Earlier this month we outlined the "Five Bull Market Barometers" we're watching to identify the beginning of a new bull market in stocks.
In this post, we'll update those charts without going into as much detail as to why they're important. So if you haven't read our initial post linked above, we'd encourage you to check it out.
With that said, let's jump in and see how these charts have developed since.
While we don't know whether or not this can persist indefinitely or if these divergences will soon resolve themselves, we do know that Semiconductors remain one of the secular leaders and are thus an area we want to continue to bet on from the long side.
In this post, we'll outline some Trade Ideas in our favorite Semiconductor names.
Something all of these setups have in common is that they are exhibiting impressive relative strength vs the broader market. They also all resolved to fresh highs recently, which gives us a well-defined risk management level to trade against.
Ok, I have to be honest here. I'm not incredibly bullish at these prices. As much as I try to divorce myself from the news cycle and the fundamentals, its hard to think NOW is the time to get long.
That said, only price pays, and charts and declining volatility in many stocks is telling different stories.
The beautiful thing is I can express bullish trades with options and clearly define my risk. Here's one that looks like a good risk reward:
Thanks to everyone who participated in this week's Mystery Chart, as always. Most saw that I was doing it this week and didn't even bother to try guessing, simply stating that they were buyers of this massive base breakout on any pullbacks.
Yesterday in our Monthly Conference Call we discussed relative strength in detail and how we're using it to identify opportunities in the current market environment.
Today we wrote a detailed post expanding on our thought process, which we'd highly encourage you to read before continuing with this post.
In this post, we're going to outline several market-neutral trades we think are actionable today.
During Tuesday's Members-Only Conference Call we discussed not wanting to be aggressively long or short stocks on an absolute basis. Our Five Bull Market Barometers continue to suggest this is a choppy, messy environment where we need to be very selective when putting capital to work. Cash/patience and uncorrelated trades like Gold continue to work for those who have the ability to stay out of the equity market.
Not everyone has that luxury though. Many fund managers have a mandate to be long stocks regardless of the market environment. Some may have the ability to short stocks against their exposure, but many are "long-only" and need to outperform in weak markets by owning the stocks that are going down less.
The easiest way to identify the types of stocks that are outperforming, as well as market-neutral opportunities for those with the ability...
Yesterday in our Monthly Conference Call we discussed our preference for market-neutral and uncorrelated trades given the choppy environment that continues for stocks on an absolute basis.
With that said, today we're taking a look at a stock with clearly defined risk and a heavily skewed reward/risk on the long side.
JC summed up our present view on US Equities perfectly during this week's Conference Call:
"There are stocks we want to buy, and there are stocks we want to sell," he told Premium Members on Monday night.
Some areas, particularly the secular leaders coming into the selloff, continue to trend aggressively higher while others refuse to participate in any meaningful upside.
A great example of this is illustrated by contrasting the chart of the Dow Jones Transports (DJT) to what we consider the "New Dow Theory" Average, the PHLX Semiconductor Index (SOX).
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?