Stocks and Treasuries: The Yin and Yang of the Markets

The S&P 500 is the most widely used benchmark for the US stock market and the 200-day SMA is perhaps the most widely used moving average. These two came together again in late May as the index crossed back above on May 27th. Today we quantify the performance of prior signals and show how a little smoothing can go a long way. Furthermore, a simple market timing mechanism can tell investors when to add risk and when to seek alternatives to stocks.

The Bullish Percent Index is a breadth indicator that quantifies double top breakouts and double bottom breakdowns, Point & Figure style. Basically, this indicator measures higher highs (breakouts) versus lower lows (breakdowns). This makes it a great candidate to quantify underlying strength and weakness in the S&P 500. There have been three signals in the last few months and one triggered this week.

The two most popular biotech ETFs are leading the market this month and making big statements. Before looking at these two, note that they are quite different. The Biotech ETF (IBB) is dominated by large-cap biotechs with the top ten holdings accounting for over 50%. The Biotech SPDR (XBI), on the other hand, is a broad-based ETF with the top ten holdings accounting for less than 25% of the ETF.

The S&P 500 went from a historic decline to a historic bounce to an above average drop. This key benchmark fell 33.9% in 23 days, surged 17.55% in three days and then dropped 5.25% the last four days.

Chartists looking to measure relative performance based on retracements can use the Stochastic Oscillator to quantify these bounces. Way back on March 1st, I posted an article to show how Chartists can quantify downside retracements using Williams %R.

While the price of an index reflects what is happening on the outside, breadth indicators show us what is happening on the inside, and we all know that inside information can provide an edge. Since we are all not Senators, we must use charts to find that edge

The S&P 500 moved from a 52-week high to a 52-week low with lightening speed over the last three weeks. To capture the sharpness of this decline, I am showing a chart with the 3-week Rate-of-Change in the indicator window.

Support levels and bullish retracement zones are questionable, at best, in bear market environments. Why? Because the path of least resistance is down in a bear market. As such, the odds that a support level holds or a bullish retracement zones leads to a reversal odds greatly reduced

Looking for an indicator to find stocks and ETFs that held up the best last week? Look no further. Today I will show how to use a classic indicator to quantify last week’s decline and rank names by their retracements.

After falling for over a year, the Regional Bank ETF (KRE) finally got its mojo back in the fourth quarter of 2019 and broke out to new highs. The ETF then became overextended in mid December and fell back to the 200-day SMA here in February.

Dow Theory applies the principle of confirmation to confirm primary trends. Charles Dow used the Dow Industrials and Dow Transports to confirm the primary trend for the broader market. The primary trend is up, and confirmed, when the Industrials and Transports both

Amazon is by far the biggest component in the Consumer Discretionary SPDR and its recent breakout bodes well for the ETF. The new highs in XLY and AMZN this month, however, did not carry over to the Equal-weight Consumer Discretionary ETF (RCD).

There are three ETFs covering the defense and aerospace group and all three recorded new highs. Even though these ETFs cover the same industry group and have similar price charts, they are quite different when we look under the hood and one is seriously underperforming the other two.

Selling pressure was extremely broad in Friday with all sectors declining and more than ninety percent of stocks in the S&P 500, S&P MidCap 400 and S&P SmallCap 600 declining. While this kind of broad selling pressure creates a short-term oversold condition, it also reflects a change in market dynamics and points to a corrective period ahead.

Signs of a correction were building for some time and it now appears that the long awaited corrective period is here. The S&P 500, in particular, is following the script from January 2018 quite closely.

The Russell 2000 ETF (IWM) broke out of a pennant formation last week and then fell sharply this week. This puts the ETF back in the pennant and near its make or break level.

The stock market started its latest run to infinity (and beyond) in mid August and the 20+ Yr Treasury Bond ETF (TLT) just happened to peak a week or so later. Note that stocks and bonds were largely on the same page from February to August as both moved higher.

Ten of the eleven sector SPDRs are positive over the last three months. The Real Estate SPDR (XLRE) is the only sector sporting a loss (~.75%), but I am not concerned with relative weakness because the price chart looks bullish overall.

2019 was quite the year with many stocks moving sharply higher from January to July or August. In particular, several Technology stocks moved higher during this period and then corrected into October. We can see this pattern reflected in the Equal-Weight Technology ETF (RYT) as it advanced over 40% and then corrected for three months.

2019 was a year with lots of distractions, and yet the S&P 500 recorded 52-week highs in six of the last nine months. The index surged 17.7% the first four months and recorded its first 52-week high in late April.