Report
Dave Nicoski ...
  • Ross LaDuke
EUR 203.26 For Business Accounts Only

Vermilion Compass: Weekly Equity Strategy

Market sending mixed signals; Upgrading Utilities; Downgrading Manufacturing

Note: This report is presented in an abbreviated format, as we are producing the May U.S. Macro Vision book this week.

This market continues to flash mixed signals, with the most recent development being defensive Utilities advancing in our relative strength rankings - more on Utilities later. Given mixed signals and support levels holding on the S&P 500 (namely the 200-day moving average and prior lows from February and March), our outlook remains neutral but constructive and we continue to expect further consolidation and volatility.

• Mostly positive internals. The positive: Cap- and equal-weighted Discretionary vs. Staples ratios continue to advance to new highs - not something we would expect if this were a meaningful market top. Two breadth indicators - the percent of stocks above their 50-day moving average and the advance-decline line - remain constructive and are positively diverging. The negative: The S&P 500 percentage of stocks above their 200-day moving average showed deterioration and a negative divergence when the market tested the lows in late March/early April.

• Sector Relative Strength Rankings: Utilities upgrade; Manufacturing downgrade. Utilities' relative strength trend has broken topside its downtrend, and is one of the few sectors, save Energy, that is making higher lows and higher highs since the market lows in early February. For these reasons, we are upgrading Utilities to market weight. On the other hand, we are downgrading Manufacturing to market weight due to a breakdown in relative strength uptrend support... see below, page 2, and sector comments.

• In today's report we highlight concerning groups that illustrate areas of growing deterioration across the market. Concerning groups: TE-04 and TE-05 (Semiconductor Equipment, Large, Mid, and Small-Cap), CD-08 (Home Furnishings), and FN-25 (Asset Management & Custody Banks, Mid-Cap)... see pages 7-22.
Underlyings
Advanced Energy Industries Inc.

Advanced Energy Industries designs, manufactures, sells and supports power conversion products that convert power into various usable forms. The company's products enable manufacturing processes that use thin film technology for products such as semiconductor devices, flat panel displays, thin film renewables, architectural glass, optical coating and consumer products decorative and functional coating. The company also supplies thermal instrumentation products for temperature measurement and control for multiple industrial markets. The company's network of global service support centers provides repair services, conversions, improvements, and refurbishments and used equipment to companies using its products.

Affiliated Managers Group Inc.

Affiliated Managers Group is a global asset management company with equity investments in boutique investment management firms (Affiliates). The company provides centralized capabilities to its Affiliates, including strategy, marketing and distribution, and product development. Through its Affiliates, the company provides strategies designed to assist institutional, retail and clients worldwide in achieving their investment objectives. The company provides boutique investment management services to retail investors through advisory and sub-advisory services to return-oriented mutual funds, Undertakings for the Collective Investment of Transferable Securities, collective investment trusts and other retail products.

Amkor Technology Inc.

Amkor Technology is a provider of outsourced semiconductor packaging and test services, which include semiconductor wafer bump, wafer probe, wafer back-grind, package design, packaging, system-level and final test and drop shipment services. The company's Advanced Products include flip chip chip scale packages, wafer-level packages and flip chip ball grid array packages, while its Mainstream Products include leadframe packages, substrate-based wirebond packages and micro-electro-mechanical systems packages. The company provides its services to integrated device manufacturers, fabless semiconductor companies and contract foundries.

Apollo Global Management Inc. Class A

Apollo Global Management is an alternative investment manager. The company's primary business is to raise, invest and manage credit, private equity and real assets funds as well as strategic investment accounts. The company has three business segments: Credit, which invests in non-control corporate and structured debt instruments including performing, stressed and distressed investments across the capital structure; Private equity, which invests in control equity and related debt instruments, convertible securities and distressed debt investments; and Real assets, which invests in real estate equity and infrastructure equity for the acquisition and recapitalization of real estate and infrastructure assets.

Applied Materials Inc.

Applied Materials provides manufacturing equipment, services and software to the semiconductor, display and related industries. The company's segments are: Semiconductor Systems, which develops, manufactures and sells a range of manufacturing equipment used to fabricate semiconductor chips; Applied Global Services, which provides integrated solutions to support equipment and fab performance and productivity; and Display and Adjacent Markets, which is comprised of products for manufacturing liquid crystal displays, organic light-emitting diodes and other display technologies for TVs, monitors, laptops, personal computers, electronic tablets, smart phones, and other consumer-oriented devices.

Armstrong Flooring Inc.

Armstrong Flooring is a producer of resilient flooring products for use primarily in the construction and renovation of commercial, residential and institutional buildings. The company designs, manufactures, sources and sells flooring products primarily in North America and the Pacific Rim.

