Report
Dave Nicoski ...
  • Ross LaDuke
EUR 96.53 For Business Accounts Only

Vermilion Macro Vision: Sector Synopsis

STRATEGY

Market dynamics remain risk-on, and our outlook remains bullish as long as the S&P 500 remains above 5850 and 5600-5670. Shorter-term, the S&P 500 remains above the prior bull flag support (currently 5900) that we have discussed over the past two weeks in our Compass reports, and is coiling for a likely breakout above 6100 resistance.

As discussed throughout the first half of January in our Compass reports, we continue to believe that tariffs will mostly be used as a negotiation tactic, and much like Trump's prior presidency, will be much less impactful than feared. Now, after the third straight weekend of tariff announcements, the market already does not seem to care. This belief, along with the fact that the U.S. dollar (DXY) and Treasury yields also peaked in the December 2016 to February 2017 window after Trump was elected to his first term, led us to be on the lookout for topping patterns in the DXY and Treasury yields, and that is exactly what we are getting now.

Aside from the bullish price trend on the S&P 500, and major tops forming on the 10-year Treasury yield and U.S. dollar (DXY), additional market dynamics which support our bullish outlook include: (1) All the broad market indexes remain bullish (SPX, Nasdaq 100, DJI, Russell 2000, S&P 400 Mid-Caps, etc.). (2) High yield spreads are at 17-year narrows. (3) Defensive Sectors are underperforming -- Staples (XLP), Health Care (XLV), and Real Estate (XLRE) – as are the commodity Sectors, Energy (XLE) and Materials (XLB). (4) Discretionary vs. Staples ratios (XLY vs. XLP, RSPD vs. RSPS) remain in uptrends. (5) Semiconductors (SMH) managed to hold above support at $235 which we highlighted in our 1/28/25 Compass. (6) Interest rate volatility (MOVE index) remains near 3-year lows. (7) Energy commodities are generally moving sideways to lower (WTI crude oil and gasoline). (8) Bitcoin remains near all-time highs as it holds above $90,000-$92,000 support. (9) Gold and silver prices remain bullish. (10) Major non-U.S. equity indexes (MSCI ACWI ex-US and EAFE) are breaking out of their 6+ month bases (local currency), while MSCI Emerging Markets displays a bullish 4-month downtrend reversal. (11) Europe's EURO STOXX 50 displays a major 9-month base breakout above 5000-5120. These risk-on signals are all reasons why we remain bullish as we look ahead to the rest of 2025.

On the following pages we detail the basis for our bullish outlook.
Underlyings
Amazon.com Inc.

Amazon.com serves consumers through its online and physical stores. The company also manufactures and sells electronic devices, including Kindle, Fire tablet, Fire TV, Echo, and Ring, and the company develops and produces media content. The company operates customer service centers and provides programs that enable sellers to grow their businesses, sell their products in its stores, and fulfill orders through the company The company serves developers and enterprises of various sizes, including start-ups, government agencies, and academic institutions, through its Amazon Web Services segment, which provides a set of global compute, storage, database, and other service offerings. The company also provides services, such as advertising.

American Express Company

American Express is a payments company. The company is engaged in providing credit and charge cards to consumers, small businesses, mid-sized companies and corporations. The company's reportable operating segments are: Global Consumer Services Group, which provides services to consumers, including travel and lifestyle services; Global Commercial Services, which provides payment and expense management services, as weel as commercial financing products; and Global Merchant and Network Services, which operates a global payments network that processes and settles card transactions, acquires merchants and provides multi-channel marketing programs and capabilities, and services and data analytics.

Capital One Financial Corporation

Capital One Financial is a financial services holding company. Through its subsidiaries, the company provides an array of financial products and services. The company's segments are: Credit Card, which consists of the company's domestic consumer and small business card lending, and international card businesses in Canada and the United Kingdom.; Consumer Banking, which consists of the company's deposit gathering and lending activities for consumers and small businesses, and national auto lending; and Commercial Banking, which consists of the company's lending, deposit gathering, capital markets and treasury management services to commercial real estate and commercial and industrial customers.

Cloudflare Inc Class A

CrowdStrike Holdings Inc. Class A

CrowdStrike is a holding company. Through its subsidiaries, the company provides a cloud-delivered solution for next-generation endpoint protection that offers 10 cloud modules on its Falcon platform via a SaaS subscription-based model that spans multiple large security markets, including endpoint security, security and IT operations (including vulnerability management), and threat intelligence. The company conducts its business in the United States, as well as locations internationally, including in Australia, Germany, India, Romania, and the United Kingdom.

