Report
Dave Nicoski ...
  • Ross LaDuke
EUR 233.15 For Business Accounts Only

Vermilion Compass: Weekly Equity Strategy

Two concerns we have previously highlighted on our march to new highs have been (1) improved RS from defensive Sectors/Groups and (2) weak foreign equity markets. Defensive posturing and lack of global participation has had a dampening effect on risk sentiment in recent months. While questions remain, short-term developments highlighted below are encouraging and improve our already constructive outlook.

• On cue, outperformance last week and yesterday from cyclical pockets of the market led the S&P 500 to new all-time highs while defensive Sectors lagged. Additionally, weakness in the US dollar has allowed foreign equities to recover substantially, to the point where the major int'l ETFs (ACWX, EFA, and EEM) are on the cusp of bullish inflections topside downtrends. So the question remains: is cyclical leadership and foreign market participation here to stay? While the odds are increasingly moving toward a “yes” answer, for now we believe it is too early to make a definitive call... see charts below.

• Sector Relative Strength Rankings (RSRs) and weighting recommendations. We are upgrading Manufacturing to market weight as aero/defense (ITA, XAR), machinery, conglomerates (MMM, HON), and cap- and equal-weighted industrials (XLI, RGI) all show signs of RS stabilization and improving price trends... see pages 2-3.

• Inflation coming? There are no definitive signs yet, but we draw some similarities between the setup in late 2015/early 2016 and present day... see page 4.

• Big picture trends. We highlight the USD and the potential false breakout, growth vs. value, and large- vs. small-caps... see page 5.

• In today's report we highlight attractive Groups within Health Care and Technology: HC-14 Diagnostic & Test Products, TE-46 Software, Design Solutions, and TE-66 3D Printing Systems... see pages 10-21.
Underlyings
3D Systems Corporation

3D Systems is a holding company. Through its subsidiaries, the company provides 3D printing solutions, including 3D printers for plastics and metals, materials, software, on demand manufacturing services and digital design tools. The company's solutions support applications in a range of industries and verticals, including healthcare, aerospace, automotive and durable goods. The company's healthcare capabilities include simulation, Virtual Surgical Planning (VSP?), and printing of medical and dental devices, models, and surgical guides and instruments. The company provides 3D printing technologies including Stereolithography, Selective Laser Sintering, Direct Metal Printing, MultiJet Printing and ColorJet Printing.

ANSYS Inc.

ANSYS develops and markets engineering simulation software and services used by engineers, designers, researchers and students across a spectrum of industries and academia, including aerospace and defense, automotive, electronics, semiconductors, energy, materials and chemical processing, turbomachinery, consumer products, healthcare, and sports. The company focuses on the development of solutions that enable users to analyze designs directly on the desktop, providing a platform for product development, from design concept to final-stage testing and validation. The company's product portfolio include ANSYS Workbench?, a framework upon which the company's suite of engineering simulation technologies is built.

Attunity Ltd.

Attunity is a provider of data integration and Big Data management software solutions that enable availability, delivery and management of data across heterogeneous enterprise platforms, organizations, and the cloud. Co.'s product line includes (Attunity Replicate, change data capture (CDC) and Attunity Gold Client Solutions), test data management (Attunity Gold Client Solutions), data connectivity (Attunity Connect), enterprise file replication (Attunity RepliWeb), data warehouse automation (Attunity Compose), data usage analytics (Attunity Visibility) and cloud data delivery (Attunity CloudBeam).

Autodesk Inc.

Autodesk is a design software and services company. The company is engaged in 3D design, engineering and entertainment software and services. The company's product offerings include: AutoCAD, which is a customizable and extensible CAD application for design, drafting, detailing, and visualization; AutoCAD Civil 3D, which provides surveying, design, analysis, and documentation solution for civil engineering; CAM Solutions, which is a computer-aided manufacturing software that provides solutions for computer numeric control machining, inspection, and modeling for manufacturing; and Inventor, which provides tools for 3D mechanical design, simulation, analysis, tooling, visualization, and documentation.

Cadence Design Systems Inc.

Cadence Design Systems provides solutions that enable its customers to design electronic products. The company's products offerings include software, hardware, services and reusable integrated circuit (IC) design blocks, which are referred to as intellectual property (IP). The company provides maintenance for its software, hardware, and IP product offerings. The company combines its products and technologies into categories related to design activities: Functional Verification (including hardware for emulation and prototyping); Digital IC Design and Signoff; Custom IC Design and Simulation; System Interconnect and Analysis (printed circuit boards and IC package); and IP (includes design IP and verification IP).

