Report
Dave Nicoski ...
  • Ross LaDuke
EUR 46.63 For Business Accounts Only

Vermilion Compass: Weekly Equity Strategy

Bullish Outlook Intact; Growth vs. Value Stalemate Continues

Market dynamics remain positive and there continues to be an absence of breakdowns across the broad indexes and Sectors. As a result we remain bullish and we view any weakness as a buying opportunity.

· S&P 500. The S&P 500 is currently testing short-term support in the 3630-3645 zone, which happens to coincide with a multi-week uptrend. If this area fails to hold, the next important support levels to watch would be 3588 followed by 3550. As long as 3550 holds, we believe a bullish intermediate-term outlook is appropriate... see chart below.

· Sector Relative Strength Rankings & Weighting Recommendations. Cyclical Sectors continue to outperform while defensive areas are lagging; this market dynamic is characteristic of a bullish, risk-on environment. Continue to favor cyclicals and underweight defensives... see pages 2-3.

· Neutral On Growth vs. Value; Small-Caps Bullish But Extended. We remain neutral between growth and value, as growth vs. value ratios for all market-caps continue to consolidate horizontally. It is also worth noting that value Sectors along with small-caps are unquestionably bullish, but are also extended as a result of “reopening” optimism, and could use a rest (Russell 2000 is 30% above its 200-day MA). We prefer to add exposure to small-caps and value on pullbacks, while large-cap growth stocks currently offer a more attractive entry point. One actionable idea is Netflix (NFLX)... see pages 4-5.

· High Yield Spreads, 10-Year Treasury Yield. High yield spreads have been narrowing since March and the 10-year yield remains in a 4-month uptrend. As long as there are no reversals in these trends we see them as risk-on signals for the broad equity market.

In today's report we highlight attractive Groups and stocks within Materials and Technology: MA-14 Fertilizer, MA-17 Forest Products, Paper & Packaging, TE-33 Testing Instruments & Equipment. and TE-44 Software, Data/Analysis & Solutions...
Underlyings
Agilent Technologies Inc.

Agilent Technologies is engaged in life sciences, diagnostics and applied chemical markets. The company's segments are: Life Sciences and Applied Markets Business, which provides instruments and software that enable customers to identify, quantify and analyze the physical and biological properties of substances and products; Diagnostics and Genomics Business, which includes the genomics, nucleic acid contract manufacturing and research and development, pathology, companion diagnostics, reagent partnership and biomolecular analysis businesses; and Agilent CrossLab Business, which spans the entire lab with its consumables and services portfolio to improve customer outcomes.

Celldex Therapeutics Inc.

Celldex Therapeutics is a biopharmaceutical company focused on the development and commercialization of several immunotherapy technologies and other cancer-targeting biologics. The company has four drug candidates in clinical development, including CDX-1140, an agonist human monoclonal antibody targeted to CD40, a key activator of immune response; CDX-3379, a human monoclonal antibody designed to block the activity of ErbB3; varlilumab, an immune modulating antibody targeting CD27 designed to improve a patient's immune response; and CDX-301, a dendritic cell growth factor.

CF Industries Holdings Inc.

CF Industries Holdings is a global fertilizer and chemical company. The company's principal nitrogen fertilizer products are anhydrous ammonia, granular urea, urea ammonium nitrate solution and ammonium nitrate. The company's other nitrogen products include diesel exhaust fluid, urea liquor, nitric acid and aqua ammonia, which are sold primarily to its industrial customers, and compound fertilizer products, which are solid granular fertilizer products for which the nutrient content is a combination of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. The company serves its customers in North America through its production, storage, transportation and distribution network.

Clearwater Paper Corporation

Clearwater Paper manufactures consumer tissue, away-from-home tissue (AFH), parent roll tissue, bleached paperboard and pulp. The company is a supplier of private label tissue to retailers and wholesale distributors. In addition, the company produces bleached paperboard and provides services that include custom sheeting, slitting and cutting. The company's segments are: Consumer Products, which manufactures and sells a complete line of at-home tissue products as well as AFH products; and Pulp and Paperboard, which consists primarily of folding carton, liquid packaging, cup and plate products, blister and carded packaging, top sheet, commercial printing grades and hardwood and softwood pulp.

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.

