Report
Dave Nicoski ...
  • Ross LaDuke
EUR 47.94 For Business Accounts Only

Vermilion Compass: Weekly Equity Strategy

Breakouts Proliferate; Bullish Outlook Intact

The S&P 500, Nasdaq 100, and DJI are breaking out to new all-time highs following 3-week consolidations, while the small-cap Russell 2000 (IWM), mid-cap S&P 400 (IJH), Vanguard Extended Market ETF (VXF), and countless other Sectors/industries are breaking out from 3-week bullish falling wedge/flag patterns. This is classic bull market behavior. Considering market dynamics remain healthy, this is all evidence that supports our ongoing bullish outlook.

Breakouts Proliferate. Several broad market indexes and Sector/industry ETFs held above major base supports and are now breaking out from 3-week consolidations, including the Vanguard Extended Market ETF (VXF, the entire U.S. market excluding the S&P 500), Nasdaq Composite, Industrials (XLI), Financials (XLF), banks (KRE, KBE), retail (XRT), smid-cap biotech (XBI), ARKF, ARKW, and Russell Mid Cap Growth (IWP). Additional areas with 3-week bullish wedge/flag breakouts include Transportation (IYT) and large-cap broker/dealers & exchanges (IAI), while other leading areas simply continue to lead -- e.g., the S&P 500, Nasdaq 100 (QQQ), Technology (XLK), Communications (XLC), semiconductors (SMH), and software (IGV). It all continues to support our bullish outlook, and we believe more upside is ahead... see charts below and pages 3-4.
S&P 500, Russell 2000. Now that the S&P 500 broke out to new all-time highs -- above the January 2022 highs at 4800-4820 -- we really do not want to see the SPX break below 4800, since that would indicate a false breakout. If that happened, supports to watch would be 4682 followed by 4600, and as long as the SPX is above 4600, we remain bullish. In terms of the Russell 2000 (IWM), the 3-week wedge breakout is a bullish sign, and if it can break above $197 it would mean the IWM is finally breaking out from its 1.5+ year consolidation. Additionally, we see RS potentially bottoming for small-caps... see below & page 4.
Potential Headwinds. Two potential near-term headwinds that we are monitoring include a rising U.S. dollar (DXY) and 10-year Treasury yield. Still, we view them as risk-on signals longer-term, as long as they are below $106 and 4.35%, respectively.
Underlyings
Adtalem Global Education Inc.

Adtalem Global Education provides educational services. The company's institutions and companies provide an array of programs across medical and healthcare, financial services and business and law. The company's segments include: Medical and Healthcare, which includes Chamberlain University and Medical and Veterinary Schools that provide educational programs in nursing and health professions, respectively; Financial Services, which includes Becker Professional Education that provides education serving the accounting and finance professions; and Business and Law, which includes Adtalem Education of Brazil institution that focuses in business, engineering, healthcare, law, management, medical and technology.

American Financial Group Inc.

American Financial Group is a holding company. Through its subsidiary, Great American Insurance Group, the company is engaged primarily in property and casualty insurance, focusing on commercial products for businesses, and in the sale of fixed, fixed-indexed and variable-indexed annuities in the retail, financial institutions, broker-dealer and registered investment advisor markets. The company's property and casualty insurance segments consist of property and transportation, specialty casualty, and specialty financial. The company's annuity segment is focused on the sale of fixed and indexed annuities in the retail, financial institutions, broker-dealer and registered investment advisor markets .

American International Group Inc.

American International Group is a holding company. Through its subsidiaries, the company provides a range of property casualty insurance, life insurance, retirement solutions, and other financial services. The company's businesses include General Insurance, which provides insurance products and services for commercial and personal insurance customers; Life and Retirement, which brings together a portfolio of life insurance, retirement and institutional products provided through a multichannel distribution network; and Other Operations, which include Blackboard U.S. Holdings, Inc., a subsidiary focused on delivering commercial insurance solutions using digital technology, data analytics and automation.

American Public Education

American Public Education is a provider of online and on-campus postsecondary education. The company provides online postsecondary education directed primarily at the needs of the military and public safety communities through American Public University System, Inc., an online university that includes American Military University and American Public University. The company provides on-campus nursing education to students in Ohio through National Education Seminars, Inc., which it refers to as Hondros College of Nursing (HCON). HCON provides nursing education to students in Ohio to serve the needs of the nursing and healthcare communities.

AXA S.A. ADS

CommVault Systems Inc.

CommVault Systems is a provider of data and information management software applications and related services. The company develops, markets and sells a suite of software applications and services, mainly in North America, Europe, Australia and Asia, that provides its customers with data protection solutions. The company also sells appliances that integrate the company's software with hardware. Company also provides its customers with a range of professional and customer support services.

Dropbox Inc. Class A

Dropbox is a global collaboration platform that centralizes the flow of information between the products and services its users prefer. Dropbox allows individuals, teams, and organizations to collaborate. Anyone can sign up for free via the company's website or app, and upgrade to a paid subscription plan for additional features. Dropbox is a digital workspace where individuals and teams can create content, access it from anywhere, and share it with collaborators. The company also utilizes Amazon Web Services (AWS), for the remainder of its users' storage needs and to help deliver its services. These AWS datacenters are in the United States and Europe, which allows the company to localize where content is stored.

