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

Vermilion Compass: Weekly Equity Strategy

Testing Key Resistance; Downgrading Health Care

Throughout this recent consolidation phase we have maintained our belief that ongoing positive market dynamics tell us the pullback is likely to be contained and therefore should be viewed as a buying opportunity -- this remains our core belief. Now, the S&P 500, Nasdaq 100 (QQQ), and Russell 2000 (IWM) have all rallied to logical resistance; if they are able to break above and stay above their respective resistance levels it would signal the end of the current consolidation phase.

· S&P 500, Nasdaq 100, Russell 2000. Thus far, any downside has been short-lived, with the S&P 500 consolidating within a symmetrical triangle pattern. Current pattern resistance on the S&P 500 comes in at the downtrend, or 3900-3905; a break above this level would likely mean a test of the all-time highs and beyond. Current triangle support comes in at 3723-3750; if this level fails to hold, the next important support comes in at 3694 followed by 3635, 3588, and 3550. On the Nasdaq 100 (QQQ) we see short-term resistance at $315-316 while major support is at $297. On the Russell 2000 (IWM) we are watching for resistance at $225. Again, we believe breakouts above the aforementioned resistance levels would signal the end of the current consolidation phase... see charts below.

· Sector Relative Strength Rankings & Weighting Recommendations. We are downgrading Health Care to underweight with RS breaking below key support on the cap- and equal-weighted Sectors (XLV and RYH)... see pages 2-3.

· Watching Treasury Yields & The Dollar. When it comes to market dynamics, our two main concerns include the accelerated uptrend in Treasury yields and the rising US dollar (DXY). Otherwise, market dynamics remain largely bullish -- defensive Sectors underperforming, small-caps leading, high yield spreads devoid of bullish inflections, and commodities trending higher... see page 4.

· Overweight Value. We recommend an overweight to value across all market caps; as expected, the small- and mid-cap value vs. growth ratios are bullishly inflecting, following in the footsteps of the large-cap ratio... see page 5.
Underlyings
Alcoa Corporation

Alcoa is a vertically integrated aluminum company comprised of bauxite mining, alumina refining, aluminum production (smelting, casting, and rolling), and energy generation. Through direct and indirect ownership, the company has 30 operating locations in nine countries around the world, situated primarily in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Iceland, Norway, Spain, and United States.

Alumina Ltd ADS

Aluminum Corp. of China Ltd.

Atlantic Union Bankshares Corporation

Union Bankshares is a financial holding company and a bank holding company. Through its subsidiary, Atlantic Union Bank (the Bank), the company provides a range of financial services throughout Virginia and in portions of Maryland and North Carolina. The Bank provides consumers and businesses a range of banking and related financial services, including checking, savings, certificates of deposit, and other depository services, as well as loans for commercial, industrial, residential mortgage, and consumer purposes. The Bank also provides mobile and internet banking services and online bill payment for all customers, whether retail or commercial.

Bank al Etihad

Bank of New York Mellon Corporation

Bank of New York Mellon divides its businesses into two business segments, Investment Services and Investment Management. The company also has an Other segment, which includes the leasing portfolio, corporate treasury activities, derivatives and other trading activity, corporate and bank-owned life insurance, renewable energy investments and business exits. The company's two principal United States banking subsidiaries engage in trust and custody activities, investment management services, banking services and various securities-related activities. The company has four other United States bank and/or trust company subsidiaries concentrating on trust products and services across the United States.

Century Aluminum Company

Century Aluminum is a holding company. Through its subsidiaries, the company produces primary aluminum and operates aluminum reduction facilities in the U.S. and Iceland. The company's principal subsidiaries are: Century Kentucky, Inc., which operates a primary aluminum reduction facility in Hawesville, KY; Nordural ehf, which operates a primary aluminum reduction facility in Grundartangi, Iceland; Century Aluminum Sebree LLC, which operates a primary aluminum reduction facility in Robards, KY; Century Aluminum of South Carolina, which operates a primary aluminum reduction facility in Goose Creek, SC; and Nordural Helguvik ehf, which owns a greenfield primary aluminum project in Helguvik, Iceland.

Commercial Metals Company

Commercial Metals, together with its subsidiaries, manufactures, recycles and markets steel and metal products, related materials and services. The company has four reportable segments: Americas Recycling, which processes scrap metals for use as a raw material by the company and other manufacturers of new metal products; Americas Mills, which operates electric arc furnace (EAF) mini mills, EAF micro mills, rerolling mill, scrap metal shredders, and scrap metal processing facilities; Americas Fabrication, which includes warehouses that sell or rent products for the installation of concrete; and International Mill, which consists of an EAF mini mill, recycling and fabrication operations located in Poland.

Community Bank System Inc.

Community Bank System is a financial holding company. Through its subsidiary, Community Bank, N.A., the company operates as a financial services enterprise providing banking and other financial services to retail, commercial and municipal customers. The company has three reportable segments: Banking, which is focused on serving the financial needs of customers in local communities; Employee Benefit Services, which provides employee benefit trust, collective investment fund, retirement plan administration and fund administration; and All Other, which includes Wealth Management, which provides investment alternatives and Insurance Agency, which provides personal and commercial lines of insurance.

