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Dave Nicoski ...
  • Ross LaDuke
EUR 48.00 For Business Accounts Only

Vermilion Compass: Weekly Equity Strategy

Continued Absence Of Breakdowns Is A Positive Sign

The market continues to send mixed signals (some neutral or healthy signals but some risk-off signals as well), but as long as the Russell 2000 index (IWM) is above $208, the Russell Micro Caps index (IWC) is above $134-$135, and the S&P 500 is above 4495, we cannot be bearish. As long as prices are above the aforementioned levels we expect more consolidation and mixed markets, but breakdowns would mean additional downside ahead.

Risk-Off Signals. There are several risk-off signals that have us on watch for potential breakdowns below $208 on IWM, $134-$135 on IWC, and 4495 on the S&P 500. These risk-off signals include: (1) High yield spreads have widened to levels last seen in February. (2) Small-caps hit 1-year RS lows last week. (3) Breadth remains lackluster. (4) Emerging markets (EEM) remain in a downtrend and are at new price and RS lows. (5) The US dollar (DXY) remains strong with the uptrend intact. (6) Mild RS improvement for defensives including Consumer Staples (XLP) and Utilities (XLU).
Constructive Signals. While there are some risk-off signals that we highlight above, it is not all bad and there are several constructive signals. These constructive signals include: (1) Treasury yields are not breaking down below 1.40%-1.45% support on the 10-year Treasury yield and 1.76% support on the 30-year Treasury yield. (2) Not one major average is breaking down below support; the Russell 2000 (IWM) remains above $208, the Russell Micro Cap index (IWC) remains above $134-135, the S&P 500 remains above 4495, the Nasdaq 100 (QQQ) remains above $377, MSCI EAFE (EFA) is above $76.50, and the MSCI ACWI ex-US (ACWX) is above $54. (3) For now, RS improvement for defensives has been minimal and has not indicated a major shift toward defensives that we would expect to see during a more significant correction. (4) The percentage of Russell 2000 stocks above their 50-day MAs fell to 16.6% on Monday, hitting an oversold level that has marked two ideal buying opportunities during the current bull market. (5) Many cyclical value Sectors have simply pulled back to their 200-day MAs, potentially offering attractive buy opportunities... see chart below and pages 3-8.
Underlyings
3U Holding AG

3U Holdings is a holding company. Through its subsidiaries, Co. is engaged in the provision of telecommunication services as well as activities in the field of renewable energies and services. Co.'s segments include: telephony, which consists of the products call-by-call, preselection, other services and termination services in the wholesale sector; services, which consists of information technology services, systems development, marketing and consulting; and renewable energies, which consists of the development, production, trading and operation of components from the renewable energies area as well as heating and cooling technology.

Acuity Brands Inc.

Acuity Brands is a provider of lighting and building management solutions and services for commercial, institutional, industrial, infrastructure, and residential applications. The company's lighting and building management solutions include devices such as luminaires, lighting controls, controllers for various building systems, power supplies, prismatic skylights, and drivers, as well as integrated systems designed for various indoor and outdoor applications. In addition, the company provides services across applications that primarily relate to monitoring and controlling lighting and building management systems through network technologies and the commissioning of control systems.

ADTRAN Inc.

ADTRAN is a provider of networking and communications equipment. The company's solutions and services enable voice, data, video and internet communications across a variety of network infrastructures. The company has two segments: Network Solutions, which provides solutions supporting fiber-, copper- and coaxial-based infrastructures and a number of wireless solutions, lowering the overall cost to deploy services across a range of applications for Carrier and Cable/multiple-service operator networks; and Services and Support, which provides turn-key suit of services to help operators accelerate deployment of their networks including planning, engineering, construction, installation, test, and turn-up.

Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings Inc.

Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings' operations are organized into two segments: Aerospace and Defense, which includes the company's wholly-owned subsidiary Aerojet Rocketdyne, Inc., a technology-based engineering and manufacturing company that develops and produces propulsion systems, as well as armament systems, where the company develops and manufactures several propulsion types (liquid, solid, air-breathing, and electric) for space, defense, civil and commercial applications; and Real Estate, which includes the activities of the company's wholly-owned subsidiary Easton Development Company, LLC related to the re-zoning, entitlement, sale, and leasing of its excess real estate assets.

