As I first laid out last week and then again on Monday, this week was expected to be a big one for the bulls. In real time, I wrote about the likelihood for a low that was then confirmed, making me very happy to have called it as it was happening. (In this business, you get to celebrate so little before the market turns on you!) The only question I had and still have is, “was that THE bottom or A bottom?”
Not one to hem and haw, I still don’t have strong conviction either way. The higher the major indices go, obviously, the more likely last week was THE bottom. In any case, we have more than enough longs right now to amply participate. I did, however, do a little pruning during the week as our positions melted up a little too far too fast for comfort. At the same time, our global macro strategy bought back the long-term treasury bonds it sold during the wild spike higher last week. For the first time in a long while, our high yield models both turned positive and we now have sizable positions in the junk bond market.
On the sector front, which is very important here, I have seen a number of sectors begin to repair themselves, while some of the downtrodden like, energy and telecom remain dogs. Not so sexy utilities and staples are pushing to new highs along with biotech, but none of those represent strong bull market leadership I want to see.
Gold continues to be very volatile and downright frustrating at times for us. We just took a long position as the miners have fallen too far too fast to be sustainable.
Have a safe and enjoyable weekend! Perfect fall weather in New England and the last weekend of softball games for my daughter, thankfully!
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