What’s Needed to Fix This Bull Market?

Keith Schneider
Geoff Bysshe

Please jump right into the Big View bullets and weekly video. Due to travel there will not be Outlook commentary be released later today.

 

 

 

Every week we review the big picture of the market’s technical condition as seen through the lens of our Big View data charts.

The bullets provide a quick summary organized by conditions we see as being risk-on, risk-off, or neutral. 

The video analysis dives deeper.


 

Summary: While Friday’s action was encouraging for a nascent market turnaround, we need to see further confirmation, like the Nasdaq and S&P regaining their 200-Day moving averages. Value stocks continue to outperform and seem to be poised to lead the market up or outperform on a further decline, although Semiconductors could also signal a reversal in the beaten down tech sector and a return to risk-on.

Risk On

  • Markets hit new recent lows on Thursday and were oversold on price and Real Motion and were setup for mean reversion trades across the four key indexes. We got a strong bounce on Friday. We need further confirmation that this wasn’t just a short-term relief rally. (+)
  • The number of stocks above their key moving averages hit oversold levels and are already starting to reverse, particularly on the 20-Day Moving Average. (+)
  • Value stocks improved into a strong warning phase this week. (+)
  • BTC has effectively held its 200-Day Moving Average, going back several years. It tested that average and recovered nicely. (+)
  • Seasonal trends are confirming a potential bounce in the latter half of March aligning with many other mean-reversion signals and could indicate a particularly strong bounce. (+)

Neutral

  • Risk-off sectors like Gold Miners and Utilities were up on the week. However, semiconductors were also up, which if it holds up, could translate to a more significant tech rally.(=)
  • Volume patterns are still very weak, though marginally improved from recent levels. (=)
  • Even though the McClellan Oscilator is still in negative territory, it has leveled off and bounced from oversold levels. (=)
  • The new high new low ratio on the Nasdaq is potentially basing out at low levels that could support a mean reversion bounce. (=)
  • The SPY color charts (moving average of the percentage of stocks above key moving averages) shows neutral readings on a short-to-midterm basis (=)
  • As we noted last week, Volatility measurements hit overbought levels and is in the process of mean reverting from key resistance levels in both the cash and futures-based ETF. (=)
  • Foreign equities continued to outperform U.S. equities by some of the widest margins in quite some time. (=)
  • All of the modern family members are trading under their 200-Day Moving Average. Semiconductors are now slightly outperforming the S&P on a short-term basis, which could be a lead indicator of whether we are going to enter a more risk-on environment. (=)

Risk Off

  • Latin american equities were strong this week, likely related to commodities, especially metals, Silver, Gold and Copper. (-)
  • The Nasdaq and IWM color charts (moving average of the percentage of stocks above key moving averages) continues to give negative readings across the board. (-)
  • Risk gauges remain fully risk-off despite Friday’s bounce. (-)
  • Gold bucked the trend and put in new all-time highs, which is consistent in a risk-off environment as we have pointed out in the past. Equities can go up against this trend, but one usually accedes  to the other. (-)
  • The dollar remains under pressure and was marginally down on the week. Considering the importance of the dollar in global finance, and declining equities, this is a negative. (-)