CVR Partners LP

CVR Partners owns, operates, and grows its nitrogen fertilizer business. The company produces and distributes nitrogen fertilizer products, which are used by farmers to improve the yield and quality of their crops. The company's main products are ammonia and urea ammonium nitrate (UAN), an aqueous solution of urea and ammonium nitrate used as a fertilizer. The company's products are sold on a wholesale basis. The company produces nitrogen fertilizer products at two manufacturing facilities, which are located in Coffeyville, KS and East Dubuque, IL. The company primarily markets UAN products to agricultural customers and ammonia products to agricultural and industrial customers.

Elastic N.V.

Elastic is a search company. The company's products enable its users and customers to instantly find relevant information and insights in large amounts of data. The company provides the Elastic Stack, a set of software products that ingest and store data from any source, and in any format, and perform search, analysis, and visualization in milliseconds or less. The Elastic Stack is designed for direct use by developers to power a variety of use cases. The company also provides software solutions built on the Elastic Stack that address a variety of use cases. The Elastic Stack and the company's solutions are designed to run on premises, in public or private clouds, or in hybrid environments.

ICL Group Ltd.

Israel Chemicals, through its subsidiaries, extracts raw materials and utilizes processing and product formulation technologies to add value to customers in the areas of agriculture, electronics, food, fuel and gas exploration, water purification and desalination, detergents, cosmetics, medicines and vehicles. Co. operates two segments: Essential Minerals and Specialty Solutions. The Essential Minerals segment includes the ICL Potash & Magnesium, ICL Phosphate and ICL Specialty Fertilizers business lines. The Specialty Solutions segment includes four business lines: ICL Industrial Products; ICL Specialty Fertilizers; ICL Advanced Additives and ICL Food Specialties.

International Paper Company

International Paper is a producer of renewable fiber-based packaging, pulp and paper products with manufacturing operations in North America, Latin America, Europe, North Africa, India and Russia. The company's segments are: Industrial Packaging, which manufactures containerboard, such as linerboard, medium, whitetop, recycled linerboard, recycled medium and saturating kraft; Global Cellulose Fibers, which produces fluff pulp for making absorbent hygiene products like baby diapers, feminine care, adult incontinence and other non-woven products; and Printing Papers, which produces printing and writing papers, such as uncoated papers for use in copiers, desktop and laser printers and digital imaging.

Intrepid Potash

Keysight Technologies Inc

Keysight Technologies is a technology company. The company's segments are: Communications Solutions Group, which provides electronic design and test software, instruments and systems and related services used in the simulation, design, validation, manufacturing, installation and optimization of electronic equipment; Electronic Industrial Solutions Group, which provides test and measurement solutions and related services across a set of electronic industrial end markets; and Ixia Solutions Group, which helps customers design, validate and support the performance and security of their networks and associated components and applications.

Mercer International Inc.

Mettler-Toledo International Inc.

Mettler-Toledo International is a supplier of precision instruments and services. The company manufactures weighing instruments for use in laboratory, industrial, packaging, logistics, and food retailing applications. The company also manufactures several related analytical instruments and provides automated chemistry solutions used in drug and chemical compound discovery and development. In addition, the company manufactures metal detection and other end-of-line inspection systems used in production and packaging and provides solutions for use in certain process analytics applications. The company has five segments: United States Operations, Swiss Operations, Western European Operations, Chinese Operations, and Other.

Mosaic Company

Mosaic is a producer and marketer of concentrated phosphate and potash crop nutrients. The company is organized into three reportable business segments: Phosphates, which owns and operates mines and production facilities in Florida that produce concentrated phosphate crop nutrients and phosphate-based animal feed ingredients, and processing plants in Louisiana that produce concentrated phosphate crop nutrients; Potash, which mines and processes potash in Canada and the United States and sells potash in North America and internationally; and Mosaic Fertilizantes, which produces and sells concentrated phosphates crop nutrients, phosphate-based animal feed ingredients and potash fertilizer.

Neenah Inc

Neenah is a producer of technical products and fine papers and packaging. The company is organized into two primary businesses: technical products, which is a producer of fiber-formed, coated and/or saturated media that provides benefits to customers, such as filtration media for transportation, water and other filtration markets, and saturated and coated performance materials used for specialty tapes, abrasives, performance labels, digital image transfer, and a variety of other end markets; and fine paper and packaging, which manufactures and sells writing, text, cover and papers and envelopes used in commercial printing services, corporate identity packages, and advertising collateral.

