Report
Dave Nicoski ...
  • Ross LaDuke
EUR 47.72 For Business Accounts Only

Vermilion Compass: Weekly Equity Strategy

Not Out Of The Woods

In last week's Compass we noted that on Monday Jan. 24, the % of stocks in the S&P 500 and Russell 2000 above their 50-day moving averages hit 19.8% and 10.7%, respectively, and that these levels have historically been consistent with a bullish short-term reversal. The short-term bullish reversal is officially underway now that the S&P 500 has reclaimed its 200-day MA, but we are not yet out of the woods; in today's report we discuss what we are watching to determine whether this is just an oversold bounce that resolves lower, or if the S&P 500 is headed back to all-time highs.

S&P 500, Nasdaq 100. The S&P 500 held above 4257 (still important support) and broke above our first short-term resistance level at the 200-day MA (4435) yesterday, and the 200-day MA is now short-term support. Next up we are watching for resistance at 4495-4545; this is a logical place to roll over again, however a break above 4545 would mean we are likely headed back to all-time highs. Additionally, the NYSE had an 81% upside volume day yesterday; another one today (i.e., on back-to-back days) would strongly tip the scale in favor of "the low" of this recent pullback being established last week at 4222. Additionally, as long as the Nasdaq 100 (QQQ) remains above $334, we cannot get too bearish... see charts below.
Growth Catching A Bid. The prior two trading days we have what appears to be the start of a short-term mean reversion, where beaten down growth areas (ARKK, software, biotech, etc.) have begun to outperform while leadership areas such as Energy and banks underperformed. The Nasdaq Composite saw a 90% upside volume day yesterday as well, further cementing the idea that oversold areas can continue to move higher in the coming days to weeks. Still, many of these areas are down 50%+ from their 2021 highs and we expect any bottoming process to take weeks to months and be filled with many fits and starts... see page 3.
Big Picture Trends. The S&P Small-Cap 600 (IJR) is testing support at $102.50. High yield spreads are getting slightly more concerning. Meanwhile, RS on emerging markets (EEM) continues to show signs of bottoming, WTI crude oil is hitting 8+ year highs, and 10- and 30-year Treasury yields remain above short-term support -- all generally positive signals... see pages 4-5.
Underlyings
AMGEN INC.

Amgen is a biotechnology company that discovers, develops, manufactures and delivers human therapeutics. The company's products include: Enbrel? (etanercept), which is used in indications for the treatment of adult patients with moderately to severely active rheumatoid arthritis, patients with chronic moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis who are candidates for systemic therapy or phototherapy and patients with active psoriatic arthritis; and Prolia? (denosumab), which is used for the treatment of postmenopausal women with osteoporosis at high risk of fracture or multiple risk factors for fracture, or patients who have failed or are intolerant to other available osteoporosis therapy.

Antero Resources Corporation

Antero Resources is an oil and natural gas company engaged in the exploration, development and production of natural gas, natural gas liquids (NGLs), and oil properties. The company focuses on unconventional reservoirs, which can generally be characterized as fractured shale formations. The company's drilling operations are focused in the Marcellus Shale and Utica Shale of the Appalachian Basin. The company's industry segments are: the exploration, development, and production of natural gas, NGLs, and oil; marketing of excess firm transportation capacity; and the gathering and processing of natural gas. All of the company's operations are conducted in the United States.

APA Corporation

Baker Hughes Company Class A

Baker Hughes is an energy technology company. The company's segments are: Oilfield Services, which provides products and services for onshore and offshore operations ranging from drilling, evaluation, completion, production, and intervention; Oilfield Equipment, which provides products and services for the subsea, offshore surface and onshore operating environments; Turbomachinery and Processing Solutions, which provides equipment and related services for mechanical-drive, compression and power-generation applications; and Digital Solutions, which includes condition monitoring, industrial controls, non-destructive technologies, measurement, sensing, and pipeline solutions.

Biogen Inc.

Biogen is a biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering, developing and delivering therapies for people living with neurological and neurodegenerative diseases as well as related therapeutic adjacencies. The company's main growth areas include multiple sclerosis (MS) and neuroimmunology; Alzheimer's disease and dementia; neuromuscular disorders, including spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis; movement disorders, including Parkinson's disease; and ophthalmology. The company's marketed products include TECFIDERA, AVONEX, PLEGRIDY, TYSABRI, VUMERITY and FAMPYRA for the treatment of MS, SPINRAZA for the treatment of SMA and FUMADERM for the treatment of severe plaque psoriasis.

