By Scott Martindale
President, Sabrient Systems LLC

Investors continue to be sanguine about the economy and are reluctant to lighten up on stocks, even as we enter the New Year on the heels of a big post-election run-up, perhaps for fear of missing out on continued upside. Rather than fearing the uncertainty of a new (and maverick) administration, they instead have an expectation of a more business-friendly environment, fiscal stimulus, and a desirably higher level of inflation under Trump and a Republican-controlled congress. Stimulus likely would include lower corporate and personal taxes, immediate expensing of capital investment (rather than depreciating over time), incentives to repatriate offshore-held cash, reduced regulatory burdens, and infrastructure spending programs. Longer term, we also might see more favorable international trade deals and a freer market for healthcare coverage. Even the Fed is finally admitting that monetary stimulus alone can’t do the trick.

As the New Year gets underway, the technical picture remains strong, as the Dow is gathering strength to challenge ominous psychological round-number resistance at 20,000 and market breadth is impressive, led by small caps and value stocks. I believe we have a favorable environment for US equities going forward – especially fundamentals-based portfolios, like Sabrient’s annual Baker’s Dozen.

In this periodic update, I give my view of the current market environment, offer a technical analysis of the S&P 500 chart, review Sabrient’s weekly fundamentals-based SectorCast rankings of the ten U.S. business sectors, and then offer up some actionable ETF trading ideas. Overall, our sector rankings still look bullish, and the sector rotation model continues to suggest a bullish stance. Read on....

By Scott Martindale
President, Sabrient Systems LLC

As Q3 came to a close, investors continued to show cautious optimism and the S&P 500 posted a gain for the fourth straight quarter. After a lengthy period of time in which markets were buffeted by the daily news about oil prices, jobs reports, Fed rate hike intentions, China growth, Brexit, US economic expansion/contraction, Zika virus, and ISIS inspired attacks, the focus has switched back to improving fundamentals.

In particular, as Q3 earnings reporting season gets started, there remains a broad expectation that the corporate “earnings recession” has bottomed and that companies will start showing better earnings growth (hopefully driven by revenue growth), particularly in the beaten-down market segments like Energy and Materials. I think the only thing holding back stocks right now is investor uncertainty about market reaction to two things: a potential Trump presidential victory and to the next Fed rate hike (expected on December 14). From a technical standpoint, the spring is coiling tightly for big move.

In this periodic update, I give my view of the current market environment, offer a technical analysis of the S&P 500 chart, review our weekly fundamentals-based SectorCast rankings of the ten U.S. business sectors, and then offer up some actionable ETF trading ideas. Overall, our sector rankings look relatively bullish, although the sector rotation model still suggests a neutral stance.

By Scott Martindale
President, Sabrient Systems LLC

On Wednesday afternoon, the Fed came through to fulfill what was widely expected – no change to the discount rate just yet. But it did pump up its hawkish language a bit. The FOMC never wants to surprise the markets, so given that it had not telegraphed a rate hike, it simply wasn’t going to happen. Looking forward, however, given that the committee sees the balance of economic risks at an equilibrium, a hike in December looks like a slam-dunk unless something changes dramatically. Beyond that, they are essentially telegraphing two rate hikes next year, as well. The upshot is that investors were happy and dutifully responded with a strong rally across many asset classes to finish off the day.

In this periodic update, I give my view of the current market environment, offer a technical analysis of the S&P 500 chart, review our weekly fundamentals-based SectorCast rankings of the ten U.S. business sectors, and then offer up some actionable ETF trading ideas.

By Scott Martindale
President, Sabrient Systems LLC

Overall, it appears that the stock market continues to focus more on improving fundamentals than on the daily news. We continue to see improved market breadth, low volatility, lower sector correlations, and capital flows into higher quality companies with solid fundamentals, attractive valuations, good earnings quality, and strong market position. Small and mid-caps have been leading market segments, especially those from the Energy sector. Among large caps, Technology and Financial sectors have been strong during Q3, while defensive sectors Utilities and Telecom have pulled back across all market caps after showing inordinate strength for much of the year (although they still remain strong YTD).

All of this is bullish – and is illustrative of the healthy broadening of the market. Although some traders appear to be taking some chips off the table in deference to September’s notoriety as the worst performing month of the year, I think the path of least resistance for stocks is to the upside.

In this periodic update, I give my view of the current market environment, offer a technical analysis of the S&P 500 chart, review our weekly fundamentals-based SectorCast rankings of the ten U.S. business sectors, and then offer up some actionable ETF trading ideas.

The market broke out to the upside, as I predicted it would -- although the breakout came a good bit sooner than I anticipated. My expectation was that stocks would remain within their long-standing trading range until a clear upside catalyst emerged, such as improving Q2 earnings reports and forward guidance. But investors aren’t waiting around. Clearly, they are positioning in advance of the emergence of such catalysts. For now, fear of missing liftoff is stronger than fear of getting caught in a selloff.

After showing weakness last week and creating some bearish-looking technical formations, stocks took a turn for the better on Monday. Perhaps it was renowned value investor Warren Buffett breaking from his usual aversion to tech companies and investing $1 billion in Apple (AAPL) that gave bulls a much-needed shot of confidence. But then things went south again on Tuesday, and some commentators are surmising that the strength in some of the economic data makes investors think the Fed is more likely to raise rates, i.e., we may be back to a good-news-is-bad-news reactionary environment.

The stock market rally from the edge-of-the-cliff reversal on February 12 has continued, and an assault on the all-time highs from almost one year ago (on the S&P 500) now seems plausible. If it can hit new highs, the 7-year bull market is back in business. We are about halfway through earnings season, and after several years of record corporate earnings that were at least partly fueled by Fed policies that helped finance M&A and stock buybacks, some fear that profit margins have peaked.

Q2 is well underway for the economy, while Q1 corporate earnings reporting season kicks into high gear this week. Although investors have pretty much written off the quarter as a stinker, they are eagerly anticipating forward guidance for the back half of the year. With the major indexes and underlying valuations sitting at lofty heights, investors are evidently pricing in improving fundamentals ahead, particularly here at home in the U.S.

Q1 turned out to be one for the ages, and after some extreme moves and bouts of volatility, stocks settled down and closed out the quarter with a flourish. After falling more than -10% from the start of the year until February 11, the S&P 500 was up +6.6% in March, up +13% since February 11, and finished Q1 slightly positive at +0.8% -- and it is up +206% since the depths of March 9, 2009.

In a year in which stock prices mostly have been driven by news rather than fundamentals, three things stood out last week. First, terrorism has taken on an unsettling new face -- the stay-at-home mom down the street or your long-time co-worker at the plant -- as the dark side of the exponential growth in social media rears its ugly head (with something much more sinister than porn sites or online bullying). Second, with the strong jobs report on Friday, the Federal Reserve seems to have all their ducks in a row to justify the first fed funds rate hike in nine years.