Constellium SE Class A

Constellium N.V. designs and manufactures a range of innovative specialty rolled and extruded aluminum products, serving primarily the aerospace, packaging and automotive end-markets. Co. has a strategic footprint of manufacturing facilities located in the United States, Europe and China. Co.'s product portfolio commands higher margins as compared to less differentiated, more commoditized fabricated aluminum products, such as common alloy coils, paintstock, foilstock and soft alloys for construction and distribution. Co. organizes its business around three operating segments: Aerospace & Transportation, Packaging & Automotive Rolled Products, and Automotive Structures & Industry.

F.N.B. Corporation

FNB is a financial holding company. Through its subsidiaries, the company provides a range of financial services, principally to consumers, corporations, governments and small- to medium-sized businesses in its market areas. Commercial banking solutions include corporate banking, small business banking, investment real estate financing, business credit, capital markets and lease financing. Consumer banking products and services include deposit products, mortgage lending, consumer lending and a complete suite of mobile and online banking services. Wealth management services include asset management, private banking and insurance.

Fulton Financial Corporation

Fulton Financial is a bank holding company. Through its subsidiary, Fulton Bank, N.A., the company provides a range of consumer and commercial banking products and services in its local market area. Personal banking services include various checking account and savings deposit products, certificates of deposit and individual retirement accounts. Secured consumer loan products include home equity loans and lines of credit, which are underwritten based on loan-to-value limits specified in the company's lending policy. The company also provides a variety of fixed, variable and adjustable rate products, including construction loans and jumbo residential mortgage loans.

Howmet Aerospace Inc.

Howmet Aerospace is a provider of engineered solutions for the aerospace and transportation industries. The company's primary businesses focus on jet engine components, aerospace fastening systems, and titanium structural parts necessary for mission-critical performance and efficiency in aerospace and defense applications, as well as forged wheels for commercial transportation.

Kaiser Aluminum Corporation

Kaiser Aluminum manufactures and sells semi-fabricated specialty aluminum mill products. The company's aerospace and high strength products include heat treat plate and sheet, hard alloy extruded shapes, cold finish rod and bar, drawn tube and billet used for a variety of end uses in the aerospace and defense industries. Automotive Extrusions consist of extruded aluminum products for several North American automotive applications. The company's general engineering products consists of 6000-series alloy plate, sheet, rod, bar, tube, wire and standard extruded shapes. Other products consist of extruded, drawn and cast billet aluminum products for a range of North American industrial end uses.

Norsk Hydro ASA ADS

Nucor Corporation

Nucor manufactures steel and steel products. The company's operations include international trading and sales companies that buy and sell steel and steel products. The company's segments are: steel mills, which produces sheet steel, plate steel, structural steel, and bar steel; steel products, which produces hollow structural section steel tubing, electrical conduit, steel joists and joist girders, steel deck, cold finished steel, steel fasteners, metal building systems, and wire and wire mesh; and raw materials, which produces direct reduced iron (DRI), brokers ferrous and nonferrous metals, pig iron, hot briquetted iron and DRI, supplies ferro-alloys, and processes ferrous and nonferrous scrap metal.

Olympic Steel Inc.

Olympic Steel is a metals service center that operates in three segments; carbon flat products, specialty metals flat products, and tubular and pipe products. The company's carbon flat products segment's focus is on the direct sale and distribution of large volumes of processed carbon and coated flat-rolled sheet, coil and plate products and fabricated parts. The company's specialty metals flat products segment's focus is on the direct sale and distribution of processed aluminum and stainless flat-rolled sheet and coil products, flat bar products and fabricated parts. The company distributes metal tubing, pipe, bar, valves and fittings and fabricate pressure parts through its tubular and pipe products segment.

Reliance Steel & Aluminum Co.

Reliance Steel & Aluminum is a metals service center company. The company provides metals processing services and distributes a line of metal products, including alloy, aluminum, brass, copper, carbon steel, stainless steel, titanium and specialty steel products, to its customers in a range of industries, including general manufacturing, non-residential construction (including infrastructure), transportation (rail, truck trailer and shipbuilding), aerospace and defense, energy (oil and gas), electronics and semiconductor fabrication, and heavy industry (agricultural, construction and mining equipment). The company also services the auto industry, primarily through its toll processing operations.

Rio Tinto PLC ADS (Mexico)

Ryerson Holding Corporation

Ryerson Holding is a metals service center, a processor and distributor of industrial metals. The company provides flat and long metals products. The company also provides processing and fabrication services such as bending, beveling, blanking, blasting, burning, cutting-to-length, drilling, embossing, flattening, forming, grinding, laser cutting, machining, notching, painting, perforating, polishing, punching, rolling, sawing, scribing, shearing, slitting, stamping, tapping, threading, welding, or other techniques to process materials to a specified thickness, length, width, shape, and surface quality pursuant to specific customer orders. The company operates across North America and in China.

