If you want to know what's moving markets this week, and how we're thinking about profiting from it, then the Morning Show is for you!
Today's guest is Jay Woods, New York Stock Exchange Floor Governor and Chief Global Strategist at Freedom Capital Markets. He messaged me that he disagrees with my take on the market so we're about to debate LIVE on the show. You're not going to want to miss this one!
We've had some great trades come out of this small-cap-focused column since we launched it back in 2020 and started rotating it with our flagship bottom-up scan, Under the Hood.
For the first year or so, we focused only on Russell 2000 stocks with a market cap between $1 and $2B.
That was fun, but we wanted to branch out a bit and allow some new stocks to find their way onto our list.
We expanded our universe to include some mid-caps.
Nowadays, to make the cut for our Minor Leaguers list, a company must have a market cap between $1 and $4B.
If you want to know what's moving markets this week, and how we're thinking about profiting from it, then the Morning Show is for you!
Today's guest is fellow twin-boy dad Todd Gordon, Portfolio Manager at Inside Edge Capital. Todd is an old pal, veteran trader and world class skier. You're not going to want to miss this conversation!
The Mötley Crüe song title comes to mind: Same Ol' Situation.
It's always the same questions. Every bull market.
How much higher can stocks possibly go? Was that last high the top? Why is the economy not as strong as the stock market?
That's the thing. We want to pay attention to what's happening around us. Because we've seen it before and we'll see it again. It's just humans being humans.
I like to turn to the data and weigh the evidence so we can try to make the most informed decisions possible.
The way I see it, this has been a bull market for quite some time, well into year 3 now. Whenever a lagging sector has been most vulnerable to break down from a major top, the opposite has happened.
We're in the 3rd year of a bull market and sector rotation continues to be a dominant theme that's driving stock prices higher, and probably more importantly, not allowing them to go lower.
Also during corrections, you regularly see rotation into the more defensive stocks, like Consumer Staples. You don't have that either. In fact, Consumer Staples just closed at new all-time lows relative to the S&P500.
While some sectors and industry groups have been taking a breather, after these historic runs, other stocks have been catching a bid - things like Medical Equipment, Airlines and now Energy stocks.
The one constant, however, is the rotation OUT of Consumer Staples.
This defensive sector consistently outperforms when stocks are under pressure, and when it's a less than ideal environment to be putting risk on in equities.
This is the opposite of that.
Look at the new all-time lows for Consumer Staples relative to the S&P500:
This chart, hands down, is one of my all time favorites. It tells the entire story.
Bond yields hit their first long term cycle bottom in the 1940s. Then we had the stagflation of the ’70s, followed by the blow off top in 1982. From there, a nearly 40 year downtrend in yields that ended in 2020.
After that, yields have been grinding higher.
Now, if there’s ever going to be a year where bond yields take a breather, it’s probably this one.