The SPX is almost back to the point of the break down. A break above this level tomorrow would definitely confuse things.

Sector Strength

What is this spreadsheet telling us?

I see quite a few red and blue boxes which means that there has been sector rotation, and it looks like investors are getting defensive.

The Small Caps show relative strength, and that is quite a surprise. Small Cap strength is always good news. Bonds are still significant under performers which supports stocks overall.

In my longer-term account, I like to buy strong areas of the market during the sell offs. So, based on this spreadsheet, and when the time is right, I will most likely be a buyer of Technology, Small Caps, Industrials, Home Builders, etc.

I am not sure about Financials because they are so dependent on rising short-term rates. I am also not sure about the Foreign ETFs because they generally rise with inflation. Both rates and inflation are question marks.

Bonds are shown in this spreadsheet to show the relative stock/bond comparison. The decision to buy bonds is a little different than deciding what stock market sectors to buy. So I am always looking for a good time to add a little to the bond portion of the account.

Reminder: These scores reflect a longer-term trend. The Leader List reflects a shorter-term trend.

The Leader List

Technology and QQQ dropped off the leader list today. It isn’t that they are performing badly, but because I added another filter to the list. 

You can only have so many leaders, and I don’t necessarily sell when the ETFs drops off the leader list.

The point of this list is to be able to see the best areas of the market, and also to see the areas that appear to be emerging as leaders.

Consumer Staples look ready to start hitting new highs. The REITs (XLRE) were also very strong performers today.

This Latin America ETF dropped off the leader list last week, but made a solid come back today. Too soon to say, but it might just be moving sideways to build a base to eventually move higher? We won’t know until it breaks one or way or the other.