Report
Dave Nicoski ...
  • Ross LaDuke
EUR 42.60 For Business Accounts Only

Vermilion Compass: Weekly Equity Strategy

More Breakouts and Risk-On Developments

We remain near-term bullish since our 4/22/25 Compass, and our intermediate-term outlook remains bullish as well (as of our 5/14/25 Compass). We will maintain our bullish intermediate-term outlook as long as market dynamics remain healthy and the SPX is above 5700-5785, though we believe there is a low probability that this level gets tested any time soon. Short-term supports on the SPX include the 20-day MA (currently 6233), 6200, 6100-6150, and 6028-6059, with additional supports at 5804-5854 and 5700-5785. Buy pullbacks to these areas. The SPX has not closed below its 20-day MA for two months, but even when it does, all we would expect to happen is for a new, less-steep uptrend to form.

More Breakouts. Last week (7/15/25 Compass) we discussed the many major breakouts we were buying, including Bitcoin, Metals & Mining (XME), Consumer Discretionary (XLY), banks (KRE, KBE), and airliners (JETS), while also noting many prior laggards were bottoming, and that it was specifically time to buy homebuilders (ITB), biotechnology (XBI), solar (TAN), and hydrogen (HYDR). These areas are emerging as leadership, but even more areas are breaking out over the past week, including Real Estate (XLRE), Utilities (XLU), China (MCHI), Lithium (LIT), gold and silver miners (GDX, SIL), retail (XRT), and Materials (XLB) -- buy them all. This is bullish for the broad market... see pages 3-4.
More Risk-On Developments. The silver vs. gold and Ether vs. Bitcoin ratios are both reversing above their 1-year downtrends, yet another risk-on signal. The Discretionary vs. Staples ratio is firmly risk-on as well. The large-cap growth vs. value ratio is testing an important resistance level... see page 5.
Market Dynamics Remain Risk-On. Additional risk-on market dynamics that support our bullish outlook include: (1) High yield spreads are well-below the important 355bps level. (2) Defensive Sectors (Staples and Health Care) are at 25-year RS lows, while (3) semiconductors (SMH) and speculative growth areas (ARKW, ARKQ, ARKX, ARKF, ARKK, etc.) remain leadership. (4) The 10-year Treasury yield remains below 4.50%. (5) Interest rate volatility (MOVE index) remains at 3.5-year lows. (6) The U.S. dollar (DXY) remains weak. (7) Non-U.S. equities (ACWX) remain above major base support. (8) Breadth is healthy. This risk-on list continues to overwhelmingly point to more upside ahead.
Underlyings
AECOM

AECOM designs, builds, finances and operates infrastructure assets for governments, businesses and organizations. The company provides: planning, consulting, architectural and engineering design services to commercial and government clients in transportation, facilities, environmental, energy, water and government markets; construction services, including building construction and energy, infrastructure and industrial construction; as well as program and facilities management and maintenance, training, logistics, consulting, technical assistance, and systems integration and information technology services, for agencies of the United States government and for other national governments.

Argan Inc.

Argan is a holding company. The company conducts operations through its subsidiaries: Gemma Power Systems, LLC, which is an engineering, procurement and construction contractor; Atlantic Projects Company Limited, which provides turbine, boiler and rotating equipment installation, commissioning and outage services; The Roberts Company, Inc., which provides on-site services that support maintenance, shutdowns and emergency mobilizations for industrial plants in the southern region of the U.S.; and Southern Maryland Cable, Inc., which conducts business as SMC Infrastructure Solutions, and provides technology wiring and utility construction solutions to customers in the mid-Atlantic region of the U.S.

BWX Technologies Inc.

BWX Technologies is a manufacturer of nuclear components, a developer of nuclear technologies and a service provider. The company operates three segments: Nuclear Operations Group, which engineers, designs and manufactures precision naval nuclear components, reactors and nuclear fuel for the U.S. Department of Energy/National Nuclear Security Administration's Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program; Nuclear Services Group, which provides services including nuclear materials processing and management and operating services; and Nuclear Power Group, which designs and manufactures commercial nuclear steam generators, heat exchangers, pressure vessels, reactor components and other auxiliary equipment.

COINBASE GLOBAL INC

Construction Partners

Construction Partners is a holding company. Through its wholly owned subsidiaries, the company provides a variety of products and services to infrastructure projects, with a focus on highways, roads, bridges, airports, and commercial and residential sites. The company's primary operations consist of manufacturing and distributing hot mix asphalt (HMA), paving activities, including the construction of roadway base layers and application of asphalt pavement, site development, including the installation of utility and drainage systems, mining aggregates, such as sand and gravel, that are used as raw materials in the production of HMA, and distributing liquid asphalt cement in connection with HMA production.

Dycom Industries Inc.

Dycom Industries is a provider of specialty contracting services. The company supplies telecommunications providers with a portfolio of specialty services, including program management; planning; engineering and design; aerial, underground, and wireless construction; maintenance; and fulfillment services for telecommunications providers. Additionally, the company provides underground facility locating services for various utilities, including telecommunications providers, and other construction and maintenance services for electric and gas utilities. The company supplies the labor, tools, and equipment necessary to provide these services to its customers.

