Report
Dave Nicoski ...
  • Ross LaDuke
EUR 47.02 For Business Accounts Only

Vermilion Compass: Weekly Equity Strategy

Key Support Holding; SMID-Caps Outperforming

Key support levels continue to hold, namely the 2940-2980 zone on the S&P 500, 9500 on the Nasdaq 100, and $133 on the Russell 2000 (IWM). As long as these indexes are above their respective support levels our view remains bullish and we suggest buying any dips.

· Sector Relative Strength Rankings & Weighting Recommendations. Sectors we are monitoring closely include Financials and Energy. RS remains constructive, however these Sectors are becoming much more mixed in terms of price... see pages 2-3.

· Cyclicals Remain Largely Bullish. Despite some mild deterioration in Financials and Energy, several other cyclical value Sectors remain bullish and appear to be bouncing off of important support levels. These Sectors include Transportation (IYT, XTN, JETS), Industrials (XLI), Materials (XLB), and equal-weighted Discretionary (RCD). Considering these Sectors were/are among the hardest hit amid the pandemic and lockdowns, constructive charts tell us our bullish stance remains appropriate... see pages 4-5.

· Small- and Mid-Caps. The Russell 2000 and S&P Mid Cap 400 both remain above major price support while also sporting RS uptrends relative to the S&P 500. This is exactly what we want to see as it is consistent with historical bull markets... see charts below.

· High Yield Spreads & Treasury Yields. High yield spreads are at 1-month wides while 30-year and 5-year Treasury yields show signs of breaking down, all of which gives us some reason for pause. We will continue to monitor this closely as lower Treasury yields and continued widening spreads would be problematic for US equities... see page 6.

· Gold At New Highs. Gold prices are breaking out following 2.5-months of consolidation. We remain long-term bulls on gold and gold miners (GDX)... see page 7
Underlyings
Alteryx

Alteryx provides data science and analytics. The company's analytics platform comprises: Alteryx Designer, its data profiling, preparation, blending, and analytics product used to create visual workflows or analytic processes; Alteryx Server, its server-based product for scheduling, sharing, and running analytic processes and applications in a web-based environment; Alteryx Connect, its collaborative data exploration platform for discovering information assets and sharing recommendations across the enterprise; and Alteryx Promote, its analytics model management product for data scientists and analytics teams to build, manage, monitor, and deploy predictive models into production applications.

Bed Bath & Beyond Inc.

Bed, Bath & Beyond is an omnichannel retailer providing products, services and solutions for the home and life events. The company operates an ecommerce platform consisting of various websites and applications, including bedbathandbeyond.com, bedbathandbeyond.ca, harmondiscount.com, and facevalues.com. The company sells an assortment of domestics merchandise and home furnishings. Domestics merchandise includes categories such as bed linens and related items, bath items and kitchen textiles. Home furnishings include categories such as kitchen and tabletop items, fine tabletop, basic housewares, general home furnishings (including furniture and wall decor), consumables and certain juvenile products.

Big Lots Inc.

Big Lots is a discount retailer. The company's primary merchandising categories include Furniture (upholstery, mattress, and case goods departments), Seasonal (Christmas trim, lawn and garden, and summer departments), Soft Home (fashion bedding, utility bedding, bath, window, decorative textile, home organization, and frames departments), Food (beverage and grocery, candy and snacks departments), Consumables (health, beauty and cosmetics, plastics, paper, chemical, and pet departments), Hard Home (small appliances, table top, food preparation, stationery, greeting cards, and home maintenance departments), and Electronics, Toys, and Accessories (electronics, toys, jewelry, and hosiery departments).

Cloudera Inc.

Cloudera is an enterprise data cloud company. The company has multi-function data management and analytics software, including flow management, streams management, data engineering, data warehousing, streaming analytics, operational databases and machine learning. The company provides software subscriptions and public cloud services for the Cloudera Data Platform solution-set and software subscriptions for its on-premises data platforms. Subscriptions include software access rights and technical support. The company also provides services for the implementation and use of its software subscriptions, machine learning solutions and consultation, training and education services.

Dollar General Corporation

Dollar General is a discount retailer. The company's consumables products includes paper and cleaning products, packaged food, perishables, snacks, health and beauty, pet, and tobacco products. The company's seasonal products include decorations, toys, batteries, small electronics, greeting cards, stationery, prepaid phones and accessories, gardening supplies, hardware, automotive and home office supplies. The company's home products include kitchen supplies, cookware, small appliances, light bulbs, storage containers, frames, candles, craft supplies and kitchen, bed and bath soft goods. The company's apparel includes casual everyday apparel, as well as socks, underwear, disposable diapers, shoes and accessories.

