Stock Market Today: December 25th - 29th, 2023

Welcome StonkForums to the trading week of December 25th!

This past week saw the following moves in the S&P:


S&P Sectors End of Week:


Major Indices End of Week:


Major Futures Markets End of Week:


Economic Calendar for the Week Ahead:


What to Watch in the Week Ahead:
(N/A.)

 

Crypto, Crude, & Crap Stocks Rally As Yield Curve Steepens, Rate-Cut Hopes Soar
FRIDAY, DEC 22, 2023 - 04:00 PM

A weird week of macro data - strong jobless claims but weak labor market data from UMich; housing starts soared but new home sales crashed; rapidly slowing inflation all driven by goods deflation (as crude prices begin rising again). So macro surprises have flatlined for a week or two - even as financial conditions continue to loosen dramatically...



Source: Bloomberg

As Goldman's Chris Hussey notes, "This week we got further data suggesting that we have not only landed softly, but that the principal concern of a successfully soft landing economy -- that growth takes off again, triggering renewed inflation, and prolonging the Fed hiking cycle -- is likely behind us."

Small Caps soared almost 3% this week (its 6th straight week higher), now up 25% from the lows on Oct 27th. The Dow lagged on the week, but still managed gains while Nasdaq and S&P rallied for the 8th week in a row (the longest streak since 2017)...



Today was 0-DTE selling pressure again, like Wednesday (but on a smaller scale) and Thursday (which worked briefly but then was face-ripped).

The black line is the S&P 500. The red line is 0-DTE options delta flow...



Source: SpotGamma

Wednesday, it worked...



Source: SpotGamma

Thursday, it almost worked...



Source: SpotGamma

'Crap' stocks - ok, profit-less tech - surged this week, but not before Wednesday's 0-DTE-inspired crash wrecked some dreams...



Source: Bloomberg

...and no this is not the same chart, 'most shorted' stocks also followed the same pattern with a big squeeze at the cash open every day this week...



Source: Bloomberg

...and the biggest losers have become the biggest winners as financial conditions have eased...



Source: Bloomberg

The Bullish consensus is getting serious...



Source: Bloomberg

Are investors really excited about The Fed being forced to massively slash rates?

Rate-cut expectations surged to a new high this week, now pricing in 163bps of cuts in 2024...



Source: Bloomberg

If The Fed needs to cut rates that far, that fast, it won't be because of slowing inflation - it will be because of accelerating depression... which ain't good for stonks.

Nevertheless, the market is now pricing a 90% chance of The Fed starting to cut rates in March...



Source: Bloomberg

So much for the FedSpeak trying to jawbone the market back from its extreme reaction to Powell.

They better hope that cyclical inflation doesn't 'cycle' back higher (cough Red Sea cough)... and/or that acyclical inflation falls fast...



Source: Bloomberg

Treasuries were mixed this week with the short-end the best performer by far but the long bond was the only segment of the curve to end higher on the week...



Source: Bloomberg

Which bull-steepened the curve quite notably on the week...



Source: Bloomberg

The dollar fell to its weakest since July, down for the 5th week in the last 6...



Source: Bloomberg

Ethereum soared today relative to bitcoin, but only enough to bring it back to unchanged (relative to bitcoin) on the week...



Source: Bloomberg

On the week, both ETH and BTC were up around 4% (while Solana soared 35%), with BTC holding around $44,000...



Source: Bloomberg

Gold is up 4 of the last 5 days, rising for the 5th week of the last 6 and back above $2050 spot to three-week highs...



Source: Bloomberg

Oil prices rose for the second week in a row, after seven straight weeks lower. The 3% jump in WTI was the best week since mid-October (finding resistance at $75)...



Source: Bloomberg

Finally, from a valuation perspective, things are getting a little pricey. It now takes the average American 1279 hours of work to earn enough to buy The Dow...



Source: Bloomberg

That's quite a jump from the 225-hour average from 1965 to 1995 before Greenspan unleashed the activist Fed.