Schnitzer Steel Industries Inc. Class A

Schnitzer Steel Industries is engaged as a recycler of ferrous and nonferrous scrap metal, including end-of-life vehicles, and a manufacturer of finished steel products. The company has two segments: Auto and Metals Recycling, which acquires and recycles ferrous and nonferrous scrap metal for sale to foreign and domestic metal producers, processors and brokers, and procures salvaged vehicles and sells serviceable used auto parts from these vehicles through a network of self-service auto parts stores; and Cascade Steel and Scrap, which produces a range of finished steel long products using ferrous recycled scrap metal and other raw materials.

Signature Bank

Signature Bank is a commercial bank with private client offices located in the New York metropolitan area, providing a variety of business and personal banking products and services. The company also has a private client banking office in San Francisco. The company provides a variety of financing and leasing products, brokerage, asset management and insurance products and services, and a range of municipal finance and tax-exempt lending and leasing products to government entities, including state and local governments, school districts, fire and police and other municipal entities. Additionally, the company purchases, securitizes and sells the guaranteed portions of U.S. Small Business Administration loans.

Sims Metal Management Ltd. ADS

Steel Dynamics Inc.

Steel Dynamics is a steel producer and metal recycler. The company manufactures and sells steel products, processes and sells recycled ferrous and nonferrous metals, and fabricates and sells steel joists and deck products. The company's segments are: Steel, which produces steel from ferrous scrap and scrap substitutes, utilizing casting, automated rolling mills and several downstream steel coating and bar processing lines, and Iron Dynamics; metals recycling, which involves the purchase, processing, and resale of ferrous and nonferrous scrap metals into reusable forms and grades; and steel fabrication, which produces steel building components, including steel joists, girders, trusses, and steel deck.

Sterling Bancorp

Sterling Bancorp is a bank holding company and financial holding company. Through its subsidiary, Sterling National Bank (the Bank), the company provides commercial, business, and consumer banking products and services. The Bank's principal business is accepting deposits and, together with funds generated from operations and borrowings, investing in various types of loans and securities. The Bank also operates its commercial finance businesses, which include asset-based lending, payroll financing, factoring, warehouse lending, equipment financing, and public sector financing. The company's commercial banking teams focus on the origination of commercial and industria loans and commercial mortgage loans.

TimkenSteel Corp

TimkenSteel manufactures alloy steel, carbon and micro-alloy steel. The company's portfolio includes special bar quality (SBQ) bars, seamless mechanical tubing, solutions such as precision steel components, and billets. In addition, the company supplies machining and thermal treatment services, and the company manages raw material recycling programs. The company's products and services are used in the following market sectors: oil and gas; oil country tubular goods; automotive; industrial equipment; mining; construction; rail; aerospace and defense; heavy truck; agriculture; and power generation. The company's products include: SBQ Steel Bar, Seamless Mechanical Steel Tubes, and Billets; and Precision Products and Services.

United States Steel Corporation

United States Steel is a steel producer of flat-rolled and tubular products with production operations in the United States and Europe. The company is also engaged in railroad services and real estate operations. The company's segments are: North American Flat-Rolled, which produces slabs, strip mill plates, sheets and tin mill products; U. S. Steel Europe, which produces and sells slabs, strip mill plate, sheet, tin mill products and spiral welded pipe, as well as heating radiators and refractory ceramic materials; and Tubular Products, which produces and sells electric resistance welded steel casing and tubing (known as oil country tubular goods), and standard and line pipe and mechanical tubing.

Valley National Bancorp

Valley National Bancorp is a bank holding company. Through its principal subsidiary, Valley National Bank (the Bank), the company provides a suite of banking solutions through various commercial, retail, insurance and wealth management financial services products. The Bank provides a variety of banking services including automated teller machines, telephone and internet banking, remote deposit capture, overdraft facilities, drive-in and night deposit services, and safe deposit facilities. In addition, certain international banking services are available to customers including standby letters of credit, documentary letters of credit and related products, and certain ancillary services.

WesBanco Inc.

WesBanco is a bank holding company. Through its subsidiaries, the company provides a range of financial services including retail banking, corporate banking, personal and corporate trust services, brokerage services, mortgage banking and insurance. The company operates two segments: community banking, which provides services provided by commercial banks, including commercial demand, individual demand and time deposit accounts, as well as commercial, mortgage and individual installment loans, and certain non-traditional offerings; and trust and investment services, which provides trust services as well as various alternative investment products including mutual funds.

Worthington Industries Inc.

Worthington Industries is a metals manufacturing company, focused on steel processing and manufactured metal products. The company operates three segments: Steel Processing, which buys coils of steel from integrated steel mills and mini-mills and processes them to customer specifications; Pressure Cylinders, which manufactures and sells filled and unfilled pressure cylinders, tanks, hand torches, well water and expansion tanks, and oil and gas equipment with accessories and related products for end-use market applications; and Engineered Cabs, which designs and manufactures custom-engineered open and enclosed cabs and operator stations and custom fabrications and packaging for mobile equipment.

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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