AU Optronics ADS

Babcock & Wilcox Enterprises

Babcock & Wilcox Enterprises is a technology-based provider of steam production from fossil and renewable sources. The company's segments are: Babcock & Wilcox, which focuses on the supply of, and aftermarket services for, steam-generating, environmental, and auxiliary equipment for power generation and other industrial applications; Volund & Other Renewable, which provides steam-generating systems, environmental and auxiliary equipment for the waste-to-energy and biomass power generation industries, and plant operations and maintenance services for its systems and equipment; and SPIG S.p.A. (SPIG), which provides custom-engineered cooling systems, services and aftermarket products.

Boise Cascade Co.

Boise Cascade is a wood products manufacturer and building materials distributor. The company's line of products is used primarily in new residential construction, residential repair-and-remodeling projects, light commercial construction, and industrial applications. The company has two reportable segments. The company's Wood Products segment manufactures laminated veneer lumber, I-joists, and laminated beams, which are collectively referred to as engineered wood products (EWP). The company's Building Materials Distribution segment sells a line of building materials, including oriented strand board, plywood, lumber, general line items such as siding, composite decking, metal products, insulation, and roofing, and EWP.

Cameco Corporation

Cameco and its subsidiaries are engaged in the exploration for and the development, mining, refining, conversion and fabrication of uranium for sale as fuel for generating electricity in nuclear power reactors in Canada and other countries. Co. has three reportable segments: uranium, which explores for, mines, mills, purchases, and sells uranium concentrate; fuel services, which refines, converts and fabricates uranium concentrate, and purchases and sells conversion services; and electricity, which generates and sells electricity through its 31.6% interest in the Bruce Power Limited Partnership, which operates four nuclear reactors and manages the overall site in southern Ontario.

Centrus Energy Corporation

Centrus Energy is a supplier of nuclear fuel and services for the nuclear power industry. The company operates two business segments: low-enriched uranium (LEU), which supplies various components of nuclear fuel to utilities; and contract services, which provides engineering, design, and manufacturing services to government and private sector customers. The company's LEU business involves the sale of low-enriched uranium, its components, and natural uranium to utilities operating commercial nuclear power plants. LEU is a component in the production of nuclear fuel for reactors that produce electricity. The company supplies LEU to both domestic and international utilities for use in nuclear reactors.

Cohu Inc.

Cohu provides semiconductor test equipment and services. The company's products include semiconductor test, which is used for wafer level and device package testing; semiconductor handlers, which are used to automate the testing and inspection of packaged semiconductor devices; thermal sub-systems, which provide temperature control of the integrated circuit during the testing process; bare board printed circuit board (PCB) test systems, which are used to test pre-assembly PCBs; interface products, which consist of test contactors and probe pins; spares and kits, which provide consumable, non-consumable and spare items; and services, which performs installations and maintenance of systems sold.

CTS Corp.

CTS designs, manufactures, and sells a line of sensors, electronic components, and actuators primarily to original equipment manufacturers. The company's products perform specific electronic functions for a given product family and are designed for use in customer assemblies. The company's primary products consist principally of sensors and actuators used in passenger or commercial vehicles, electronic components used in telecommunications infrastructure, information technology and other applications, switches, and potentiometers supplied to various markets, and fabricated piezoelectric materials and substrates used in medical, industrial, aerospace and defense, and information technology markets.

Eaton Corp. Plc

Enphase Energy Inc.

Enphase Energy is a global energy technology company. The company designs, develops, manufactures and sells home energy solutions that connect energy generation, energy storage and control and communications management on one platform. The company's semiconductor-based microinverter converts energy at the individual solar module level and, combines with its proprietary networking and software technologies to provide energy monitoring and control. The Enphase Home Energy Solution with IQ consists of four primary components: Enphase microinverters, the AC Battery?, an Envoy gateway, and Enlighten cloud-based software.

Entegris Inc.

Entegris is a developer, manufacturer and supplier of microcontamination control products, chemicals and materials handling solutions for manufacturing processes in the semiconductor and other industries. The company has three segments: Specialty Chemicals and Engineered Materials, which provides process chemistries, gases, and materials; Microcontamination Control, which provides solutions to filter and purify liquid chemistries and gases used in semiconductor manufacturing processes and other industries; and Advanced Materials Handling segment, which develops solutions to monitor, protect, transport, and deliver liquid chemistries, wafers and substrates.

Gold Fields Ltd. ADS

Hillenbrand Inc.

Hillenbrand is a global industrial company with several brands that serve a variety of industries. The company's segments are: Process Equipment Group, which designs, engineers, manufactures, markets, and services process and material handling equipment and systems for a variety of industries, including plastics, food and pharmaceuticals, chemicals, fertilizers, minerals and mining, energy, wastewater treatment, forest products, and other general industrials; and Batesville?, which is engaged in the death care industry in North America, where it designs, manufactures, distributes, and sells funeral service products and solutions to funeral directors operating funeral homes.