 

NASDAQ & Russell 2000 Up 71.4% Of Time Day After Christmas

Click here to view table full size…

Santa Claus Rally starts today. The Santa Claus Rally was discovered and named by Yale Hirsch in 1972 and published in our 1973 Stock Trader’s Almanacas the last five trading days of the year and the first two trading days of the New Year. This short, sweet rally is usually good for about 1.3% on the S&P 500, but the real significance of the SCR is as an indicator.

It is our first seasonal indicator of the year ahead. Years when there was no Santa Claus Rally tended to precede bear markets or times when stocks hit significantly lower prices later in the year. As Yale’s famous line states (2024 Almanac page 118): “If Santa Claus Should Fail To Call, Bears May Come to Broad and Wall.”

NASDAQ and Russell 2000 have logged the greatest frequency and magnitude of gains on the day after Christmas. Since 1988, NASDAQ has advanced 73.5% of the time with an average move of +0.37%. R2K has also advanced 71.4% of the time with an average advance of +0.37%. DJIA and S&P 500 have slightly softer records, but bullish, nonetheless.

Two days after Christmas, the market is less bullish with NASDAQ down more often than up. Three days after Christmas R2K small caps take the lead advancing 65.7% of the time with an average gain of +0.52%.

Looking further out, from 1950-1985 last 5 trading days of the year S&P 500 up 34 of 36 years, average gain 1.24%. 1986-2022 up 20 of 37, average gain 0.40%.

Overbought Breadth Not Going Away
Fri, Dec 22, 2023

A small number of (mega-cap) names have done the bulk of the heavy lifting for market-cap-weighted S&P 500 performance this year, but that does not steal from the fact that breadth has been solid. As shown below, the S&P 500's 10-day advance decline line—which essentially measures the ten-day average of the daily net percentage of stocks in the index trading higher/lower—has shown positive readings 57.9% of the time in 2023 and is right in line with the annual average dating back to 1990.



Within this year's respectable breadth readings has been a particularly strong run over the past couple of months which we first highlighted in yesterday's Sector Snapshot. As shown below, the 10-day advance-decline (A/D) line has pretty consistently sat at least one standard deviation above its historical average throughout November and December. In other words, the past couple of months have consistently seen historically large swathes of the market trading higher.



Looking at the past 50 trading days, two-thirds of the time have seen the 10-day A/D line sit in overbought territory. Of all rolling 50-day periods, there have only been two other times when breadth by this measure has been overbought on such a consistent basis. The most recent of these was in early 2019 when it was overbought 70% of the time. Before that, you'd need to go back to 2010 to find a reading as high.



Here Comes the Santa Claus Rally


“If Santa should fail to call, bears may come to Broad and Wall.”

—Yale Hirsh

One of the little-known facts about the Santa Claus Rally (SCR) is that it isn’t the entire month of December; it’s actually only seven days. Discovered in 1972 by Yale Hirsch, creator of the Stock Trader’s Almanac (carried on now by his son Jeff Hirsch), the real SCR is the final five trading days of the year and first two trading days of the following year. In other words, the official SCR is set to begin tomorrow, Friday, December 22, 2023.

Historically, it turns out these seven days indeed have been quite jolly, as no seven-day combo is more likely to be higher (up 79.5% of the time), and only two combos have a better average return for the S&P 500 than the 1.32% average return during the official Santa Claus Rally period.



Here’s a chart we shared at the start of the month, showing that the latter half of December is when most of the seasonally strong gains occur. Of course, this year is anything but normal, with huge gains the first part of the month.



These seven days tend to be in the green, so that is expected. But fun trivia stat, the SCR has been higher the past seven years and hasn’t been higher eight years in a row since the ‘70s. The all-time record was an incredible 10-year winning streak in the ‘50s and ‘60s. Here we show all the SCR periods since the tech bubble and how the S&P 500 does after each.