Cabot Oil & Gas Corporation

Cabot Oil & Gas is an independent oil and gas company engaged in the development, exploitation, exploration and production of oil and gas properties. The company operates in one segment, natural gas and oil development, exploitation, exploration and production, in the continental United States. The company's operations are primarily concentrated in one unconventional play—the Marcellus Shale in northeast Pennsylvania.

Clerhp Estructuras

Clerhp Estructuras SA is a Spain-based company active in the construction and engineering industries. The Company, also through its subsidiaries, operates four business lines: Design and Calculation, Technical Assistance, Construction and Equipment Rental. The Design and Calculation line performs structural engineering works both on new projects and on existing ones. The Technical Assistance line provides customers with project technical assistance and monitoring services. The Construction line realize the construction works of the projects. The Equipment Rental line offers equipment under leasing and related services. The Company is active in Spain and in South America.

CONOCOPHILLIPS

ConocoPhillips is an exploration and production company engaged in exploring for, producing, transporting and marketing crude oil, bitumen, natural gas, liquefied natural gas and natural gas liquids. The company's segments include: Alaska, which operates in Alaska; Lower 48, which operates in the United States and the Gulf of Mexico; Canada, which operates in Alberta and British Columbia; Europe and North Africa, which consists of operations and exploration activities in Norway, the United Kingdom and Libya; Asia Pacific and Middle East, which operates in China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Australia, Qatar, and Timor-Leste; and Other International, which operates in Colombia, Chile and Argentina.

Devon Energy Corporation

Devon Energy is an independent energy company engaged primarily in the exploration, development and production of oil, natural gas and natural gas liquids. The company's operations are concentrated in various onshore areas in United States. The company's areas of operation include Delaware Basin, Eagle Ford, Powder River Basin and the STACK development, located primarily in Oklahoma's Canadian, Kingfisher and Blaine counties.

Diamondback Energy Inc.

Diamondback Energy is an independent oil and natural gas company focused on the acquisition, development, exploration and exploitation of unconventional, onshore oil and natural gas reserves in the Permian Basin in West Texas. The company's activities are primarily focused on horizontal development of the Spraberry and Wolfcamp formations of the Midland Basin and the Wolfcamp and Bone Spring formations of the Delaware Basin, both of which are part of the larger Permian Basin in West Texas and New Mexico.

EOG Resources Inc.

EOG Resources, together with its subsidiaries, explores for, develops, produces and markets crude oil, natural gas liquids and natural gas primarily in main producing basins in the United States, The Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, The People's Republic of China, Canada and, from time to time, select other international areas.

Halliburton Company

Halliburton assists its customers throughout the lifecycle of the reservoir, from locating hydrocarbons and managing geological data, to drilling and formation evaluation, well construction and completion and optimizing production throughout the life of the asset. The company's segments are: Completion and Production, which delivers cementing, stimulation, intervention, pressure control, specialty chemicals, artificial lift and completion products and services; and Drilling and Evaluation, which provides field and reservoir modeling, drilling, evaluation and wellbore placement solutions that enable customers to model, measure, drill and optimize their well construction activities.

Hess Corporation

Hess is a global exploration and production company engaged in exploration, development, production, transportation, purchase and sale of crude oil, natural gas liquid (NGL), and natural gas with production operations located primarily in the United States, Guyana, the Malaysia/Thailand Joint Development Area, Malaysia and Denmark. The company's Midstream operating segment provides fee-based services, including gathering, compressing and processing natural gas and fractionating NGL; gathering, terminaling, loading and transporting crude oil and NGL; storing and terminaling propane, and water handling services primarily in the Bakken shale play in the Williston Basin area of North Dakota.

INCYTE CORP

Incyte is a biopharmaceutical company focused on the discovery, development and commercialization of therapeutics. JAKAFI (ruxolitinib) has been approved for the treatment of patients with intermediate or high-risk myelofibrosis, for the treatment of patients with polycythemia vera, and for the treatment of steroid-refractory acute graft-versus-host disease in adult and pediatric patients 12 years and older. The company has also obtained a license to develop and commercialize ICLUSIG (ponatinib) in Europe and other select countries. In the European Union, ICLUSIG is approved for the treatment of adult patients with chronic phase, accelerated phase or blast phase chronic myeloid leukemia.