ExOne Co

The ExOne is a provider of three-dimensional (3D) printing machines and 3D printed and other products, materials and services to industrial customers. The company's business primarily consists of manufacturing and selling 3D printing machines and printing products. The company provides pre-production collaboration and print products for customers through its network of production service centers and ExOne adoption centers. The company also supplies the associated materials, including consumables and replacement parts, and other services, including training and technical support that is necessary for purchasers of the company's 3D printing machines to print products.

FARO Technologies Inc.

FARO Technologies designs, develops, manufactures, markets and supports software driven, three-dimensional (3D) measurement and imaging solutions. The company's segments are: 3D Manufacturing, which provides solutions for 3D measurement and inspection in an industrial or manufacturing environment; Construction Building Information Modeling, which provides solutions for as-built data capturing and 3D visualization in building information modeling applications; and Emerging Verticals , which provides 3D solutions to capture and edit 3D shapes of products, people, and/or environments for design purposes in product development, computer graphics, and dental and medical applications.

IDEXX Laboratories Inc.

IDEXX Laboratories develops, manufactures, and distributes products and provides services primarily for the companion animal veterinary, livestock and poultry, dairy and water testing markets. The company operates primarily through three business segments: Companion Animal Group, which provides diagnostic and information management-based products and services for the veterinary market; Water Quality Products, which designs, develops, manufactures, and distributes products used in the detection of various microbiological parameters in water; and Livestock, Poultry and Dairy, which provides diagnostic products and services for livestock and poultry health.

Materialise ADS

Neogen Corporation

Neogen develops, manufactures, and markets a line of products for food and animal safety. The company's segments are: Food Safety, which is engaged in the development, production and marketing of diagnostic test kits and related products used by food producers and processors to detect harmful natural toxins, foodborne bacteria, allergens and levels of general sanitation; and Animal Safety, which is engaged in the development, production and marketing of products dedicated to animal safety, including a range of consumable products marketed to veterinarians and animal health product distributors, and provides genomic identification and related interpretive bioinformatic services.

Oxford Immunotec Global

Proto Labs Inc.

Proto Labs is a digital manufacturer of custom prototypes and production parts. The company's primary manufacturing product lines include Injection Molding, which uses three-dimensional (3D) computer-aided design-to-computer numerical control (CNC) machining technology for the automated design and manufacture of molds; CNC Machining, which uses commercially available CNC machines to provide milling and turning; 3D Printing, which includes stereolithography, selective laser sintering, direct metal laser sintering, Multi Jet Fusion and PolyJet processes; and Sheet Metal, which includes e-commerce-enabled custom sheet metal parts, providing customers with prototype and low-volume production parts.

PTC INC.

PTC is a software and services company. The company's products and services include: 3D Modeling, which enables users to create designs, analyze designs, perform engineering calculations and utilize the information created downstream using 2D, 3D, parametric and direct modeling; Lifecycle Management, which enables product data management, as well as communication and collaboration across the enterprise, including product development, manufacturing and the supply chain; Data Orchestration, which delivers tools, technologies, and solutions that enable companies to develop and deploy industrial IoT applications; and Experience Creation, which provides a way to capture, create, and deliver content.

Quidel Corporation

Quidel is engaged in the development, manufacturing and marketing of diagnostic testing solutions. The company provides diagnostic testing solutions under various brand names, including, among others, the following: Quidel?, QuickVue?, QuickVue+?, Sofia?, Triage?, AmpliVue?, Solana?, Virena?, MicroVue?, Lyra?, FreshCells?, D3?, FastPoint?, ReadyCells?, Super E-Mix?, InflammaDry?, AdenoPlus?, ELVIRA?, ELVIS? and Thyretain?. The company's diagnostic testing solutions are separated into its four product categories: rapid immunoassay, cardiac immunoassay, specialized diagnostic solutions and molecular diagnostic solutions.

Stratasys Ltd.

Synopsys Inc.

Synopsys is a supplier of electronic design automation (EDA) software that engineers use to design and test integrated circuits. The company also provides semiconductor intellectual property products, which are pre-designed circuits that engineers use as components of larger chip designs rather than designing those circuits themselves. The company provides software and hardware used to validate the electronic systems that incorporate chips and the software that runs on them. The company is also a provider of software tools and services that improve the security and quality of software code in a variety of industries, including electronics, financial services, media, automotive, medicine, energy and industrials.

Veracyte Inc

Veracyte is a genomic diagnostics company. The company's products include the following: Afirma Genomic Sequencing Classifier and Xpression Atlas, which includes the Afirma GSC and Xpression Atlas; Percepta Bronchial Genomic Classifier, which improves lung cancer diagnosis by improving the performance of diagnostic bronchoscopies; Envisia Genomic Classifier, which improves diagnosis of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis; and Prosigna Breast Cancer Prognostic Gene Signature Assay, which uses genomic technology to inform next steps for patients with early-stage breast cancer, based on the genomic make-up of their disease.

Voxeljet AG ADS

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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