ASM International N.V.

ASML Holding N.V.

Axcelis Technologies Inc.

Axcelis Technologies designs, manufactures and services ion implantation and other processing equipment used in the fabrication of semiconductor chips. The company also provides aftermarket lifecycle products and services, including used tools, spare parts, equipment upgrades, maintenance services and customer training. The company provides high energy, high current and medium current implanters for all application requirements. The company's Purion systems are all based on a common platform which enables a combination of implant purity, precision and productivity by combining a single wafer end station, with a spot beam architecture. The company's other products include curing systems, and thermal processing systems.

AXT Inc.

AXT is a developer and producer of compound and single element semiconductor substrates, also known as wafers. The company's compound substrates combine indium with phosphorous (indium phosphide: InP) or gallium with arsenic (gallium arsenide: GaAs). InP is a semiconductor substrate used in, among others, fiber optic lasers and detectors, passive optical networks, metro and data center connectivity, silicon photonics, infrared motion control and infrared thermal imaging. The company also makes semi-insulating GaAs substrates used in making semiconductor chips in applications such as power amplifiers for wireless devices, transistors and solar cells for drones. In addition, the company sells certain raw materials.

Bassett Furniture Industries Inc.

Bassett Furniture Industries is a retailer, manufacturer and marketer of branded home furnishings. The company's products are sold primarily through a network of the company-owned and licensee-owned branded stores under the Bassett Home Furnishings (BHF) name. The company's wholesale home furnishings segment is involved principally in the design, manufacture, sourcing, sale and distribution of furniture products to a network of BHF stores and independent furniture retailers. The company's Retail segment includes its store network of the company-owned stores and licensee-owned stores. The company's Logistical Services segment provides network line haul freight (middle mile) and warehousing, distribution and inventory management.

Brooks Automation Inc.

Brooks Automation provides semiconductor manufacturing automation solutions and life science sample-based services and solutions worldwide. In the semiconductor manufacturing market, the company provides robotics, automation systems and services. In the life sciences market, the company provides sample-based services and products, including a line of cold chain management solutions for handling and storing biological and chemical compound samples used in areas such as drug development, clinical research and advanced cell therapies. The company is also a provider of gene sequencing and gene synthesis services. The company's reportable segments consist of Brooks Semiconductor Solutions Group and Brooks Life Sciences.

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.

Ethan Allen Interiors Inc.

Ethan Allen Interiors, through its wholly-owned subsidiary, Ethan Allen Global, Inc., and Ethan Allen Global, Inc.'s subsidiaries, is an interior design company, manufacturer and retailer in the home furnishings marketplace. The company aligns its business into two reportable segments: Retail, which sells home furnishings and accents to consumers through a network of the company operated design centers; and Wholesale, which is principally involved in the development of the Ethan Allen brand and encompasses all aspects of design, manufacture, sourcing, marketing, sale, and distribution of the company's range of home furnishings and accents. The company's product line includes case goods, upholstery, and home accents.

Federated Hermes Inc. Class B

Federated Hermes is a provider of investment management products and related financial services. The company sponsors, markets and provides investment-related services to various investment products, including sponsored investment companies and other funds (Federated Funds) and Separate Accounts. The company markets these funds to banks, broker/dealers and other financial intermediaries who use them to meet the needs of customers and/or clients, including retail investors, corporations and retirement plans. The company also provides a range of services to support the operation and administration of the Federated Funds. These services include administrative services and shareholder servicing.

Flexsteel Industries Inc.

Flexsteel Industries is a manufacturer, importer and marketer of residential and contract upholstered and wooden furniture products. With offerings for use in home, healthcare, and recreational seating, the company distributes its furniture throughout the United States and Canada through the company's sales force and various independent representatives. The company operates in one reportable segment, furniture products. The company's furniture products business involves the distribution of manufactured and imported products consisting of a line of upholstered and wooden furniture for residential and contract markets.

FormFactor Inc.

FormFactor is a provider of test and measurement technologies. The company's products provide electrical information from a range of semiconductor and electro-optical devices and integrated circuits from research, to development through production. The company designs, manufactures and sells multiple product lines, including probe cards, analytical probes, probe stations, thermal sub-systems, and related services. The company's customers use its products to test semiconductor device types, including mobile application processors, microprocessors, microcontrollers, graphic processors, radio frequency, analog, mixed signal, image sensors, opto-electrical, DRAM memory, NAND flash memory and NOR flash memory devices.

Invesco Ltd.

KLA Corporation

KLA is a supplier of process control and yield management solutions for the semiconductor and related nanoelectronics industries. The company provides process control and process-enabling solutions for manufacturing and testing wafers and reticles, integrated circuits, packaging, light emitting diodes, power devices, compound semiconductor devices, microelectromechanical systems, data storage, printed circuit boards (PCBs), and flat and flexible panel displays, as well as general materials research. The company has four reportable segments which include Semiconductor Process Control; Specialty Semiconductor Process; PCB, Display and Component Inspection; and Other.