Marathon Oil Corporation

Marathon Oil is an independent exploration and production company focused on the United States resource plays. The company also has international operations in Equatorial Guinea (E.G.). The company's segments are: United States, which explores for, produces and markets crude oil and condensate, natural gas liquids (NGLs) and natural gas in the United States; and International, which explores for, produces and markets crude oil and condensate, NGLs and natural gas outside of the United States as well as produces and markets products manufactured from natural gas, such as liquefied natural gas and methanol, in E.G.

Murphy Oil Corporation

Murphy Oil is a holding company. Through its subsidiaries, the company is an oil and natural gas exploration and production company. The company explores for and produces crude oil, natural gas and natural gas liquids worldwide. The company's principal exploration and production activities are conducted in United States by wholly owned Murphy Exploration & Production Company - USA and its subsidiaries, in Canada by wholly-owned Murphy Oil Company Ltd. and its subsidiaries, and in Australia, Brazil, Brunei, Mexico and Vietnam by wholly-owned Murphy Exploration & Production Company - International and its subsidiaries. The company's hydrocarbon production is in United States, Canada and Brunei.

NOV Inc.

Occidental Petroleum Corporation

Occidental Petroleum has three reporting segments: oil and gas, which explores for, develops and produces oil and condensate, natural gas liquids (NGL) and natural gas; chemical, which mainly manufactures and markets basic chemicals (chlorine, caustic soda, chlorinated organics, potassium chemicals, ethylene dichloride, chlorinated isocyanurates, sodium silicates and calcium chloride) and vinyls (vinyl chloride monomer, polyvinyl chloride and ethylene); and marketing and midstream, which purchases, markets, gathers, processes, transports and stores oil, condensate, NGL, natural gas, carbon dioxide and power.

Pioneer Natural Resources Company

Pioneer Natural Resources is a holding company. Through its subsidiaries, the company is engaged in oil and gas exploration and production. The company explores for, develops and produces oil, Natural Gas Liquids and gas within the United States, with operations in the Permian Basin in West Texas. The company's portfolio of resources are located in the Spraberry/Wolfcamp oil field.

Rare Element Resources

Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc.

Regeneron Pharmaceuticals is a biotechnology company that discovers, invents, develops, manufactures, and commercializes medicines for the treatment of diseases. The company's commercialized medicines and product candidates in development are designed to assist patients with eye disease, allergic and inflammatory diseases, cancer, cardiovascular and metabolic diseases, neuromuscular diseases, infectious diseases, and rare diseases. The company's products include: EYLEA (aflibercept) injection, which is used for the treatment of neovascular age-related macular degeneration, diabetic macular edema; and Dupixent (dupilumab) injection, which is used for the treatment of adult patients with atopic dermatitis.

Schlumberger NV

Schlumberger provides technology for reservoir characterization, drilling, production and processing to the oil and gas industry. The company has four segments: Reservoir Characterization, which consists of the principal technologies involved in finding and defining hydrocarbon resources; Drilling, which consists of the principal technologies involved in the drilling and positioning of oil and gas wells; Production, which consists of the principal technologies involved in the lifetime production of oil and gas reservoirs; and Cameron, which consists of the principal technologies involved in pressure and flow control for drilling and intervention rigs, oil and gas wells and production facilities.

Vertex Pharmaceuticals Incorporated

Vertex Pharmaceuticals is focused on developing and commercializing therapies for the treatment of cystic fibrosis (CF) and developing research and development programs in other indications. The company's marketed products are TRIKAFTA (elexacaftor/tezacaftor/ivacaftor and ivacaftor), SYMDEKO/SYMKEVI (tezacaftor in combination with ivacaftor), ORKAMBI (lumacaftor in combination with ivacaftor) and KALYDECO (ivacaftor), which are approved to treat patients with CF who have specific mutations in their cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator gene. The company is evaluating CTX001, a genetic therapy as a potential treatment for sickle cell disease and beta-thalassemia.

Weatherford International Plc

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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