Report
Dave Nicoski ...
  • Ross LaDuke
EUR 46.20 For Business Accounts Only

Vermilion Compass: Weekly Equity Strategy

Headwinds Persist

In last week's Compass (Aug. 23) we discussed the increasing odds for a deeper pullback in the broad market indexes due to 5-week uptrend breaks on the S&P 500, Nasdaq 100, and Russell 2000, the Fed tightening, and with Treasury yields, the U.S. dollar (DXY), and commodities (DJP) inflecting higher. We continue to see the market as being in pullback mode; the S&P 500, Nasdaq 100, and Russell 2000 are all approaching 50-day MA support, the first big area of interest on this pullback.

U.S. Dollar, 10-Year Treasury Yield, Commodities, Fed Policy. As we have said for months, we need to see topping patterns and new downtrends on the U.S. dollar (DXY), 10-year Treasury yield, and commodity prices in order for the broad equity market to establish a reliable bottom. With commodity prices now moving higher (along with the DXY and Treasury yields), these are all headwinds. Specifically, the Bloomberg Commodity index (DJP) is breaking above $37 and WTI crude oil has reversed topside its multi-month downtrend. Rising commodity prices means higher inflation, which means the Fed is likely to continue raising rates. As long as these headwinds are in place, further upside is muted from here... see charts below and page 3.
Index Overview. The S&P 500, Nasdaq 100 (QQQ), Russell 2000 (IWM), and Russell Micro-Caps (IWC) each broke below short-term supports discussed last week, indicating a deeper pullback underway, likely to their respective 50-day MAs at minimum. In addition to 50-day MAs, the next support levels we are watching include 4000 on the S&P 500, $295-300 on the QQQ, $177 on the IWM, and $110 on the IWC. Anything below these levels would likely mean a test of the YTD lows... see page 4.
Big Picture Trends. High yield spreads are spiking back above 500bps, another signal pointing to a deeper pullback. The Russell 1000 Value vs. Growth ratio shows investors are starting to shift in favor of value. RS for Utilities (XLU) is testing YTD highs while RS for Consumer Staples (XLP) is nowhere near testing YTD highs... see page 5.
Underlyings
ARKO Corp (A)

Casey's General Stores Inc.

Casey's General Stores and its subsidiaries operate convenience stores under the names Casey's and Casey's General Store primarily in Iowa, Missouri, and Illinois. The company also operates stores under the name Tobacco City, selling primarily tobacco products, liquor stores, and a grocery store. Each Casey's Store carries food and nonfood items. Most of the company's food products are nationally advertised brands, and it also has an assortment of Casey's proprietary branded products. Stores sell regional brands of dairy and bakery products, and mostly provide beer. The company's nonfood items include tobacco products, health and beauty aids, school supplies, housewares, pet supplies, and automotive products.

Corporacion America Airports

Enphase Energy Inc.

Enphase Energy is a global energy technology company. The company designs, develops, manufactures and sells home energy solutions that connect energy generation, energy storage and control and communications management on one platform. The company's semiconductor-based microinverter converts energy at the individual solar module level and, combines with its proprietary networking and software technologies to provide energy monitoring and control. The Enphase Home Energy Solution with IQ consists of four primary components: Enphase microinverters, the AC Battery?, an Envoy gateway, and Enlighten cloud-based software.

First Solar Inc.

First Solar is a provider of photovoltaic (PV) solar energy solutions. The company designs, manufactures and sells PV solar modules with a thin film semiconductor technology, and also develops and sells PV solar power systems that mainly use the modules it manufactures. The company also provides operations and maintenance (O&M) services to system owners. The company's modules segment involves the design, manufacture and sale of cadmium telluride solar modules, which convert sunlight into electricity. The company's second segment is its systems segment, through which it provides power plant solutions, which include project development, engineering, procurement, and construction services and O&M services.

Hershey Company

Hershey is engaged in the production of chocolate and non-chocolate confectionery. The company's segments are: North America, which is responsible for the company's chocolate and non-chocolate confectionery market position, and its grocery and snacks market positions, in the United States and Canada; and International and Other, in which the company has operations and manufactures product in China, Mexico, Brazil, India and Malaysia, and also distributes and sells confectionery products in export markets of Asia, Latin America, Middle East, Europe, Africa and other regions. The company's product offerings include chocolate and non-chocolate confectionery products, gum and mint refreshment products, snack and pantry items.