The bottom line is that what really matters to investors is when Santa doesn’t come, as Mr. Hirsch noted in the quote at the start of this blog.

Here we show some recent times investors were given coal during these seven days, and the results after aren’t very good at all. The past five times (going back 30 years) that the SCR was negative saw January down as well. Notably, there was no SCR in 2000 and 2008, not the best times for investors, and potentially some major warnings that something wasn’t right. Lastly, the full year was negative in 1994 and 2015 after no Santa. We like to say in the Carson Investment Research team that hope isn’t a strategy, but I’m hoping for some green during the SCR!



Finally, the average gains each year for the S&P 500 is 9.1% and the index is higher 71.2% of the time. But when there is an SCR, those numbers jump to 10.2% and 72.4%, falling to only 5.0% and 66.7% when there is no Santa. Sure, this is only one indicator, and we suggest following many more indicators to base your investment decisions, but this is clearly something we wouldn’t ignore either.



The bottom line is stocks are at or near all-time highs, we’ve been quite vocal about why stocks would do well this year, and we don’t see any major reasons not to expect Santa to come once again in 2023.

Official Santa Claus Rally Starts Tomorrow!

It is not a trading strategy; it is an indicator. To wit: “If Santa Claus should fail to call, bears may come to Broad and Wall.” Yesterday’s selloff was a great setup. Just what the Santa Claus Rally needed. The Street has been buzzing about the Santa Claus Rally for three months now. Most still get it wrong. It’s not the yearend rally, the Q4 rally that runs from Halloween through January. Yes, November, December and January are the best three months of the year, but they are not the Santa Claus Rally.

Santa Claus Rally was devised by Yale Hirsch in 1972 and published in the 1973 Stock Trader’s Almanac. The “Santa Claus Rally” is the last 5 trading days of the year plus the first 2 of New Year. This year it begins on the open on December 22 and lasts until the second trading day of 2024, January 3. Average S&P 500 gains over this seven trading-day range since 1969 are a respectable 1.3%.

It is not a trading strategy; it is an indicator. Failure to have a Santa Claus Rally tends to precede bear markets or times when stocks could be purchased at lower prices later in the year. Down SCRs were followed by flat years in 1994, 2005 and 2015, two nasty bear markets in 2000 and 2008 and a mild bear that ended in February 2016.

As Yale Hirsch’s now famous line states, “If Santa Claus should fail to call, bears may come to Broad and Wall.”

Stay tuned for more on the rest of my January Indicator Trifecta and sign up for my newsletter to get my official readings and analysis. And get the 2024 Stock Trader’s Almanac as a free bonus. https://stocktradersalmanac.com/LandingPages/get-Almanac-for-free.aspx

The AI Race is Closer Than It Seems
Thu, Dec 21, 2023

The keyword of the year in markets has been AI, and besides Nvidia (NVDA), whose chips power most of the AI-related applications, two of the most high-profile companies competing in the sector have been Alphabet (GOOGL) and Microsoft (MSFT). Most people forget, but it was back in 2016, six years before Chat-GPT even came out, that Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai declared that Google was an “AI-first company.” Pichai may have been ahead of the game, but when Chat-GPT first launched late last year, it was MSFT that found itself in the pole position while the consensus quickly declared that Alphabet missed the boat on AI. This sentiment was reinforced throughout the year as there were numerous points where Alphabet made negative headlines due to its shortcomings in AI.

Given the headlines, you’d think that the amount of daylight between the performance of MSFT and GOOGL this year would be wide, but the charts say otherwise. As shown in the charts below, they’re both on pace to close out the year right near their highs, and it’s GOOGL that is closer to a new high. Not only that but on a YTD basis, it’s GOOGL (58.99%) that is outperforming MSFT (54.9%) rather than the other way around.





