Add Industrials to this list of sectors (like financials) that are badly underperforming in the current market environment. This chart says it all:

We already got short financials last week. Time to step in here on the industrials.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Last month we wrote about the lackluster move from some of the cyclical sectors off of their March lows, particularly Industrials and Financials.

We continue to see weakness out of these areas over both long and short-term timeframes as Financials are pressing on all-time lows relative to the S&P 500 and Industrials just made a fresh relative 20-year low.

In this post, we'll take a look at these underperforming areas and share some trade ideas to express our bearish thesis.

First, let's take a look at the long-term relative weakness we just mentioned.

Click chart to enlarge view.

Two massive tops breaking down to fresh lows. These are both secular laggards and have been for a long time.

The more recent relative weakness out of...

Normally one day of price action doesn't get our attention, but given our cautious view of stocks from a structural perspective, it's worth outlining why today's candle in the Nasdaq 100 could potentially be a big deal for stocks all around the world.

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?

In a recent blog post, JC highlighted some bullish stocks that he can simply no longer ignore. Regardless of whether or not we feel the upside may be close to exhausting itself in the broader markets, there are some setups that are screaming for attention.

I'm game. Let's play along.

If you haven't heard by now, the Online Retail Index broke out to new all-time highs. We're not exactly seeing that from a broad-based perspective. This is not happening domestically and it's certainly not happening around the world. The rotation we're seeing among sectors and industry groups is real. Today we're going to focus specifically on online retail.

The way I see it, the question here is simple. Is the massive reversion, and return to these prior highs, "the" move? Or was that just a multi-year consolidation, and the move is just getting started?

Here's what that looks like:

Click on Charts to Zoom In

Now look at this group of retailers relative to the S&P500, which happens to be one of the strongest stock indexes on planet earth. So we're comparing it to strength, not cherry picking weak indexes:

...

The weight of the evidence remains mixed and suggests that there will be winners on the long side, winners on the short side, and a lot of stocks in the middle that aren't going anywhere.

An easy way to view that is through our five bull market barometers, which continue to suggest we're in a bear market. As a result, we're focused on the best opportunities on both the long and short side.

In this post, we're going to outline which area of the market we're looking to short and add several individual stock trade setups to our list of open ideas.

Let's start at the sector level. Nifty Commodities remain below the 38.2% Fibonacci Retracement of its 2020 decline at 2,635. With momentum in a bearish range and stuck below this level, then it makes sense to be erring on the short side and looking for a move back towards the lows near 2,075

Click on chart to enlarge view. ...

Jordan Kotick is one of the key people that early in my career inspired me to be more intermarket oriented. They would ask Jordan about the S&P500 and he would go into a tangent about bonds. They would ask him about Emerging Markets and he'd whip out, what he refers to as, "Chinese Dow Theory". For over a decade, Jordan was the Managing Director of Macro Strategy at Barclays and then Managing Director of Cross Asset Strategy at RBC Capital Markets. He is the first person to have ever been president of both the CMT Association (then called the MTA), and the Canadian Society of Technical Analysts (CSTA). In this podcast episode we talk about some of the great lessons Jordan learned over the years and what sorts of markets and charts investors should be paying attention to in the current environment. This was a really fun conversation and was great to catch up!

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

For the week ended Friday, May 8, 2020:

Every weekend we publish performance tables for a variety of different asset classes and categories along with commentary on each.

Many of the relative trends in stocks that have been in place for a long time have come into question recently as they're showing signs of maturing due in part to the change in leadership we wrote about this week.

In this post, we'll highlight two structural intermarket themes that have remained robust throughout this tumultuous time for equity markets.

The first relative trend that hasn't slowed down at all is the relentless outperformance of the US over the rest of the world. Our first table shows the Wilshire 5000 (DWC) dominating every Global Index over just about every timeframe, from this week to the trailing year.

Click table to enlarge view.

The second theme is the continuance of...

If you know me by now, you know how much I enjoy all things Japanese. For me, it's the best cuisine on earth. The architecture in Japan is spectacular. I can't take the smile off my face whenever I'm there. If you can believe this, I even passed the Japanese Sake Advisor Exam earlier this year.

There's a blog post I've been working on for a while I titled, "Investing Like a Sumo Wrestler". But that's a conversation for another day.

This week I was watching the new documentary, "The Delicacy", about sea urchins and the divers who harvest them. Uni, which is what the Japanese call the edible part inside the sea urchins, is one of my favorite snacks in the world. You can get good ones from Hokkaido, Santa Barbara and off the coast of South America.

The documentary was awesome, even if you don't like to eat Uni, like my wife. She also loves visiting Japan, but she'll tell you she prefers Italy or Greece. I'm torn.

Anyway, watching this while having a glass of Junmai Daigingo sake, they brought up the concept of Ichigo Ichie. This is a philosophy that I learned about while...

The headline you'll hear is that unemployment rates are soaring to unprecedented levels. What I always like to point out is that stocks crashed months ago, collectively factoring in just that. Stocks are a discounting mechanism. It's more obvious today than ever, and I think this is a nice reminder. 

For the past week or so, it's been a feeling to me that markets are setting up for some sideways chop with any directional bias being to the downside from here.

Meanwhile, options volatilities still remain elevated across the board (though well off the March highs) reflecting a lingering fear among market participants of another shoe to drop as the Coronavirus scare continues to effect human health and the global economy.

Against this backdrop, I'm looking for some delta-neutral credit spread strategies to employ. When doing so, I like to scan the most liquid ETFs and look for the ones exhibiting the highest premiums.