- Moving the markets
Nvidia stole the show today with its stellar earnings report, which sent its stock soaring 25% and added $200 billion to its market value. That’s the biggest one-day gain for any US company ever. The chipmaker also raised its outlook for the next quarter, thanks to the booming demand for artificial intelligence (AI) solutions.
The news lifted other chip stocks as well, but failed to inspire the rest of the market, which remained bogged down by the debt ceiling drama, the banking woes, the rising rates, and the inflation fears. Only 42% of the S&P 500 stocks are above their 200-day moving averages, indicating a narrow rally.
Speaker McCarthy said there was some “progress” in the debt talks, but also “major headwinds” to overcome. Bond yields spiked higher, pushing the US dollar to a six-week high and gold to a two-month low.
It’s hard to make sense of this market, where tech stocks can defy gravity while everything else is sinking. Something has to give eventually.
2. “Buy” Cycle Suggestions
For the current Buy cycle, which started on 12/1/2022, I suggested you reference my then current StatSheet for ETF selections. However, if you came on board later, you may want to look at the most recent version, which is published and posted every Thursday at 6:30 pm PST.
I also recommend you consider your risk tolerance when making your selections by dropping down more towards the middle of the M-Index rankings, should you tend to be more risk adverse. Likewise, a partial initial exposure to the markets, say 33% to start with, will reduce your risk in case of a sudden directional turnaround.
We are living in times of great uncertainty, with economic fundamentals steadily deteriorating, which will eventually affect earnings negatively and, by association, stock prices.
In my advisor’s practice, we are therefore looking for limited exposure in value, some growth and dividend ETFs. Of course, gold has been a core holding for a long time.
With all investments, I recommend the use of a trailing sell stop in the range of 8-12% to limit your downside risk.
3. Trend Tracking Indexes (TTIs)
Our TTIs barely changed, as today’s tech rally was limited to only a small sector of the investment universe.
This is how we closed 05/25/2023:
Domestic TTI: -1.28% below its M/A (prior close -1.22%)—Buy signal effective 12/1/2022.
International TTI: +3.59% above its M/A (prior close +3.89%)—Buy signal effective 12/1/2022.
All linked charts above are courtesy of Bloomberg via ZeroHedge.
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