To be fair, since the launch of Chat-GPT on 11/30/22, MSFT is still outperforming GOOGL, but the gap between them has been narrowing. With MSFT up 45.5% and GOOGL up 38.8% since Chat-GPT introduced itself to the world, less than seven percentage points separates the two stocks. What’s notable about the performance of the two during this time is that while MSFT has been in the lead most of the time, there have been multiple periods where the lead shifted between the two. The AI race between GOOGL and MSFT has been a lot closer than this year’s headlines would have you believe.



Four More Reasons ’24 Should Be a Good One for the Bulls


“Investing is like dieting. It is simple, but not easy.” Warren Buffett, Chairperson at Berkshire Hathaway

It was a year ago this week that we moved to overweight equities and we’ve been there ever since. Obviously, this wasn’t a very popular call, as nearly everyone else on Wall Street was expecting a recession and the continuation of the bear market from ’22. Anytime you go against the crowd it will ruffle feathers, but we saw many reasons to do it then and we still see many reasons to expect continued good times in ’24.

We wrote Why We Think The Bull Market Should Continue In 2024 on November 9 (nearly six weeks ago) and all stocks have done since the publication of that blog is go up EVERY … SINGLE … WEEK.

In fact, the S&P 500 is up a very impressive seven weeks in a row currently, for the longest weekly win streak since eight in a row about six years ago. You might think that long weekly win streaks like this are bearish, but that isn’t true. In fact, you tend to see streaks like this in bull markets and continued strong price action is normal. Looking at all the seven week win streaks since 1950 showed that stocks were higher a year later 25 out of 29 times, or more than 86% of the time. That’s the first recent signal we’ve seen that suggests the next 12 months could provide another good year for the bulls.



Second, we’ve seen huge jumps in breadth, otherwise known as participation. For most of this year we heard the same bears on TV tell us (over and over) that only seven stocks were going up. We disagreed with this analysis the whole time, as many stocks were indeed going higher, but the blast of buying pressure we’ve seen the past few weeks further confirms there are way more than only seven stocks supporting markets now.

Last week saw more than 90% of the stocks in the S&P 500 above their 50-day moving average. This might mean we are near-term overbought, but you also tend to see this kind of strength at the beginning of bullish moves. Going back the past 20 years, previous times we saw such strong participation, the S&P 500 was higher a year later 14 out of 15 times and up 16.1% on average. Yet another clue stocks could be in a for a nice year in ’24.



Another rare, yet potentially bullish, signal is our third reason to expect higher prices in ’24. Recently more than 40% of the components in the S&P 500 saw an RSI of more than 70. We will keep this fairly simple, but the RSI (or relative strength Index) is an overbought/oversold indicator where the general guideline is above 70 is overbought and below 30 is oversold. You can read more about the RSI from our friends at Investopedia here.

The bottom line is when you see a large spike in the number of stocks in the S&P 500 that are overbought, it is very bullish. Thanks to data from Ned Davis Research we found there were only four other times since 1972 (as far back as NDR data goes) that also had above 40% of stocks at overbought levels. The average return a year later was an extremely impressive 25.7% and higher all four times. In fact, the worst return a year later was ‘only’ 17.6% after the signal in February 1991. I don’t know about you, but I could live with a 17% gain in 2024.



The last reason to be bullish in ’24 — when stocks have dropped more than 10% (like 2022), then jumped more than 10% (like this year), that following year tended to be quite solid, up six out of six times with an 11.7% gain on average, which would likely make most bulls smile in ’24.



As Uncle Warren told us in the quote at the top, investing can be very tough. There will always be reasons to worry and reasons to sell. Yet, some of the very best investors in history are those who simply used the scary times to add when others are selling.

Sure, it isn’t always that simple, but look at 2023. As we laid out all year, the overwhelming evidence suggested stocks would go higher, and they sure have. That’s why we invest based on facts, not feelings.

