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 Factor tables, as they are both showing near-term reversions in some of the most robust long-term intermarket trends.

Click on table to enlarge view.

Yesterday we published a post titled "The Reality Regarding Real Estate" in which we pointed out the long-term underperformance of REITs as a sector. And although we see no signs of this trend reversing any time soon, when we dug into the space we couldn't help but notice a select group of stocks outperforming not just Real Estate, but the broader market as well.

In this post, we will illustrate the relentless strength from this niche group of Data-Center and Cell-Tower REITs and offer two trade ideas in the space.

We also wrote a post lately in which we filtered the S&P 500 down to just 32 of its strongest performers based on a variety of metrics. Despite the weakness from Real Estate as a whole, five of the stocks on that list are actually components in our All Star Charts Custom Data-Center & Cell-Tower REIT Index.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Thanks to everyone for participating in this week’s Mystery Chart. The vast majority of respondents were either sellers or wanted nothing to do with this messy mess of a chart. Some of our less risk-averse participants were willing to bet on a failed breakdown and buy a reversal back above the recent lows.

In our opinion, this is the definition of a structural downtrend and there is very little evidence to suggest that will change anytime soon. With that as our backdrop let's discuss why this chart is on our radar right now.

This is a weekly line chart of Real Estate (IYR) vs the S&P 500 (SPY) looking back about 20-years.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

In our Table Of The Week, we highlighted some of the strongest stocks in the S&P 500 right now. We showed statistical evidence that these stocks have not only performed better over the long-run, but they've also suffered smaller drawdowns in the near-term.

Despite remaining skeptical of what is still a bear market rally in our opinion, there are always opportunities on the long side, we just need to pick our spots carefully and respect our risk management levels. In this post, we're going to outline trade setups in what we believe are some of the most robust uptrends still in place.

If the market moves higher from here, these stocks should continue to exhibit leadership. If it rolls over, they should hold up better than the average stock and our risk will be well-defined to ensure minimal losses in the case we're wrong.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

If you read our research regularly you may be sick of this by now, so my apologies. But there is a method to our madness. A tried and true repeatable process that allows us to consistently identify the strongest and weakest areas of the market. Any market. While we've focused mainly on US Equities recently, we can apply these same principles to any asset class.

We have continually highlighted the fact that the long-term outperformers are often also the short-term leaders. Why? Because there is empirical evidence to support this and we know it works. I'll be writing an educational post about this soon.

We've also written a lot lately about how one of the main signals we're looking for before turning bullish on stocks is for the percent of NYSE components to break back above 15%. Well, we're still not really close, but with such drastic daily swings in the major indexes, this could change fast so we want to be ready if and when it does.

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?

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.

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.

Chart Summit 2020 is officially in the books. What an amazing time we had. Wow!

The videos of all the presentations are now up and you can go to ChartSummit.com and stream them for FREE!

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?

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!