I think the overwhelming theme here is that there are a lot more stocks I want to buy than stocks I want to sell. Why do we need to over complicate this?
Another thing I'm seeing is the January highs as a reference point. The question is whether or not the market will be able to surpass that former resistance, proving there is more demand than supply there, or if it's the other way around? Are there, in fact, more sellers up here than buyers? We can see this key January pivot point in most of the major indexes: S&P500, Dow Jones Industrial Average, Dow Jones Transportation Average and Russell3000. Can we get through those highs like the Small-caps, Mid-caps and Nasdaq already have?
I believe the answer is in the components. How are individual stocks reacting to those former highs? Are they breaking through resistance or running into sellers and rolling over?
For us, the big question going into the weekend was whether or not the most recent leg higher in U.S. Stocks is the beginning of something bigger, a breakout of epic proportions, or just a major whipsaw that will lead to further selling into September and October, two of the most historically volatile months of the year.
We see various crowds. On one hand, you have the bearish cult who for many reasons have fought this uptrend the whole time. Whether they just missed the last couple of years in stocks or, worse in some cases, missed the entire decade, they've been very wrong. There's even a group who wishes harm on the United States and elsewhere around the world, just because they disagree with decisions being made in D.C. They certainly don't want stocks to rise. And then you have another group, who is indifferent and is just looking for a favorable risk vs reward shorting opportunity and they think this is finally it.
For most of this year we've been writing about the overwhelming amount of bullish evidence for US Equities, however, as part of our "weight of the evidence" approach we're always questioning our thesis (i.e. here and here).
In today's post I want to share that exercise as I perform it, outlining some current concerns and what the market would potentially look like in an environment where stocks as in the US as an asset class are falling. We're going to stick with our top-down approach and start with International Equities and inter-market relationships, then drill down into specific examples that help illustrate what we're talking about.
The Nifty Financial Services Index accounts for roughly a third of the Nifty 500's weighting. With the next largest components Consumer Goods (13.40%), Energy (12%), and IT (10.90%) ripping to the upside, we know that they'll eventually need to rest, which is why the Nifty Financial Services Index is by far and away the most important chart in India right now.
Two weeks ago I wrote about the Canada's Energy markets, but today I want to do a deep dive into the US Energy Markets. In line with our top-down approach, we'll start with Commodities in general, get into Crude Oil and some inter-market relationships, individual sector ETFs, and finally equities with the best reward/risk scenarios.
August's monthly charts are out for Premium Members, but in this post I want to highlight some of the key changes to, or continuation of, the structural trends that these long-term charts provide perspective on. This 30 minutes per month is some of the most valuable time each month.
This is easily the most valuable exercise I do each month. It takes me half an hour, just 12 times a year. It's the best 6 hours I'll spend in 2018. It helps eliminate the noise by forcing us to only look once a month. It brings us home, to the primary trend. It's easy to get lost in the daily rhetoric. This part of the process helps us completely ignore that garbage and focus on what matters.
Here's what we got this month:
We'll start with the Dow Jones Industrial Average as it tries to make a move above 27,000. There's been trouble just below that from the extension target of the 2007-2009 decline. This retest of former highs comes at a time where the Dow Jones Transportation Average is already in the process of clearing. First, here's is the Industrial Average:
Over the last two weeks we've discussed small-caps, mid-caps, and the chartbook updates in depth, though we've not had a post dedicated to large-caps in quite a few months. Many of our upside price targets have been hit in Nifty 50 and Nifty Next 50 names, so I want to use this post to provide perspective on the most actionable long and short ideas today.
Over the last few months we've talked about the diminishing number of short setups as even the weakest sectors and individual names begin to stabilize, however, we're still open to short opportunities. So today I want to discuss what goes into our thought process in distinguishing between stocks that we want to be selling strength in, as opposed to stocks that are stabilizing and not the best candidates to short.
For the purposes of this example we'll talk about two stocks in the Industrial Manufacturing Industry to show that while this is a weak Industry, the individual names to play this theme through are very different.
Two months ago we highlighted Deutsche Bank because we felt that price action disagreed with prevailing bearish sentiment around the stock, which created an opportunity for us on the long side. Today we're looking at a stock that presents a similar trade for us, with well-defined risk and 30% of potential upside over the intermediate-term.
Last week I wrote about the Canada's Energy markets to introduce our new Canadian Chartbooks (Major Sectors & Indices and TSX 60). In today's post I want to focus on the Banking and REIT sectors, which are showing relative strength and continue to offer opportunity on the long side. Not to mention I've been itching to use this Toy Story pun as a title since JC hired me.
First let's take a look at the TSX Capped REITs Index vs the TSX Capped Composite. It's spent the last 2 years bottoming and is now breaking out above a confluence of resistance. If this ratio is above it, the bias is to the upside with a target at the '15-'16 highs.
In our last India Chartbook Update post we discussed a continuation of the trends we've been seeing for most of 2018, as well as some new developments in the Commodities and Currencies space. Additionally, our mid-cap update discussed our shifting view of that market-cap segment and highlighted the best opportunities in our view. We also did a small-cap update post the following day highlighting our views there. Today we're going to discuss any major changes over the last two weeks at a high level, which will direct you to the Chartbook areas to look for these themes.