Small-Caps Have Historically Flourished Ahead of Christmas


For decades we have been tracking the market’s performance around holidays in the annual Stock Trader’s Almanac. In the 57th edition for 2024, data for DJIA, S&P 500, NASDAQ and Russell 2000 can be found on page 100. Of the eight holidays tracked, Christmas has been one of the most consistently bullish with respectable average gains occurring from 3 days before to the day before. Since 1988, the second day before Christmas, December 21 this year, has been most bullish over the past 35 years with greatest average gains and the highest frequency of advances. Small caps measured by Russell 2000 have enjoyed the most consistent strength on all three days. Volatility also tends to be subdued ahead of Christmas with significant declines occurring only in 2018, 2008, 2001 and 2000. 2018 was the only year to see declines on all three days by all four indexes.

The Inflation Problem Is Easing, and the Fed Expects to Cut Rates


Wednesday, December 13th, was important for two reasons:

• The Federal Reserve (Fed) acknowledged that inflation is easing quite rapidly, and they plan to respond with rate cuts.
• The November producer price index (PPI) indicated that core inflation is back at the Fed’s target.

Let’s start with the Fed meeting.

A Data Dependent Fed Bows to the Data
The Fed kept policy interest rates unchanged in the 5.25-5.0% range, but the big story really was that they officially acknowledged that inflation is easing. Their updated “summary of economic projections” saw their estimates of core inflation for 2023 revised down from 3.7% to 3.2%. The 2024 estimate was pulled down from 2.6% to 2.4%.

If you think inflation is going to be softer than you initially expected, what would you do? Well, if you’re a Fed official, you’d pull down your estimates for future interest rates, and that’s exactly what they did. They actually did a couple of things, both of which were quite dovish:

• They removed the extra rate hike for 2023 that they’d originally penciled in. In other words, they don’t think rates are going any higher.
• They moved the 2024 rate estimate from 5.1% to 4.6%. The current rate is 5.4%, and the updated estimate implies they’ll cut rates by around 0.8%-points (about three 0.25%-point cuts) in 2023.

Markets were off to the races after the Fed released their statement and projections – with bond yields falling, and equity markets rallying. Notably, Fed Chair Powell didn’t look to rain on the party in his press conference. Instead, he more or less reiterated the dovish outlook, noting that there has been progress on inflation, including in the categories they focus on. He once again emphasized that the risk of not doing enough to curb inflation was now balanced with the risk of holding rates too high for too long (and potentially breaking the economy in the process).

Inflation Is Back at the Fed’s Target
PPI data for November came in softer than expected, especially core PPI, which excludes the volatile food and energy components. The Fed’s preferred inflation metric is the personal consumption expenditures price index (PCE) and that takes several inputs from the PPI data, including for categories like health insurance and airfares.

Core PCE typically runs lower than its counterpart, the core consumer price index (CPI). That’s even more so now because 40% of core CPI is comprised of rents, versus 17% in core PCE, and the official rental data is running at an annual inflation rate of 6% now. Note that this is really outdated compared to what’s happening in rental markets right now, with private market indices like Apartment List showing rents falling compared to last year.

The good news is that the November CPI and PPI data indicate that core PCE was flat month over month in November. That means core inflation, using the Fed’s preferred metric, is running at an annual rate of 2.1% over the last three months, and 2% over the last six months.



In other words, the inflation problem appears to be over, at least for now. Even looking ahead, it’s likely that used car prices continue to fall and lagged data for rents catch up to reality, keeping downward pressure on core inflation.

Which means we expect the Fed is going to cut interest rates, as their own projections suggest. And it could come sooner rather than later.

A Big Day for Markets, and a Potentially Big Boost for the Economy
No surprise that markets liked everything that happened on Wednesday, including the prospect of a rate cut as early March (which investors estimate with a probability of almost 80%). Treasury yields headed even lower after Powell’s comments, with 1-year yields falling 0.22%-points to 4.91% and 2-year yields falling 0.3%-points to 4.43%. This was because markets are now estimating about 1.16%-points of cuts in 2024, more than Fed officials’ estimate of 0.80%-points.