Dollar Tree Inc.

Dollar Tree is an operator of discount variety stores. The company's stores operate under the names of Dollar Tree, Family Dollar and Dollar Tree Canada. The company's segments are: Dollar Tree, which is the operator of discount variety stores providing merchandise at the fixed price point of $1.00; and Family Dollar, which operates general merchandise discount retail stores. The merchandise mix in the company's Dollar Tree stores consists of consumable merchandise, variety merchandise, and seasonal goods. The merchandise mix in the company's Family Dollar stores consists of consumable merchandise, home products, apparel and accessories merchandise, and seasonal and electronics merchandise.

eGain

eGain is a provider of cloud-based customer engagement software with operations in the United States, United Kingdom and India. The company's suite includes applications for digital interaction, knowledge management, and artificial intelligence-based process guidance. The company also provides integrated analytics for contact centers and digital properties to measure, manage, and support resources. The company's eGain solution provides a unified cloud software solution to automate, augment and orchestrate customer engagement in a digital omnichannel world. The company's feature portfolio of applications allows businesses to continuously support the activity for agents, business and customers.

Five Below Inc.

Five Below is a retailer providing a range of merchandise targeted at the tween and teen demographic. The company provides an assortment of products, all priced at $5 and below, including select brands and licensed merchandise across eight worlds: Style, Room, Sports, Tech, Create, Party, Candy and Now. The company operates in states that include Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, West Virginia, North Carolina, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, Georgia, Texas, Tennessee, Maine, Alabama, Kentucky, Kansas, Florida, South Carolina, Mississippi, Louisiana, Wisconsin, Oklahoma, Minnesota, California and Arkansas.

Five9 Inc.

Five9 is a provider of cloud software for contact centers. The company's Virtual Contact Center (VCC), cloud platform and applications, allows simultaneous management and optimization of customer interactions across voice, chat, email, web, social media and mobile channels, either directly or through its application programming interfaces. The company's VCC cloud platform matches each customer interaction with an appropriate agent resource and delivers customer data to the agent in real-time through integrations with adjacent enterprise applications, such as customer relationship management software. The company provides its solution through a software-as-a-service business model with recurring subscriptions.

HubSpot Inc.

HubSpot provides a cloud-based marketing, sales, and customer service software platform, which it refers to as its Growth Platform. The company's Growth Platform features integrated applications that create an adaptable customer experience. These integrated applications include a CRM, search engine optimization, blogging, website content management, messaging, chatbots, social media, marketing automation, email, predictive lead scoring, sales productivity, ticketing and helpdesk tools, customer NPS surveys, analytics, and reporting. The company also provides other services, which primarily consist of customer on-boarding and training services.

Michaels Companies Inc

Michaels Companies is an arts and crafts retailer in North America, providing materials, project ideas and education for creative activities. The company also operates a wholesale business under the Darice brand name and a custom framing business under the Artistree brand name. The Michaels store provides general crafts, home decor and seasonal, framing and papercrafting products. The company's Darice business provides a range of craft and hobby items. The company also has online platforms including Michaels.com, ConsumerCrafts.com, Darice.com, AaronBrothers.com (its online framing solution) and its Michaels app, which connects its store and online experiences.

Nuance Communications Inc.

Nuance Communications provides conversational artificial intelligence (AI). The company provides its customers automated speech recognition, natural language understanding capabilities, dialog and information management, biometric speaker authentication, text-to-speech, and domain knowledge, along with services and implementation support. The company's segments are: healthcare, which provides intelligent systems that support approach to clinical documentation; enterprise, which provides AI-powered intelligent customer engagement solutions and services; automotive, which provides assistants and connected services for cars; and other, which includes the company's Subscriber Revenue Services and Devices businesses.

Ollie's Bargain Outlet Holdings Inc

Ollie's Bargain Outlet Holdings is a holding company. The company and its subsidiaries buys overproduced, overstocked, and closeout merchandise from manufacturers, wholesalers, and other retailers. The company's product offerings include: cooking utensils, dishes, appliances, plastic containers, cutlery, storage and garbage bags, detergents and cleaning supplies; packaged food including coffee, bottled non-carbonated beverages and salty snacks; household goods including bedding and towels; books and stationery; floor coverings including laminate flooring, commercial and residential carpeting, area rugs and floor mats; and electronics, including air conditioners, home electronics and cellular accessories.

