Report
Dave Nicoski ...
  • Ross LaDuke
EUR 46.41 For Business Accounts Only

Vermilion Compass: Weekly Equity Strategy

Risk Appetites Improving, A Bullish Sign

Below we highlight several metrics which provide evidence that risk appetites are improving, not deteriorating. This is a bullish signal for the broad market. Still, we continue to see a mixed market environment, but we remain constructive overall with the S&P 500 holding above short-term support at the 50-day moving average and 4056.

S&P 500. The S&P 500 remains bullish, holding above key short-term support at the 50-day moving average and 4056. If the S&P 500 falls below 4056, 3980-3985 would be the next important level to watch and we would be buyers at this level. As long as 3980 holds we are constructive overall.
Sector Relative Strength Rankings & Weighting Recommendations. We are downgrading Technology to underweight as RS is topping -- reduce exposure. Cyclical value Sectors (Energy, Financials, Materials, Manufacturing, and Transportation) remain leadership and continue to be our primary focus in the search for alpha... see page 2.
Risk Appetites Improving. WTI crude oil is breaking out above $67 resistance to 2.5-year highs and levels last seen in 4Q2018. Small-caps (IWM) and micro-caps (IWC) are carving-out bullish RS bases and appear to be re-emerging as leadership. Additionally, the IWC is hitting 2.5-month price highs and the IWM is on the cusp of a breakout above $229. Emerging market equities (EEM) display bullish price and RS inflections and are breaking to 3.5-month highs. Lastly, RS for Utilities (XLU) is at multi-month lows and is approaching YTD lows. These are all bullish signs for the broad market as they signal improving risk appetites... see chart below and page 3.
Big Picture Trends. Value continues to lead relative to growth across all market capitalizations -- remain overweight value. Tech (XLK, QQQ) continues to underperform but is not falling apart. The 10-year Treasury yield continues to consolidate in a horizontal range between 1.5% support and 1.77% resistance... see pages 4-5.
Underlyings
Coffee Holding Co

Coffee Holding is an integrated wholesale coffee roaster and dealer. The company's primary products can be divided into three categories: wholesale green coffee, which includes unroasted raw beans imported from around the world and sold to roasters and coffee shop operators; private label coffee, which includes coffee roasted, blended, packaged and sold under the specifications and names of others, including supermarkets that want to have their own brand name on coffee; and branded coffee, which includes coffee roasted and blended to its own specifications and packaged and sold under its eight proprietary and licensed brand names in different segments of the market.

Community Health Systems Inc.

Community Health Systems is a holding company. Through its subsidiaries, the company operates general acute care hospitals and outpatient facilities. The company provides healthcare services through the hospitals that it owns and operates and affiliated businesses in non-urban and selected urban markets. Services provided through the company's hospitals and affiliated businesses include general acute care, emergency room, general and specialty surgery, critical care, internal medicine, obstetrics, diagnostic, psychiatric and rehabilitation services. The company also provides additional outpatient services at urgent care centers, occupational medicine clinics, imaging centers, cancer centers and ambulatory surgery centers.

Crimson Wine Group

Crimson Wine Group is engaged in the business of producing and selling wines. Through its wholly-owned subsidiaries, the company owns seven wineries: Pine Ridge Vineyards, Archery Summit, Chamisal Vineyards, Seghesio Family Vineyards, Double Canyon, Seven Hills Winery and Malene Wines. The company has two operating segments, Wholesale net sales and Direct to Consumer net sales. Wholesale net sales include all sales through a third party where prices are given at a wholesale rate, whereas Direct to Consumer net sales include retail sales in the tasting room, remote sites and on-site events, wine club net sales and other sales made directly to the consumer without the use of an intermediary.