Equities rallied on the back of lower interest rates, with the S&P 500 Index rising 1.4% on Wednesday and leaving it less than 2% off its all-time high. Rate-sensitive sectors like utilities and real estate, outperformed. Even small cap stocks, which have been weighed down by higher rates, saw huge gains, with the Russell 2000 Index rising 3.5%.

Lower interest rates also have potentially significant, and positive, effects on the economy. For one thing, it’ll immediately be reflected in mortgage rates. 30-year mortgage rates are now estimated to be close to 6.8%, down from around 8% in mid-October.



Lower mortgage rates could unlock activity in the housing market, especially in the existing homes market, where activity has ground to a near halt amid high rates. Additional sales of homes can lead to more consumer spending, including household appliances, furnishings, and other household goods. Lower rates could also boost auto sales, as loans for used and new vehicles become more affordable. Those are just a couple of direct, near-term boosts for the economy. In the medium term, a better outlook for inflation and interest rates could also results in a pickup in business investment.

In summary, the inflation tide has subsided quite decisively and that means a Fed pivot to interest rate cuts is on the horizon, which we expect to be very positive for markets and the economy. That’s very good news.

 

Here are the percentage changes for the major indices for WTD, MTD, QTD & YTD in 2023-



S&P sectors for the past week-

 

Here are the current major indices pullback/correction levels from 52WK highs as of week ending 12.22.23-


Here is also the pullback/correction levels from current prices


Here are the current major indices rally levels from 52WK lows as of week ending 12.22.23-

 

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Here are the upcoming IPO's for this week-

 

Stock Market Analysis Video for December 22nd, 2023
Video from AlphaTrends Brian Shannon


ShadowTrader Video Weekly 12/24/23
Video from ShadowTrader Peter Reznicek

 

StonkForumers! Come join us on our stock market competitions for this upcoming trading week ahead!-

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StonkForums Weekly Stock Picking Contest & SPX Sentiment Poll (12/25-12/29) <-- click there to cast your weekly market direction vote and stock picks for this coming week ahead!

Daily SPX Sentiment Poll for Tuesday (12/26) <-- click there to cast your daily market direction vote for this coming Tuesday ahead!

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It would be pretty sweet to see some of you join us and participate on these!

I hope you all have a fantastic weekend ahead!

 

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Here are the most anticipated Earnings Releases for this upcoming trading week ahead.

***Check mark next to the stock symbols denotes confirmed earnings release date & time***

Monday 12.25.23 Before Market Open:

Spoiler: CLICK HERE TO VIEW MONDAY'S AM EARNINGS TIMES & ESTIMATES!

(NONE. U.S. MARKETS CLOSED IN OBSERVANCE OF CHRISTMAS DAY.)

Monday 12.25.23 After Market Close:

Spoiler: CLICK HERE TO VIEW MONDAY'S PM EARNINGS TIMES & ESTIMATES!

(NONE. U.S. MARKETS CLOSED IN OBSERVANCE OF CHRISTMAS DAY.)

Tuesday 12.26.23 Before Market Open:

Spoiler: CLICK HERE TO VIEW TUESDAY'S AM EARNINGS TIMES & ESTIMATES!

(NONE.)

Tuesday 12.26.23 After Market Close:

Spoiler: CLICK HERE TO VIEW TUESDAY'S PM EARNINGS TIMES & ESTIMATES!

(NONE.)

Wednesday 12.27.23 Before Market Open:

Spoiler: CLICK HERE TO VIEW WEDNESDAY'S AM EARNINGS TIMES & ESTIMATES!

(NONE.)

Wednesday 12.27.23 After Market Close:

Spoiler: CLICK HERE TO VIEW WEDNESDAY'S PM EARNINGS TIMES & ESTIMATES!

(NONE.)

Thursday 12.28.23 Before Market Open:

Spoiler: CLICK HERE TO VIEW THURSDAY'S AM EARNINGS TIMES & ESTIMATES!

(NONE.)

Thursday 12.28.23 After Market Close:

Spoiler: CLICK HERE TO VIEW THURSDAY'S PM EARNINGS TIMES & ESTIMATES!