Himax Technologies Inc. Sponsored ADR

INVESCO Income Growth Trust PLC

INVESCO Income Growth Trustis an investment trust company. Co. invests principally in U.K. equities and equity-related securities of U.K. companies selected from any market sector. As of Mar 31 2017, the total value of Co.'s investments was £198.1 million.

Jabil Inc.

Jabil is a provider of manufacturing services and solutions. The company provides electronics design, production and product management services to companies in various industries and end markets. The company's manufacturing and supply chain management services and solutions include design, planning, fabrication and assembly, delivery and managing the flow of resources and products. The company's segments include: Electronics Manufacturing Services, which utilizes information technology, supply chain design and engineering, technologies centered on primary electronics; and Diversified Manufacturing Services, which provides engineering solutions, with a focus on material sciences, technologies and healthcare.

Micron Technology Inc.

Micron Technology provides memory and storage solutions. The company's portfolio of memory and storage technologies include Dynamic Random Access Memory, Not And, 3D XPoint? memory, and Not Or. The company's segments are: Compute and Networking Business, which includes memory products sold into client, cloud server, enterprise, graphics, and networking markets; Mobile Business, which includes memory products sold into smartphone and other mobile-device markets; Storage Business, which includes Solid-State Drives and component-level solutions sold into enterprise and cloud, client, and consumer storage markets; and Embedded Business, which includes memory and storage products.

MKS Instruments Inc.

MKS Instruments is a provider of instruments, subsystems and process control solutions. The company has two segments: Vacuum & Analysis, which provides instruments, components, subsystems and software which are derived from its knowledge in pressure measurement and control, flow measurement and control, gas and vapor delivery, gas composition analysis, residual gas analysis, leak detection, control and information technology, ozone generation and delivery, radio frequency and data communication power, reactive gas generation and vacuum technology; and Light & Motion, which provides instruments, components and subsystems which are derived from its knowledge in lasers, photonics and optics.

Norsk Hydro ASA ADS

NVent Electric plc

NXP Semiconductors NV

NXP Semiconductors is a holding company. Through its subsidiaries, Co. is engaged as a global semiconductor company and a long-standing supplier in the industry. Co. provides High-Performance Mixed-Signal and Standard Product solutions. Co.'s product solutions are used in automotive, identification, wireless infrastructure, lighting, industrial, mobile, consumer and computing applications. Co. engages with original equipment manufacturers (OEM) and sell products in all major geographic regions.

Ultra Clean Holdings Inc.

Ultra Clean Holdings is engaged in designing, engineering, and manufacturing of production tools, modules and subsystems for the semiconductor capital equipment industry and industry segments with similar requirements including display, consumer and medical. The company designs, develops, prototypes, manufactures and tests subsystems, and cleans and analyzes tool parts, primarily for the semiconductor market. The company's products include precision robotic solutions, gas delivery systems, a variety of industrial and automation production equipment products; and subsystems that includes wafer cleaning modules, chemical delivery modules, top-plate assemblies, frame assemblies, and process modules.

Veeco Instruments Inc.

Veeco Instruments is a manufacturer of semiconductor and thin film process equipment. The company's system products include: Metal Organic Chemical Vapor Deposition Systems, Advanced Packaging Lithography, Precision Surface Processing Systems (Wet Etch and Clean), Laser Annealing Systems, Ion Beam Deposition and Etch Systems, Molecular Beam Epitaxy Systems, 3D Wafer Inspection Systems, and Atomic Layer Deposition and Other Deposition Systems. The company's systems are used in the production of microelectronic components, including light emitting diodes, micro-electro mechanical systems, radio frequency filters and amplifiers, power electronics, thin film magnetic heads, and other semiconductor devices.

Wabash National Corporation

Wabash National provides solutions for the transportation, logistics, and distribution industries. The company's segments are: Commercial Trailer Products, which designs and manufactures dry and refrigerated vans, platform trailers and other transportation related equipment; Diversified Products, which designs and manufactures liquid transportation systems, isolators, stationary silos and downflow booths, and various proprietary products, including a line of aerodynamic solutions to improve overall trailer aerodynamics and fuel economy; and Final Mile Products, which designs and manufactures cutaway and dry-freight van bodies and refrigerated and stake bodies.

WOLFSPEED INC

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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