DAVIDsTEA

Deere & Company

Deere & Co. operates the following segments: Agriculture and Turf, which manufactures and distributes a line of agriculture and turf equipment and related service parts, including utility tractors, tractor loaders, combines, cotton pickers, cotton strippers, and sugarcane harvesters; Construction and Forestry, which manufactures and distributes a range of machines and service parts used in construction, earthmoving, road building, material handling and timber harvesting, including backhoe loaders and crawler dozers and loaders; and Financial Services, which finances sales and leases by the company's dealers of new and used agriculture and turf equipment and construction and forestry equipment.

Diageo PLC (ADR)

Farmer Bros. Co.

Farmer Bros. is a coffee roaster, wholesaler and distributor of coffee, tea and culinary products. The company's products are manufactured under supply agreements, under its owned brands, as well as under private labels on behalf of certain customers. The company's product categories consist of the following: a line of roast and ground coffee, including organic, Direct Trade, Project D.I.R.E.C.T.? and other offerings; frozen liquid coffee; flavored and unflavored iced and hot teas; culinary products and coffee-related products; spices; and other beverages. The company's primary brands include Farmer Brothers?, Artisan Collection by Farmer Brothers?, Superior?, Metropolitan?, China Mist? and Boyds?.

Freeport-McMoRan Inc.

Freeport-McMoRan is a holding company. Through its subsidiaries, the company is a mining company. The company operates assets with proven and probable reserves of copper, gold and molybdenum, and the company is a publicly traded copper producer. The company's portfolio of assets includes the Grasberg minerals district in Indonesia, copper and gold deposits; and mining operations in North America and South America, including the Morenci minerals district in Arizona and the Cerro Verde operation in Peru. The company has organized its mining operations into four primary divisions: North America copper mines, South America mining, Indonesia mining and Molybdenum mines.

HCA Healthcare Inc

HCA Healthcare is a holding company. Through its subsidiaries, partnerships and joint ventures, the company owns and operates hospitals and related health care entities. Most of the company's general, acute care hospitals provide medical and surgical services, including inpatient care, intensive care, cardiac care, diagnostic services and emergency services. The general, acute care hospitals also provide outpatient services such as outpatient surgery, laboratory, radiology, respiratory therapy, cardiology and physical therapy. The company's psychiatric hospitals provide therapeutic programs including child, adolescent and adult psychiatric care, adolescent and adult alcohol and drug abuse treatment and counseling.

MGP Ingredients Inc.

MGP Ingredients is a producer and supplier of distilled spirits and specialty wheat protein and starch food ingredients. The company has two reportable segments: distillery products and ingredient solutions. The distillery products segment processes corn and other grains (including rye, barley, wheat, barley malt, and milo) into food grade alcohol and distillery co-products, such as distillers feed (called dried distillers grain in the industry), fuel grade alcohol, and corn oil. The company also provides warehouse services. The ingredient solutions segment consists primarily of specialty wheat starches, specialty wheat proteins, commodity wheat starches, and commodity wheat proteins.

Select Medical Holdings Corporation

Select Medical Holdings is managed through four business segments: critical illness recovery hospital, which consists of hospitals designed to serve the needs of patients recovering from critical illnesses; rehabilitation hospital, which consists of hospitals designed to serve patients that require intensive physical rehabilitation care; outpatient rehabilitation, which consists of clinics that provide physical, occupational, and speech rehabilitation services; and the company's subsidiary, Concentra Inc. segment, which consists of occupational health centers that provide workers' compensation injury care, physical therapy, and consumer health services and onsite clinics.

Starbucks Corporation

Starbucks is a roaster, marketer and retailer of coffee. The company's segments are: Americas, which is inclusive of the United States, Canada, and Latin America; International, which is inclusive of China, Japan, Asia Pacific, Europe, Middle East, and Africa; and Channel Development. The company's Americas and International segments include both company-operated and licensed stores. The company's Channel Development segment includes roasted whole bean and ground coffees, Seattle's Best Coffee?, Starbucks- and Teavana-branded single-serve products, a variety of ready-to-drink beverages, and other products sold worldwide outside of the company's company-operated and licensed stores.

Surgery Partners Inc.