Lam Research Corporation

Lam Research is a supplier of wafer fabrication equipment and services to the semiconductor industry. The company designs, manufactures, markets, refurbishes, and services semiconductor processing equipment used in the fabrication of integrated circuits. The company's customer base includes semiconductor memory, foundry, and integrated device manufacturers that make products such as non-volatile memory, dynamic random-access memory, and logic devices. The company's services include customer service, spares, improvement, and refurbishment of its deposition, etch, and clean products. The company sells its products and services to companies in the United States, China, Europe, Japan, Korea, Southeast Asia, and Taiwan.

Leggett & Platt Incorporated

Leggett & Platt designs and produces engineered components and products in homes and automobiles. The company's segments are: Residential Products, which supplies components and machinery used by bedding manufacturers in the production and assembly of their finished products, as well as producing private-label finished mattresses for bedding brands and retailers; Industrial Products, which supplies high-carbon drawn steel wire; Furniture Products, which supplies components used by home and work furniture manufacturers; and Specialized Products, which designs, manufactures and sells products including automotive seating components, tubing and fabricated assemblies, and hydraulic cylinders.

Mohawk Industries Inc.

Mohawk Industries is a global flooring manufacturer for residential and commercial spaces around the world. The company has three segments: Global Ceramic, which designs, manufactures, sources, distributes and markets a line of ceramic, porcelain and natural stone tile products used for floor and wall applications; Flooring North America, which designs, manufactures, sources and distributes broadloom carpet, carpet tile, rugs and mats, carpet pad, laminate, medium-density fiberboard, luxury vinyl tile (LVT) and sheet vinyl; and Flooring Rest of the World, which designs, manufactures, sources and distributes laminate, LVT and sheet vinyl, wood flooring, broadloom carpet and carpet tile collections.

Nova Measuring Instruments Ltd

Nova Measuring Instruments is engaged in the design, development, production of integrated process control systems for use in the manufacture of semiconductors, also known as integrated circuits or chips. Co.'s product portfolio includes a complete set of, integrated and stand-alone metrology platforms suited for dimensional, films and material metrology measurements for process control across multiple semiconductor manufacturing process steps including lithography, Etch, CMP and deposition. Co.'s solutions utilize optical spectral reflectometry and X-ray technologies combined with advanced software modeling and unique algorithmic capabilities.

SEI Investments Company

SEI Investments is holding company. Through its subsidiaries, the company is a provider of investment processing, investment management and investment operations solutions. The company's segments are: private banks, which provides outsourced investment processing and investment management platforms; investment advisors, which provides investment management and investment processing platforms; institutional investors, which provides investment management and administrative outsourcing platforms; investment managers, which provides investment operations outsourcing solutions; and investments in new businesses, which focuses on providing investment management solutions to families residing in the U.S.

Sleep Number Corporation

Sleep Number is a designer, manufacturer, marketer, retailer and servicer of Sleep Number beds. The company provides its customers individualized sleep solutions and services, including a line of Sleep Number beds, bases and bedding accessories. The company's Sleep Number 360 smart bed provides individualized comfort that is adjustable on each side of the bed. The company also provides a line of FlexFit? smart adjustable bases that allow customers to raise the head or foot of the bed. The SleepIQ Kids? k2 bed extends its technology to the children's mattress market. The company's Sleep Number? bedding collection features a line of sleep products. The company provides temperature-balancing products including the DualTemp? layer.

Teradyne Inc.

Teradyne is a global supplier of automation equipment for test and industrial applications. The company designs, develops, manufactures and sells automatic test systems used to test semiconductors, wireless products, data storage and electronics systems in the consumer electronics, wireless, automotive, industrial, computing, communications, and aerospace and defense industries. The company's automatic test equipment and industrial automation products and services include: semiconductor test systems; defense/aerospace test instrumentation and systems, storage test systems, and circuit-board test and inspection systems; industrial automation products; and wireless test systems.

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.

Versum Materials Inc.

Versum Materials is a provider of solutions to the semiconductor and display industries with knowledge in the development, manufacturing, transportation and handling of specialty materials. The company has two segments: Materials, which provides materials for deposition, metallization, chamber cleaning and etching, chemicals mechanical planarization slurries, organosilanes, organometallics and liquid dopants for thin film deposition, and chemical products; and Delivery Systems and Services, which designs, manufactures, installs, operates, and maintains chemical and gas delivery and distribution systems for specialty gases and chemicals delivered directly to the company's customers' manufacturing tools.

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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