categories along with 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 Industry tables as they illustrate an important resumption in leadership from the market's most resilient areas.

Click on table to enlarge view.