CyberArk Software Ltd.

Fiserv Inc.

Fiserv is a provider of financial services technology. The company provides account processing systems, electronic payments processing products and services, internet and mobile banking systems, and related services. The company's segments are: First Data, which provides merchant acquiring, e-commerce, mobile commerce, and other business solutions; Payments and Industry Products, which provides electronic bill payment and presentment services, internet and mobile banking software; and Financial Institution Services, which provides financial institutions with account processing services, item processing and source capture services, loan origination and servicing products, and cash management, among others.

Fortinet Inc.

Fortinet provides cybersecurity solutions. The company's product offerings consist of its FortiGate product family and its non-FortiGate products. The company's FortiGate hardware and software licenses are sold with a set of security services. These security services are enabled by FortiGuard, which provides threat research and artificial intelligence capabilities from a global cloud network to deliver protection services to each FortiGate appliance. The company's non-FortiGate products include the Fortinet Security Fabric (such as FortiAP, FortiAnalyzer, FortiSwitch and FortiManager), certain cloud security products (such as virtual machines and cloud services) and other products.

Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc

Hilton Worldwide Holdings is a holding company. Through its subsidiaries, the company is engaged in hospitality with operations organized in two operating segments: management and franchise, which includes all of the hotels the company manages for third-party owners, as well as all franchised hotels operated or managed by someone other than the company; and Ownership, which includes hotels that the company owned or leased or that are owned or leased by entities in which the company owns a noncontrolling financial interest. Hilton Honors is the company's guest loyalty program that rewards guests with points for each stay at nearly all of its properties, which are then redeemable for free nights and other goods and services.

Innodata

Innodata is a data engineering company. The company has three segments: Digital Data Solutions, which provides a range of solutions and platforms for solving complex data challenges that companies face; Synodex, which provides an intelligent data platform that transforms medical records into useable digital data organized in accordance with its proprietary data models or client data models; and Agility Segment, which provides an intelligent data platform that provides marketing communications and public relations personnel with the ability to target and distribute content to journalists and social media influencers and to monitor and analyze global news channels and social media channels.

JPMorgan Chase & Co.

JPMorgan Chase is a financial holding company. Through its subsidiaries, the company's segments include: Consumer and Community Banking, which provides services through bank branches, ATMs, digital (including mobile and online) and telephone banking; Corporate and Investment Bank, which consists of Banking and Markets and Securities Services, provides a suite of investment banking, market-making, prime brokerage, and treasury and securities products and services; Commercial Banking, which provides financial solutions, including lending, treasury services, investment banking and asset management products; and Asset and Wealth Management, which is engaged in investment and wealth management.

Marriott International Inc. Class A

Marriott International is a worldwide operator, franchisor, and licensor of hotel, residential and timeshare properties under various brand names at different price and service points. The company has operations in the following reportable business segments: North American Full-Service, which includes the company's Luxury and Premium properties located in United States and Canada; North American Limited-Service, which includes the company's Select properties located in United States and Canada; and Asia Pacific, which includes all properties in the company's Asia Pacific region.

MASTERCARD INCORPORATED

Mastercard is a technology company in the global payments industry. The company's solutions enabling consumers to use electronic forms of payment instead of cash and checks. The company provides a range of payment solutions and services using its brands, including Mastercard?, Maestro? and Cirrus?. The company is a multi-rail network that provides customers one partner to turn to for their domestic and cross-border payment needs. The company has additional payment capabilities that include automated clearing house transactions. The company also provides offerings such as cyber and intelligence products, information and analytics services, consulting, loyalty and reward programs and processing.

Morgan Stanley

Morgan Stanley is a financial holding company. Through its subsidiaries and affiliates, the company advises, and originates, trades, manages and distributes capital for, governments, institutions and individuals. The company's segments are: Institutional Securities, which provides investment banking, sales and trading, lending and other services; Wealth Management, which provides brokerage and investment advisory services, financial and wealth planning services, stock plan administration services, annuity and insurance products, residential real estate loans and other lending products, banking, and retirement plan services; and Investment Management, which provides investment strategies and products.

Shift4 Payments

Visa Inc. Class A

Visa is engaged in digital payments. The company facilitates payments between consumers and businesses. The company is focused on its proprietary network, VisaNet, to provide products and services. The company provides a portfolio of business payment solutions, including small business, corporate (travel) cards, purchasing cards, virtual cards/digital credentials, non-card cross-border business-to-business payment options and disbursement accounts, covering various main industry segments around the world. The company also provides several capabilities and services, including fraud prevention and security, processing, loyalty, merchant and digital solutions, consulting and data solutions.

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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