ING Groep N.V. ADS

Jefferies Financial Group Inc.

Jefferies Financial Group is a financial services company engaged in investment banking and capital markets, asset management and direct investing. The company's operating and reportable segments consist of Investment Banking, Capital Markets and Asset Management, which focuses on investment banking, equities and fixed income, and also the company primarily serves institutional investors, corporations and government entities; and Merchant Banking, which includes investments in Linkem S.p.A., the fixed wireless broadband service provider in Italy; Vitesse Energy, LLC and JETX Energy, LLC, which engaged in oil and gas production and development; and real estate.

LAZARD INC

Lincoln Educational Services

Lincoln Educational Services provides post-secondary education to high school graduates and working adults. The company provides programs in automotive technology, skilled trades, which include heating, ventilating and air conditioning, welding and computerized numerical control and electronic systems technology, among other programs; healthcare services, which include nursing, dental assistant, medical administrative assistant, among other programs; hospitality services, which include culinary, therapeutic massage, cosmetology and aesthetics; and information technology, which consists of information technology programs.

Moelis & Co. Class A

Moelis & Company is a holding company. The company operates and controls all of the business and affairs of Moelis & Company Group LP and its operating entity subsidiaries indirectly through its equity interest in Moelis & Company Group GP LLC. The company's activities as an investment banking advisory firm constitute a single business segment providing clients, including corporations, governments and financial sponsors, a range of advisory services with a focus across all main industries in mergers and acquisitions (M&A), recapitalizations and restructurings and other corporate finance matters.

NetApp Inc.

NetApp is the data authority for the hybrid cloud. The company's product, services and solutions portfolio include: cloud data services, which include the NetApp Data Fabric, which manages, secures, and protects the data of its customers from on-premises to public to hybrid cloud; cloud infrastructure, which helps customers build cloud-architected data centers; storage systems and software, which enables customers to modernize their IT architectures with cloud-connected flash to free the resources necessary; and support services, which enable a portfolio of technical services including independent support services, support account managers, residency services, and managed services.

Nutanix Inc. Class A

Nutanix provides an enterprise cloud platform that consists of software solutions. The company's solution allows its customers to virtualize various clouds - private, public, distributed - into one cloud enabling enterprises to choose the right cloud for the right application. The company's enterprise cloud platform converges compute, virtualization, storage, networking, desktop, governance and security services in one integrated solution. Acropolis is the foundation of the company's enterprise cloud platform. Acropolis is comprised of four foundational components: Virtualization, Enterprise Storage Capabilities, Platform Services, and Networking Services.

Perdoceo Education Corp

Career Education's academic institutions provide education to students in a variety of disciplines through online, campus-based and blended learning programs. The company's reporting segments are: Colorado Technical University, which provides industry-relevant degree programs and academic programs in the career-oriented disciplines of business studies, nursing, computer science, engineering, information systems and technology, cybersecurity and healthcare management; and American InterContinental University, which helps personnel get the degree and provides academic programs in the career-oriented disciplines of business studies, information technologies, education and criminal justice.

Stifel Financial Corp.

Stifel Financial is a financial holding company. The company's principal subsidiary is Stifel, Nicolaus & Company, Incorporated, a retail and institutional wealth management and investment banking firm. The company's principal activities are: private client services; institutional equity and fixed income sales, trading and research, and municipal finance; investment banking services; and retail and commercial banking. The company has the following segments: Global Wealth Management, which provides securities transaction, brokerage, and investment services; and Institutional Group, which includes research, equity and fixed income institutional sales and trading, investment banking, public finance, and syndicate.

Strategic Education Inc.

Strategic Education is an education services company. The company provides campus-based and online post-secondary education offerings through two subsidiaries, Strayer University and Capella University. Strayer University provides undergraduate and graduate degree programs in business administration, accounting, information technology, education, health services administration, nursing, public administration, and criminal justice at physical campuses, primarily located in the eastern U.S., and online. Capella University is an online post-secondary education company that provides a variety of bachelor's, master's and doctoral degree programs primarily delivered to working adults.

Stride Inc

Tokio Marine Holdings Inc. ADS

Universal Technical Institute Inc.

Universal Technical Institute is a provider of postsecondary education for students seeking careers as automotive, diesel, collision repair, motorcycle and marine technicians as well as welders and computer numeric control machining technicians. The company provides certificate, diploma or degree programs under the banner of several brands, including Universal Technical Institute, Motorcycle Mechanics Institute and Marine Mechanics Institute and NASCAR Technical Institute. Additionally, the company provides manufacturer specific advanced training (MSAT) programs, including student-paid electives, at its campuses and manufacturer or dealer sponsored training at certain campuses and training centers.

Varonis Systems Inc.

Varonis System provides data security and analytics. The company's software enables enterprises to protect data stored on premises and in the cloud: sensitive files and emails; confidential personal data; financial records; strategic and product plans; and other intellectual property. The Varonis Data Security Platform helps enterprises protect data against insider threats and cyberattacks. The company's products enable enterprises to analyze data, account activity and user behavior to detect attacks. The company's Data Security Platform prevents or limits unauthorized use of sensitive information, prevents potential cyberattacks and limits others by locking down sensitive and stale data.

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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