Report
Dave Nicoski ...
  • Ross LaDuke
EUR 42.68 For Business Accounts Only

Vermilion Compass: Weekly Equity Strategy

Upgrading Technology to Overweight

We remain bullish (as of last week's 4/21/26 Compass) on the S&P 500 (SPX), Nasdaq 100 (QQQ), and Russell 2000 (IWM). Market dynamics continue to improve ever since the major bullish false breakdowns at 6480-6520 on the SPX, 24,000 on Nasdaq futures (NQ), and $245 on the IWM, with all of them now breaking out to all-time highs and holding above bullish gaps from April 17. Everything that we see suggests bulls remain firmly in control, so we want to be buying any pullbacks for the foreseeable future to the 20-day MA or 21-day EMA.

Upgrading Technology to Overweight. We discussed last week to add exposure to growth, and primarily Technology, as growth has taken over as leadership relative to value. RS on the cap-weighted XLK is now breaking above its 2025 highs and we are upgrading Technology to overweight. We have remained overweight semiconductors (SMH, NVDA, TSM, CIEN, etc.) and memory (SNDK, WDC, STX, MU) ever since our 6/17/25 Compass, and these remain our favorite areas within Tech. Even some software stocks look like they are in the process of bottoming (e.g., SNPS, CDNS, MSFT, CRWD, DDOG)... see chart below and pages 2-3.
Risk-On. In addition to breakouts to all-time highs on SPX, QQQ, and IWM, additional improvements in market dynamics that supports our bullish outlook include: (1) High yield spreads are back below 320bps. (2) The U.S. dollar (DXY) remains below $100.25-$100.80 resistance. (3) U.S. interest rate volatility (MOVE index) fell back below the crucial 85 level. (4) Semiconductors (SMH, SOXX) remain leadership -- remain overweight/buy pullbacks. (5) Other A.I. themes and speculative growth areas are breaking out as well (buy/stay long CHAT, ARKK, WGMI, BITQ, HYDR, REMX, etc.). (6) Energy (XLE) and defensive Sectors such as Staples (XLP), Health Care (XLV), and Utilities (XLU) are hitting 2-6-month RS lows. (7) Magnificent Seven (MAGS) and Russell 1000 Growth (IWF) are buys after reclaiming $63 and $458, respectively. (8) WTI crude oil remains below its 20-day MA (though is testing it now). (9) Gold and silver remain bullish. (10) Bitcoin and Ether appear to be bottoming, and we remain bullish as long as Bitcoin holds above $74,000 and Ether holds above $2,140. (11) Breadth is confirming this rally, with the A/D line on the S&P 500 hitting new highs. As long as this list rings true, it supports a bullish outlook.
Underlyings
Andersons Inc.

Andersons is a company rooted in agriculture. The company conducts business across North America in the grain, ethanol, plant nutrient and rail sectors. The company's operations are classified into four reportable business segments: Grain, which provides grain marketing, risk management and corn origination services to its customers and affiliated ethanol facilities; Ethanol, which purchases and sells ethanol, provides facility operations, risk management, and ethanol; Plant Nutrient, which provides warehousing, packaging and manufacturing services to nutrient producers and other distributors; and Rail, which leases, repairs, and sells various types of railcars, locomotives and barges.

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.

Cadence Design Systems Inc.

Cadence Design Systems provides solutions that enable its customers to design electronic products. The company's products offerings include software, hardware, services and reusable integrated circuit (IC) design blocks, which are referred to as intellectual property (IP). The company provides maintenance for its software, hardware, and IP product offerings. The company combines its products and technologies into categories related to design activities: Functional Verification (including hardware for emulation and prototyping); Digital IC Design and Signoff; Custom IC Design and Simulation; System Interconnect and Analysis (printed circuit boards and IC package); and IP (includes design IP and verification IP).

Canadian National Railway Company

Canadian National Railway, together with its wholly-owned subsidiaries, is engaged in the rail and related transportation business. Co.'s network of approximately 20,000 route miles of track spans Canada and mid-America, from the Atlantic and Pacific oceans to the Gulf of Mexico. Co.'s network and connections to all Class I railroads provide access to all three North American Free Trade Agreement nations. Co. handles and carries cargo, serving exporters, importers, retailers, farmers and manufacturers. Co. is engaged in the movement of a portfolio of goods, including petroleum and chemicals, grain and fertilizers, coal, metals and minerals, forest products, intermodal and automotive.

CRITICAL METALS CORP.

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.

CSX Corporation

CSX provides rail-based freight transportation services. The company's principal operating subsidiary, CSX Transportation, Inc., provides a link to the transportation supply chain through its rail network, which serves centers in states east of the Mississippi River, the District of Columbia and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. The company's CSX Intermodal Terminals, Inc. subsidiary owns and operates a system of intermodal terminals, primarily in the eastern United States and also performs drayage services (the pickup and delivery of intermodal shipments). The company's Total Distribution Services, Inc. subsidiary serves the automotive industry with distribution centers and storage locations.

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.

LITHIUM AMERICAS CORP NEW

Micron Technology Inc.

Micron Technology provides memory and storage solutions. The company's portfolio of memory and storage technologies include Dynamic Random Access Memory, Not And, 3D XPoint? memory, and Not Or. The company's segments are: Compute and Networking Business, which includes memory products sold into client, cloud server, enterprise, graphics, and networking markets; Mobile Business, which includes memory products sold into smartphone and other mobile-device markets; Storage Business, which includes Solid-State Drives and component-level solutions sold into enterprise and cloud, client, and consumer storage markets; and Embedded Business, which includes memory and storage products.

MP Materials Corp (A)

NVIDIA Corporation

NVIDIA engages in graphics processing unit (GPU)-based visual computing and accelerated computing platforms. The company has two segments, GPU and Tegra Processor, which are based on a single underlying architecture. The company's GPU product brands are aimed at markets including GeForce for gamers; Quadro for designers; Tesla and DGX for artificial intelligence data scientists and big data researchers; and GRID for cloud-based visual computing users. The company's Tegra brand integrates an entire computer onto a single chip, and incorporates GPUs and multi-core CPUs to drive supercomputing for autonomous robots, drones, and cars, as well as for game consoles and mobile gaming and entertainment devices.

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.

Select Sector SPDR-Technology

Union Pacific Corporation

Union Pacific, through its operating subsidiary, Union Pacific Railroad Company, is a Class I railroad operating in the United States. The company's network included route miles, linking Pacific Coast and Gulf Coast ports with the Midwest and eastern United States. gateways and providing several corridors to key Mexican gateways. The company serves the western two-thirds of the country and maintains coordinated schedules with other rail carriers for the handling of freight to and from the Atlantic Coast, the Pacific Coast, the Southeast, the Southwest, Canada, and Mexico. The company's business mix includes agricultural products, energy, industrial, and premium.

United States Antimony Corp.

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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