Some people look at Utility stocks doing well as something negative. I never understood that. They suggest that an uptrend in a sector that is looked upon as "defensive" is not something characteristic of a stock market that is going up. But, in fact, it is. With Utilities pressing against all-time highs again, now is as good of a time as any to remind ourselves that they indeed move with the overall stock market over time.

From the desk of Tom Bruni @BruniCharting

In 2018 the trend of small-cap Healthcare out-performance over its large-cap counterparts accelerated aggressively, with the small-cap ETF $PSCH returning 30.50% YTD and the large-cap ETF $XLV up a meager 1.70%.

Click on chart to enlarge view.

Despite XLV's under-performance relative to small-caps and the broader market, some signs of improvement have been developing over the last few weeks. As we can see in the ratio of $XLV / $SPY below, prices retested their 2017 lows as momentum diverged positively. This suggests at the very least we don't want to be short on a relative basis.

From the desk of Tom Bruni @BruniCharting

Throughout April and May we've discussed market breadth improvements that have us bullish on equity prices both in the US and globally. Today I want to perform a simple exercise to see how the data we're looking at has developed over the last two months or so of trading.

Consumer Discretionaries have been a great indicator of market strength for a long time. This has been the best performing sector off the 2009 lows by a long shot, nearly doubling the performance of Tech, which has also been a monster. Discretionaries broke out to new highs in early 2012, well before the S&P500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average. With this sector breaking out to new all-time highs last month, it's hard to be bearish stocks.

From the desk of Tom Bruni @BruniCharting

One important part of the bull case for stocks in the US has been the leadership we've seen from small and mid-caps, growth areas of the market, and high beta stocks, however, we're starting to see some short-term deterioration in these leaders on an absolute and relative basis. Today I want to quickly look at the relationship between high beta stocks and their low volatility counterparts.

From the desk of Tom Bruni @BruniCharting

In 2017 we saw an acceleration of the decade-long trend of growth outperforming value, and after further deterioration in this ratio to start the year, the weight of the evidence is suggesting a bottom may be in.

From the desk of Tom Bruni @BruniCharting

Every time the stock market rallies over any significant period, we're bound to see the "most shorted stocks" chart come out of the woodwork with an ominous caption like "presented without comment" or "this is the top". Besides the fact that presented without comment is a comment in and of itself, the presenter very rarely tells us the methodology behind the chart's construction, leaving us with more questions than answers.

From the desk of Tom Bruni @BruniCharting

Dollar strength has wreaked havoc on the group of ETFs that many people use to gain exposure to global equity markets. One downside of many of these ETFs is that they own the assets of the country they represent in their local currency, and since the vehicle is unhedged, changes in the exchange rate play an important role in their pricing. The Dollar Index has rallied roughly 8% since its February lows, and more dramatically against many emerging and developed market currencies not represented in the Dollar Index, which has exacerbated many of the price declines we've seen in this group of stocks.

From the desk of Tom Bruni @BruniCharting

In early April I tweeted about AMD's potential breakdown from its 15-month bull-flag and its potential implications for the stock. In hindsight I'm glad I did because it's great to have this real-time example of my mindset, and the mindset of others in the marketplace, as the pattern played out. It was also a great opportunity to get constructive feedback in the comments section from many of the bulls at the time. Now that I've used my one joke per post allowance, let's move onto how the stock has performed since.

From the desk of Tom Bruni @BruniCharting

If you've been reading this blog you've probably noticed a lot of posts about the areas of the market showing relative strength, like Technology and Consumer Discretionary, however, one industry not getting as much attention is Airlines. The reason for that is simple; the Dow Jones Transportation Index is sitting roughly 3% off all-time highs within a strong uptrend, however, Airlines continue to struggle to gain any altitude, sitting at 52-week lows on an absolute basis and crashing on a relative basis.

Monday afternoon I was down in San Francisco, so I went by the Bloomberg West studios to do a quick hit with Catherine Murray. She asked me about the S&P500, Technology, Financials and the underperformance of Consumer Staples. We also discussed sector rotation and Crude Oil during the segment.

Here is the interview in full:

From the desk of Tom Bruni @BruniCharting

Despite the higher highs and higher lows in the major indices, all-time highs in riskier assets such as micro and small-cap stocks, and fresh breakouts in leading sectors like Technology and Consumer Discretionary, there continues to be a subset of market participants who fight this rally.