Oracle Corporation

Oracle provides products and services that address enterprise information technology (IT) environments. The company's products and services include applications and infrastructure offerings. The company's cloud and license business engages in the sale, marketing and delivery of its applications and infrastructure technologies through cloud and on-premise deployment models including its cloud services and license support offerings; and its cloud license and on-premise license offerings. The company's hardware business provides Oracle Engineered Systems, servers, storage, industry-specific hardware, operating systems, virtualization, management and other hardware-related software to support diverse IT environments.

PROG Holdings Inc.

Aaron's is a provider of lease-purchase solutions. The company primarily provides consumers with lease-purchase solutions for the products they need and want including furniture, appliances, electronics, jewelry and other products. The company conducts its business through three operating segments: Progressive Leasing, a virtual lease-to-own company that provides lease-purchase solutions; Aaron's Business, which engages in the sales and lease ownership and retailing of furniture, home appliances, consumer electronics and accessories through its stores in several states, Canada and Puerto Rico, as well as its e-commerce platform, Aarons.com; and Dent-A-Med, Inc., which provides a variety of credit products.

Rent-A-Center Inc

Rent-A-Center is a holding company that provides ownership of products, such as consumer electronics, furniture and accessories, under flexible rental purchase agreements with no long-term obligation. The company's Core U.S. segment consists of the company-owned rent-to-own stores that lease household durable goods on a rent-to-own basis. The company's Acceptance Now segment provides the rent-to-own transaction to consumers who do not qualify for financing from the retailer. The company's Mexico segment consists of the company-owned rent-to-own stores in Mexico that lease household durable goods on a rent-to-own basis. The company's Rent-A-Center Franchising International, Inc. subsidiary is a franchisor of rent-to-own stores.

RH
RH

RH is a holding company. Together with its subsidiaries, the company is a retailer in the home furnishings marketplace. The company provides merchandise assortments across a number of categories, including furniture, lighting, textiles, bathware, decor, outdoor and garden, and child and teen furnishings. The company positions its Galleries as showrooms for its brand, while its Source Books and websites act as virtual extensions of its stores. The company's business is integrated across its various channels of distribution, consisting of its stores, Source Books, and websites. The company operates its retail Galleries throughout the U.S. and Canada, and its Waterworks showrooms throughout the U.S. and in the U.K.

Salesforce.com inc.

Salesforce.Com is engaged in customer relationship management technology. The company's Customer 360 is an integrated platform that unites sales, service, marketing, commerce, integration, analytics and more to give companies a single, shared view of their customers. Through its platform and other developer tools, the company also enables third parties to develop additional functionality and applications, or apps, that run on its platform, which are sold separately from or in conjunction with the company's service offerings. The company's cloud service offerings include sales cloud, service cloud, marketing and commerce cloud, and salesforce platform and other.

Williams-Sonoma Inc.

Williams-Sonoma is a retailer of products for the home. The company has two reportable segments, e-commerce and retail. The e-commerce segment has the following merchandise strategies: Williams Sonoma, Pottery Barn, Pottery Barn Kids, West Elm, PBteen, Williams Sonoma Home, Rejuvenation and Mark and Graham, which sell the company's products through its e-commerce websites and direct-mail catalogs. The retail segment, which includes the company's franchise operations, has the following merchandise strategies: Williams Sonoma, Pottery Barn, Pottery Barn Kids, West Elm and Rejuvenation, which sell the company's products through its retail stores.

Winmark Corp.

Winmark is a franchisor of retail store concepts that buy, sell, and trade used merchandise. Each of the company's retail store brands provide used merchandise at savings from the price of new merchandise. The company's concepts also provide some new merchandise to customers. The company has two reportable business segments, franchising and leasing. The franchising segment franchises retail store concepts that buy, sell, trade and consign merchandise as well as provides consulting services related to franchising. The leasing segment includes Winmark Capital Corporation, its middle-market equipment leasing business and Wirth Business Credit, Inc., its small-ticket financing business.

Zendesk Inc.

Zendesk is a software development company that provides software as a service solutions. The company's product solutions include: Zendesk Support, which provides organizations with the ability to track, prioritize, and solve customer support tickets; Zendesk Chat, which is a live chat software; Zendesk Talk, which is a cloud-based call center software for phone and short message service support conversations; Zendesk Guide, which is a knowledge base that powers both customer self-service and support agent productivity; Zendesk Explore, which provides analytics for organizations; and Zendesk Sell, which is a sales customer relationship management product solution.

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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