Surgery Partners is a holding company. Through its subsidiaries, the company is a healthcare services company. The company operates in three reporting segments : Surgical Facility Services, which consists of the operation of ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs) and surgical hospitals; Ancillary Services, which consists of a diagnostic laboratory and multi-specialty physician practices; and Optical Services, which consists of an optical laboratory and an optical products group purchasing organization. As of Dec 31 2017, the company owned or operated primarily in partnership with physicians, a portfolio of 124 surgical facilities comprised of 106 ASCs and 18 surgical hospitals across 32 states.

Taranis Resources Inc.

Taranis Resources is an exploration stage company. Co. is in the process of acquiring and exploring its mineral properties and has not yet determined whether the properties contain ore reserves that are economically recoverable.

Taseko Mines Limited

Taseko Mines is engaged in the exploration, acquisition, development and sale of gold copper, molybdenum, niobium and other related mines within the province of British Columbia, Canada.

Teck Resources Limited Class B

Teck Resources is engaged in mining and related activities including exploration, development, processing, smelting and refining. Co.'s major products are steelmaking coal, copper and zinc. Co. also produces precious metals, lead, molybdenum, electrical power, fertilizers and other metals. Co. also owns an interest in certain oil sands leases and have partnership interests in an oil sands development project and wind power project.

Tenet Healthcare Corporation

Tenet Healthcare is a healthcare services company. Through its subsidiaries, partnerships and joint ventures, including USPI Holding Company, Inc., the company operates hospitals, surgical hospitals and outpatient centers. In addition, the company's Conifer Holdings, Inc. (Conifer) subsidiary provides healthcare business process services in the areas of hospital and physician revenue cycle management and care solutions to healthcare systems, as well as individual hospitals, physician practices, self-insured organizations, health plans and other entities. The company has three reportable segments: Hospital Operations and other; Ambulatory Care; and Conifer.

Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc.

Thermo Fisher Scientific is engaged in serving science. The company's segments include: Life Sciences Solutions, which provides reagents, instruments and consumables used in biological and medical research, discovery and production of new drugs and vaccines as well as diagnosis of disease; Analytical Instruments, which provides instruments, consumables, software and services that are used for a range of applications in the laboratory, on the production line and in the field; and Specialty Diagnostics, which provides diagnostic test kits, reagents, culture media, instruments and associated products for customers in healthcare, clinical, pharmaceutical, industrial, and food safety laboratories.

Universal Health Services Inc. Class B

Universal Health Services owns and operates, through its subsidiaries, acute care hospitals and outpatient facilities and behavioral health care facilities. The company owns and/or operates inpatient facilities and outpatient and other facilities located in several states including, Washington, D.C., the United Kingdom, and Puerto Rico. Services provided by the company's hospitals include general and specialty surgery, internal medicine, obstetrics, emergency room care, radiology, oncology, diagnostic care, coronary care, pediatric services, pharmacy services and/or behavioral health services. The company's reportable operating segments consist of acute care hospital services and behavioral health care services.

Western Copper and Gold

Western Copper and Gold is an exploration stage company that is engaged in exploration and development of the Casino mineral property located in Yukon, Canada. The Casino property is host to one of the undeveloped porphyry deposits in Canada containing large amounts of gold, copper, and molybdenum in its one billion tonnes of reserves.

Willamette Valley Vineyards Inc.

Willamette Valley Vineyards owns and operates vineyards and a winery located in the state of Oregon, and produces and distributes wines, primarily Pinot Noir, Pinot Gris, Chardonnay, and Riesling. The company's wines are made from grapes grown in vineyards owned, leased or contracted by the company, and from grapes purchased from other nearby vineyards. The grapes are harvested, fermented and made into wine at its Turner winery and the wines are sold principally under the company's Willamette Valley Vineyards label, but also under the Griffin Creek, Tualatin Estate, Pambrun, Maison Bleue, Natoma, Metis and Elton labels. The company also owns the Tualatin Estate Vineyards and Winery, located near Forest Grove, OR.

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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