(NONE.)

Friday 12.29.23 Before Market Open:

Spoiler: CLICK HERE TO VIEW FRIDAY'S AM EARNINGS TIMES & ESTIMATES!

(NONE.)

Friday 12.29.23 After Market Close:

Spoiler: CLICK HERE TO VIEW FRIDAY'S PM EARNINGS TIMES & ESTIMATES!

(NONE.)

 

And finally here is the most anticipated earnings calendar for this upcoming trading week ahead-
(NONE.)


If you guys want to view the full earnings post please see this thread here-

• Most Anticipated Earnings Releases for the week beginning December 25th, 2023 <-- click there to view!

 

Top of the morning StonkForumers! Happy Tuesday to all of you and welcome to the new trading week and a frrrrrrrrrrrresh start. Here is a quick check on those futures as we are under an hour from the US cash market open.

GLTA on this Tuesday, December the 26th, 2023!

 

Morning Lineup - 12/26/23 - One Extreme to the Other
Tue, Dec 26, 2023

We hope you all had a great holiday weekend, and for those who are back to work, it’s going to be a quiet day in the markets as much of Asia, all of Europe, and Canada are closed in observance of Boxing Day. Futures have a modestly positive bias, and crude oil is trading up close to 2% in the session.

Investors in just about every asset class outside of Energy have had a great end to the year, and the rally in US Treasuries has been among the most impressive. At the long end of the Treasury curve, the iShares 20-Year Treasury ETF (TLT) has rallied over 15% from its lows since late October. In the twenty-year history of the ETF, there have been only five other periods where the ETF rallied as much or more in 50 trading days. The three most notable were during the Financial Crisis, in 2011 right around the time of the US debt downgrade by S&P, and then again in March 2020 at the time of COVID. Admittedly, each of those rallies was significantly larger, but what makes the current period notable is that it followed what had been a historically large 15% decline in a 50-trading day span that ended in early October. Never in the ETF’s history has it shifted so fast from one extreme to the other.

 

Here is a final look at today's market and futures maps, as well as how each sector performed individually at the close on Tuesday, December 26th, 2023.

 

have an awesome rest of your week and EOY guys!

i'm gonna be mostly away as i have some family over for the remainder of this week.

will catch up with you guys again next tuesday as we open up a brand spanking new trading year! cheers everyone!

 

Top of the afternoon StonkForumers! Happy Hump day to all of you and welcome to the new trading day and a frrrrrrrrrrrresh start. Here is a quick check on those futures as we are over 3 hours into the US cash market open.

GLTA on this Wednesday, December the 27th, 2023!

 

Morning Lineup - 12/27/23 - Overbought Everywhere
Wed, Dec 27, 2023

While the US was open for trading yesterday, most international markets are only reopening from the Christmas holiday today, and the overall tone has been positive as several major Asian markets were up 1% or more overnight. The tone in Europe is also positive, although it has been more subdued. Here in the US equity futures are about as close to unchanged as possible. Treasury yields are lower across the curve and around the world while crude oil is lower and gold and copper are trading higher.

It’s been a great rally for US stocks over the last two months, and more recently over the last week, stocks around the world have been performing just as good if not better than here. While the S&P 500 tracking ETF is up 0.76% over the last week, all but two of the eighteen regional ETFs we track in our Trend Analyzer have performed even better, and more than half of them are further extended relative to the 50-day moving average (DMA) than SPY which is 6.83% above that level. As shown in the image below, all of the 18 ETFs are also uniformly situated relative to their trading range at ‘Overbought’ levels (1+ standard deviation above their 50-DMAs). It’s hard to get more uniform than that!



Regarding each ETF, most of the regional ETFs are also trading right at 52-week highs (charts with green borders) while just four are shy of their one-year highs. It’s been somewhat of a can’t lose environment for equity investors over the last couple of months, and while it won’t last forever, enjoy it while it lasts.