EMCOR GROUP

EMCOR Group is an electrical and mechanical construction and facilities services firm. In addition, the company provides building services and industrial services. The company's services are provided to its customers through its operating subsidiaries and joint venture entities. The company engages in providing construction services relating to electrical and mechanical systems in various types of facilities and in providing various services relating to the operation, maintenance and management of facilities. The company also provides its construction services indirectly by acting as a subcontractor to general contractors, systems suppliers, construction managers, developers, property managers and other subcontractors.

Fluor Corporation

Fluor is a holding company. Through its subsidiaries, the company provides engineering, procurement, construction, fabrication and modularization, operations, maintenance and asset integrity, as well as project management services. The company serves a set of industries including oil and gas, chemicals and petrochemicals, mining and metals, transportation, power, life sciences and manufacturing. The company is also a service provider to the U.S. federal government and governments abroad; and it performs operations, maintenance and asset integrity activities for industrial clients. The company has four segments: Energy & Chemicals; Mining, Industrial, Infrastructure & Power; Diversified Services; and Government.

Granite Construction Incorporated

Granite Construction is a holding company, which delivers infrastructure solutions for public and private clients. The company's segments are: Transportation, which focuses on construction and rehabilitation of roads, pavement preservation, bridges, rail lines, airports and marine ports; Water, which focuses on water-related construction and water management solutions; Specialty, which focuses on construction of various complex projects including infrastructure/site development, mining, public safety, tunnel and power projects; and Materials, which focuses on production of aggregates, asphalt and construction related materials as well as proprietary sanitary and storm water rehabilitation products.

IES Holdings Inc.

IES Holdings is a holding company. The company has four business segments: Commercial & Industrial, which provides electrical and mechanical design, construction, and maintenance services to the commercial and industrial markets in various regional markets and nationwide in certain areas such as the power infrastructure market; Communications, which provides technology infrastructure services to corporations and independent businesses; Infrastructure Solutions, which provides electro-mechanical solutions for industrial operations; and Residential, which provides electrical installation services for single-family housing and multi-family apartment complexes.

JACOBS SOLUTIONS INC.

MasTec Inc.

MasTec is an infrastructure construction company operating mainly throughout North America across a range of industries. The company's segments include: Communications, which performs engineering, construction, maintenance and customer fulfillment activities related to communications infrastructure; Oil and Gas, which performs engineering, construction and maintenance services on oil and natural gas pipelines and processing facilities; Electrical Transmission, which performs engineering, construction and maintenance of electrical transmission lines and substations; and Power Generation and Industrial, which performs installation and construction of power facilities.

MYR Group Inc.

MYR Group is a holding company of electrical construction service providers. Through its subsidiaries, the company serves the electric utility infrastructure, commercial and industrial construction markets located throughout the U.S. and Canada. The company manages its operations through two segments: Transmission and Distribution, which provides services on electric transmission and distribution networks and substation facilities; and Commercial and Industrial, which provides services such as the design, installation, maintenance and repair of commercial and industrial wiring, installation of traffic networks and the installation of bridge, roadway and tunnel lighting.

PRIME ENERGY P.E. LTD

Quanta Services Inc.

Quanta Services is a provider of contracting services, delivering infrastructure solutions for the electric power, energy and communications industries in the United States, Canada, Australia, Latin America and select other international markets. The company has two segments: Electric Power Infrastructure Services, which provides network solutions to customers in the electric power industry and services that support the development of renewable energy generation; and Pipeline and Industrial Infrastructure Services, which provides infrastructure solutions to customers involved in the development, transportation, distribution, storage and processing of natural gas, oil and other products.

ROBINHOOD MARKETS INC

Sterling Construction Company Inc.

Sterling Construction is a construction company that focuses in heavy civil construction and infrastructure rehabilitation as well as residential construction projects. The company operates primarily in Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada, Texas and Utah, as well as other states. The company's heavy civil construction projects include highways, roads, bridges, airfields, ports, light rail, water, wastewater and storm drainage systems, foundations for multi-family homes, commercial concrete projects and parking structures. Residential construction projects include concrete foundations for single-family homes.

StoneX Group Inc

WEBULL CORPORATION

Provider
Vermilion Research
Vermilion Research

Vermilion Research delivers timely, actionable, and unique research inputs to professional investors. Our research strategists highlight securities which we believe are at major inflection points, based on our various proprietary technical indicators, and offer asymmetric risk/return profiles. We believe our research methodology, which is not limited by industry sector or market capitalization, enables us to deliver superior investment recommendations.

Our process begins by organizing all actively traded stocks into coherent sectors, then into logical industry groups. We then apply our proprietary relative strength tools to identify developing price trends. Once attractive trends are identified within a selected sectors or groups, we screen for individual stocks which we believe offer the best risk/reward profile. Vermilion offers U.S. and global equity market research products. Vermilion’s research team, which has received numerous awards and accolades, has a combined 70 year of experience in the analysis of investment securities.

Analysts
Dave Nicoski

Ross LaDuke

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