Packaging Corporation of America

Packaging Corporation of America is a producer of containerboard products and a producer of uncoated freesheet paper. The company's segments include: Packaging, which produces a variety of corrugated packaging products, including shipping containers, multi-color boxes and displays, and honeycomb protective packaging, as well as produces packaging for meat, fresh fruit and vegetables, processed food, beverages, and other industrial and consumer products; Paper, which manufactures and sells papers, including both commodity and specialty papers; and Corporate and Other, which includes transportation assets, such as rail cars and trucks, to transport the company's products to and from its manufacturing sites.

Rapid7 Inc.

Rapid7 is focusing on security with visibility, analytics, and automation delivered through its Insight cloud. The company's Insight Platform product offerings include: InsightVM, which provides guidance based on customized threat models; InsightIDR, which is designed to enable organizations to detect and respond to cyber security incidents and breaches across physical, virtual and cloud assets; InsightAppSec, which provides application security testing that analyzes web applications for security vulnerabilities; and InsightConnect, which is used by security personnel to connect their various disparate solutions and automate workflows with which they can identify risk and respond to incidents.

Resolute Forest Products Inc.

Resolute Forest Products is engaged in the forest products industry, with a range of products, including market pulp, tissue, wood products, newsprint and specialty papers. The company's segments are: Market pulp, which includes virgin pulp and recycled bleached kraft pulp; Tissue, which manufactures a range of tissue products for the away-from-home and at-home markets; Wood products, which produce dimension spruce-pine-fir lumber and provides wood chips to its pulp and paper mills in Canada; Newsprint, which sells newsprint; and Specialty papers, which composed of uncoated mechanical papers, including supercalendered paper and white paper, as well as uncoated freesheet papers.

Schweitzer-Mauduit International Inc.

Schweitzer-Mauduit International is a producer of materials, including papers, nets and films. The company operates and manages two reportable segments based on product lines: Advanced Materials and Structures, which manufactures resin-based products used in applications in the filtration, infrastructure and construction, transportation, industrial, and medical end-markets; and Engineered Papers, which produces cigarette papers and reconstituted tobacco products for cigarette and cigar manufacturers, as well as various other non-tobacco paper products.

Scotts Miracle-Gro Company Class A

Scotts Miracle-Gro is a manufacturer and marketer of consumer lawn and garden products in North America. The company's segments are: United States Consumer, which consists of the company's consumer lawn and garden business located in United States; Hawthorne, which consists of the company's indoor, urban and hydroponic gardening business; and Other, which consists of the company's consumer lawn and garden business in geographies other than the United States and the company's product sales to nurseries, greenhouses and other customers. The company manufactures, markets and sells lawn and garden products in the following categories: lawn care, gardening and landscape, hydroponics, and controls.

Sociedad Quimica y Minera de Chile S.A. Series B ADS

Sonoco Products Company

Sonoco Products is a manufacturer of industrial and consumer packaging products and a provider of packaging services. The company's segments are: Consumer Packaging, which includes round composite cans, shaped rigid paperboard containers, fiber and plastic caulk/adhesive tubes, aluminum, steel and peelable membrane easy-open closures for composite and metal cans; Paper and Industrial Converted Products, which include recycled paperboard, chipboard, tubeboard, lightweight corestock, boxboard, linerboard, corrugating medium, edgeboard, paper grades, and adhesives; Display and Packaging, which include point-of-purchase displays; and Protective Solutions, which include packaging and components.

Verisec AB

Verisec AB is a Sweden-based company which provides security solutions for banking, government and business customers.

WestRock Company

WestRock is a provider of paper and packaging solutions for consumer and corrugated packaging markets. The company partners with its customers to provide paper and packaging solutions. The company's operating and business locations are in North America, South America, Europe, Asia and Australia. The company's segments include: Corrugated Packaging, which consists of the company's containerboard mills, corrugated packaging and distribution operations, as well as its merchandising displays and recycling procurement operations; Consumer Packaging, which consists of the company's consumer mills, food and beverage and partition operations; and Land and Development, which sells real estate primarily in the Charleston, SC region.

Workiva

Workiva is a provider of cloud-based solutions for connected data, reporting and compliance. The company's platform, Wdesk provides controlled collaboration, data linking, data integrations, granular permissions, process management and a full audit trail. Wdesk enables the company's users to collect, aggregate and prepare their unstructured and structured data in a cloud-based environment. Numbers, narrative, charts and graphics can be linked inside Wdesk. The company's Wdesk platform enables customers to collect, link, manage, report and analyze business data for a range of use cases across public and private companies, government agencies and higher-education institutions.

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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