Hostess Brands Inc. Class A

Hostess Brands is a packaged food company. The company produces Hostess?, Dolly Madison?, Cloverhill? and Big Texas? products at bakeries located in Emporia, KS; Columbus, GA; Indianapolis, IN; and Chicago, IL. In-store bakery products are produced at bakeries located in Southbridge, MA. The company has invested in baking and packaging technology, including installing two Auto-bake systems and fully-automated packaging systems. A portion of the company's products are co-manufactured and packaged under its brands and sold through its distribution facilities. The company's Direct-to-Warehouse distribution model uses centralized distribution centers and common carriers to fill orders, with products.

Invesco QQQ Trust, Series 1

iShares Russell 2000 Index Fund

J & J Snack Foods Corp.

J&J Snack Foods manufactures snack foods and distributes frozen beverages which it markets nationally to the food service and retail supermarket industries. The company's business segments are: Food Service, which sells soft pretzels, frozen juice treats and desserts, churros, dough enrobed handheld products and baked goods; Retail Supermarkets, which sells soft pretzel products, frozen juice treats and desserts, frozen fruit bars and sorbet, and dough enrobed handheld products including burritos; and Frozen Beverages, which sells frozen beverages to the food service industry and also provides repair and maintenance service to customers for customers' owned equipment.

John B. Sanfilippo & Son Inc.

Sanfilippo (John B.) & Son is a processor and distributor of tree nuts and peanuts. The company's principal products are raw and processed nuts. The nut product line includes almonds, pecans, peanuts, black walnuts, English walnuts, cashews, macadamia nuts, pistachios, pine nuts, Brazil nuts and filberts. The company also markets and distributes, and in various cases processes and manufactures, other food and snack products. These other products include snack mixes, salad toppings, snacks, dried fruit and chocolate and yogurt coated products; baking ingredients; bulk food products; sunflower kernels, pepitas, snack mixes, candy and confections, corn snacks, sesame sticks and other sesame snack products.

Maxeon Solar Technologies

PepsiCo Inc.

PepsiCo is a food and beverage company. The company's segments include: Frito-Lay North America, which includes food and snack businesses in the United States and Canada; Quaker Foods North America, which includes cereal, rice, pasta and other food businesses in the United States and Canada; PepsiCo Beverages North America, which includes beverage businesses in the United States and Canada; Latin America, which includes beverage, food and snack businesses in Latin America; Europe, which includes beverage, food and snack businesses in Europe; and Africa, Middle East and South Asia, which includes beverage, food and snack businesses in Africa, the Middle East and South Asia.

RENESOLA ADS

SunPower Corporation

SunPower is a holding company. Through its subsidiaries, the company is an energy company that delivers solar solutions to residential, commercial, and power plant customers worldwide. The company has two segments: SunPower Energy Services, which refers to sales of solar energy solutions in the North America including direct sales of turn-key engineering, procurement and construction services, and sales to resellers, among other; and SunPower Technologies, which refers to its technology development, worldwide solar panel manufacturing operations, equipment supply to resellers, commercial and residential end-customers outside of North America, and worldwide power plant project development and project sales.

Sunrun Inc.

Sunrun is engaged in the design, development, installation, sale, ownership, and maintenance of residential solar energy systems. The company's main solar service offerings are provided through its lease and power purchase agreements, which it refers to as its Customer Agreements. While homeowners have the option to purchase a solar energy system outright from the company, a majority of its customers choose to buy solar as a service through its Customer Agreements. With its solar service offerings, the company installs solar energy systems on its customers' homes and provides them the solar power produced by those systems. In addition, the company monitors, maintains and insures the system during the term of the contract.

Tootsie Roll Industries Inc.

Tootsie Roll Industries and its subsidiaries are engaged in the manufacture and sale of confectionery products. The company's products are marketed in a variety of packages designed for display and sale in different types of retail outlets. They are sold through candy and grocery brokers and by the company itself to customers throughout the United States. These customers include wholesale distributors of candy and groceries, supermarkets, variety stores, dollar stores, chain grocers, drug chains, discount chains, cooperative grocery associations, mass merchandisers, warehouse and membership club stores, vending machine operators, the United States military and fund-raising charitable organizations.

TransAlta Corporation

TransAlta and its subsidiaries are engaged in the production and sale of electric energy. Co. has 3 segments: the Generation segment which owns and operates hydro, wind, geothermal, biomass, natural gas and coal-fired facilities, and mining operations; the Energy Trading segment which is engaged in the wholesale trading of electricity ; and the Corporate segment which provides finance, tax, treasury, legal, regulatory, environmental, health and safety, sustainable development, corporate communications, government and investor relations, information technology, risk management, human resources, internal audit, and other administrative support to the Generation and Energy Trading groups.

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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