In today's post, we're talking about a group of stocks that have emerged as the 'Generals' of the current bull market.
You are thinking, “it must be tech.”
It’s not.
Industrials have been just as strong as tech stocks but with far better internals. No other sector has experienced the kind of broad participation we’re seeing from industrials. These are the real market leaders.
Historically, the Industrial sector is the one with the highest correlation to the overall market. So, the strength of these stocks is also sending us very bullish information about the health of this bull market.
This is great news, but today’s note is about looking under the hood and finding the best opportunities in the various industrial subgroups.
As one of the most diverse sectors, investors have plenty of options in the world of industrials. We did the work and dug into this space to find out what the strongest areas are and where we want to put our money.
Let’s get into it.
Here’s the Large-Cap Industrial Sector $XLI breaking out of a multi-year base:
Welcome back to Under the Hood, where we'll cover all the action for the week ended March 1, 2024. This report is published bi-weekly, in rotation with The Minor Leaguers.
What we do here is analyze the most popular stocks during the week and find opportunities to either join in and ride these momentum names higher, or fade the crowd and bet against them.
We use a variety of sources to generate the list of most popular names.
There are so many new data sources available that all we need to do is organize and curate them in a way that shows us exactly what we want: a list of stocks that are seeing an unusual increase in investor interest.
Click here for a behind-the-scenes look at our process.
Whether we’re measuring increasing interest based on large institutional purchases, unusual options...
US Treasuries are taking a back seat to risk assets.
Bond market volatility is declining. Credit spreads are tightening. And Emerging Market high-yield bonds ($EMHY) are breaking out.
Meanwhile, stocks are posting new all-time highs.
So, how high will interest rates climb over the near term?
My gut tells me not far — at least not in the coming weeks or months…
Check out the US benchmark rate finding resistance at approximately 4.33:
Last month’s high marks a logical ceiling for the US benchmark rate.
Those former highs coincide with a key retracement level based on the run-up into the October 2023 peak. Plus, the 10-year yield paused at the same level for almost a month during last year's rally. That’s not a coincidence.
If the US 10-year breaks above 4.33, volatility will hit...
These days, it’s all about cattle futures, orange juice, or cocoa hitting an all-time high.
I’m sure everyone down at the NYMEX or the folks over at the CBOT in Chicago are having a ball. But what about the stock traders trying to get a piece of the action?
Sure, the energy trade is starting to work again. But gold has been a range-bound mess since the summer of 2020. And gold mining stocks have been an absolute dumpster fire.
It just doesn’t make sense amid a commodity bull run…
Our International Hall of Famers list is composed of the 100 largest US-listed international stocks, or ADRs.
We've also sprinkled in some of the largest ADRs from countries that did not make the market cap cut.
These stocks range from some well-known mega-cap multinationals such as Toyota Motor and Royal Dutch Shell to some large-cap global disruptors such as Sea Ltd and Shopify.
It's got all the big names and more–but only those that are based outside the US. You can find all the largest US stocks on our original Hall of Famers list.
The beauty of these scans is really in their simplicity.
We take the largest names each week and then apply technical filters in a way that the strongest stocks with the most momentum rise to the top.
Based on the market environment, we can also flip the scan on its head and filter for weakness.
Let's dive in and take a look at some of the most important stocks from around the world.
These are the registration details for our Live Monthly Candlestick Strategy Session for Premium Members of All Star Charts.
This month’s Video Conference Call will be held on Monday March 4th @ 6PM ET. As always, if you cannot make the call live, the video and slides will be archived and published here along with every other live call since 2015.
As most of you know, we use various bottom-up tools and scans to complement our top-down approach.
It's really been working for us!
One way we're doing this is by identifying the strongest growth stocks as they climb the market-cap ladder from small- to mid- to large- and, ultimately, to mega-cap status (over $200B).
Once they graduate from small-cap to mid-cap status (over $2B), they come on our radar. Likewise, when they surpass the roughly $30B mark, they roll off our list.
But the scan doesn't just end there.
We only want to look at the strongest growth industries in the market, as that is typically where these potential 50-baggers come from.
Some of the best performers in recent decades – stocks like Priceline, Amazon, Netflix, Salesforce, and myriad others – would have been on this list at some point during their journey to becoming the market...
What started out as a bearish reversal in the dollar-yen is beginning to look more like a bullish continuation pattern.
Buying the Japanese yen will produce absolute gangbuster returns – at some point.
But the market’s simply not there yet…
For starters, Japanese stocks are hitting new all-time highs. These new highs support bullish USD/JPY positioning – long dollar, short yen.
Here’s an overlay chart of the Nikkei 225 Index and the dollar-yen pair, highlighting their positive correlation over longer time frames:
The USD/JPY tends to peak and trough in tandem with the Nikkei.
We can apply the same logic to global equities, as a dollar-yen rally characterizes a true risk-on environment much like the one we’re experiencing now.
So if the Japanese stocks are taking out their December 1989 highs, why can’t the dollar-yen do the same?
It’s awfully close to its comparable 1990 high of...