Breakouts Abound…

“Looking at portfolios, think deeply about process over outcome. If you do something the right way enough times, you’ll win.” ~ Dan Loeb

In this week’s Dirty Dozen [CHART PACK], we look at frothy sentiment mixed with strong internals in equities, before diving into breakouts in BTCUSD, USD pairs, and biotech, plus more… 

1. “Was so weird Wednesday morning. Everyone coming out of the building who lives here seemed so sad, and yet all the worders going in to clean and fix stuff in the apartments seemed really happy.” ~ Tribeca co-op superintendent

2. From SentimenTrader “The S&P 500’s rolling one-year return just exceeded 50x the standard deviation of daily returns, the 2nd-highest in 25 years. Unfortunately, the pleasant conditions haven’t persisted for much longer over that span. For everything there is a season.”

3. Sentix notes that “Donald Trump’s election victory triggers a veritable frenzy of joy. Sentiment for US equities reaches a phenomenal level of +53 percentage points, marking a new all-time high (data history since 2001)! The optimism is focused very strongly on the US markets. Other stock markets are sending worrying signals.”

4. But BofA’s Bull & Bear indicator is still below the level required for a proper sell signal. 

5. And our key market internals are strongly inflecting higher… So not much to do but stay with the trend and track internals and the tape for signs of spreading weakness that will indicate an inbound correction.

6. BTCUSD broke out from its 7 month compression channel last week. We are maxed out long and expecting this trend to move significantly higher.

7. I’m also paying close attention to the US dollar here. The long-term chart remains constructive and the price action is coiling like a spring.

8. Sentiment is in the 0th percentile, while aggregate positioning is bearish, and yield spread momentum is accelerating upwards.

9. We’ve been long USDJPY for a few weeks but I’m also looking to place a buy stop on USDCNH to see if it can pull us in long.

10. USDCAD also looks to be breaking out from its 2yr sideways compression regime. If this breakout sees follow through then this could be the start of a major trend.

11. We’re starting to revisit biotech. XBI is breaking out of an ascending triangle on the weekly.

12. And, as RenMac notes, the sector is marked by extreme bearish sentiment at the moment.

Thanks for reading.

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Brandon Beylo

Value Investor

Brandon has been a professional investor focusing on value for over 13 years, spending his time in small to micro-cap companies, spin-offs, SPACs, and deep value liquidation situations. Over time, he’s developed a deeper understanding for what deep-value investing actually means, and refined his philosophy to include any business trading at a wild discount to what he thinks its worth in 3-5 years.

Brandon has a tenacious passion for investing, broad-based learning, and business. He previously worked for several leading investment firms before joining the team at Macro Ops. He lives by the famous Munger mantra of trying to get a little smarter each day.

AK

Investing & Personal Finance

AK is the founder of Macro Ops and the host of Fallible.

He started out in corporate economics for a Fortune 50 company before moving to a long/short equity investment firm.

With Macro Ops focused primarily on institutional clients, AK moved to servicing new investors just starting their journey. He takes the professional research and education produced at Macro Ops and breaks it down for beginners. The goal is to help clients find the best solution for their investing needs through effective education.

Tyler Kling

Volatility & Options Trader

Former trade desk manager at $100+ million family office where he oversaw multiple traders and helped develop cutting edge quantitative strategies in the derivatives market.

He worked as a consultant to the family office’s in-house fund of funds in the areas of portfolio manager evaluation and capital allocation.

Certified in Quantitative Finance from the Fitch Learning Center in London, England where he studied under famous quants such as Paul Wilmott.

Alex Barrow

Macro Trader

Founder and head macro trader at Macro Ops. Alex joined the US Marine Corps on his 18th birthday just one month after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. He subsequently spent a decade in the military. Serving in various capacities from scout sniper to interrogator and counterintelligence specialist. Following his military service, he worked as a contract intelligence professional for a number of US agencies (from the DIA to FBI) with a focus on counterintelligence and terrorist financing. He also spent time consulting for a tech company that specialized in building analytic software for finance and intelligence analysis.

After leaving the field of intelligence he went to work at a global macro hedge fund. He’s been professionally involved in markets since 2005, has consulted with a number of the leading names in the hedge fund space, and now manages his own family office while running Macro Ops. He’s published over 300 white papers on complex financial and macroeconomic topics, writes regularly about investment/market trends, and frequently speaks at conferences on trading and investing.

Macro Ops is a market research firm geared toward professional and experienced retail traders and investors. Macro Ops’ research has been featured in Forbes, Marketwatch, Business Insider, and Real Vision as well as a number of other leading publications.

You can find out more about Alex on his LinkedIn account here and also find him on Twitter where he frequently shares his market research.