Report
Dave Nicoski ...
  • Ross LaDuke
EUR 46.69 For Business Accounts Only

Vermilion Compass: Weekly Equity Strategy

Upgrading Staples To Market Weight

Market dynamics have deteriorated and are now much more mixed overall. Deteriorating signals include RS improvement for defensive Sectors, RS deterioration for small-caps, and the US dollar breaking above 92. Despite this mild deterioration in market dynamics, there are plenty of indicators that remain positive. This tells us any weakness should be treated as a buying opportunity and our outlook remains constructive for the months ahead.

· Sector Relative Strength Rankings & Weighting Recommendations. We are upgrading Consumer Staples to market weight; RS displays a bullish reversal and price is breaking out on both the cap-and equal-weighted Staples Sectors (XLP and RHS) -- add exposure... see chart below and page 2.

· S&P 500, Russell 2000. Last week we noted that the S&P 500 and Russell 2000 (IWM) were testing short-term support at their prior downtrends -- 3880-3890 on SPX and $222-223 on the IWM. The fact that the SPX held above support while the IWM did not is emblematic of the more mixed market environment that we now find ourselves in. At the same time, we are not overly concerned about recent small-cap deterioration and it could even be considered healthy after taking into account the massive price appreciation and outperformance from small-caps over the past year. 3853 is new short-term support to watch on the SPX, with the next important support levels coming in at 3754 followed by 3723. As for the IWM, $206-208 remains key support... see page 3.

· Market Dynamics Show Some Deterioration. Last week we named six reasons that pointed to a bullish risk-on environment. Now, two of these reasons are producing risk-off signals and a third is now neutral/undecided -- hence our more mixed outlook. Specifically, new risk-off signals include (1) the US dollar is now above 92, and (2) small-caps are no longer outperforming. The third concerning trend is that defensive Sectors have begun outperforming relative to cyclicals... see pages 3-4.

· Positives Still Outweigh Negatives. The positives still outweigh the negatives; (1) high yield spreads remain in a downtrend (very important), (2) not one major index or Sector is breaking down in terms of price, (3) broad commodities (DJP) remain in a 1-year uptrend, and (4) breadth remains constructive... see page 5.
Underlyings
Boot Barn Holdings

Boot Barn Holdings is a retail chain focused on western and work-related footwear, apparel and accessories. The company's stores, which are freestanding or located in strip centers, feature an assortment of brands and styles, coupled with store associates. The company's product offering is anchored by a selection of western and work boots and an assortment of coordinating apparel and accessories. The company also carries assortments of denim, western shirts, cowboy hats, belts and belt buckles, western-style jewelry and accessories. The company's work assortment includes footwear, outerwear, overalls, denim and shirts for the physically demanding jobs.

Caleres Inc.

Caleres is a footwear retailer and wholesaler. The company is engaged in the operation of retail shoe stores and e-commerce websites as well as the design, sourcing and marketing of footwear for women, men and children. The company's Famous Footwear segment includes its Famous Footwear stores, which features a selection of athletic, casual and dress shoes for the entire family. The company's Brand Portfolio segment provides retailers and consumers a portfolio of brands by designing, sourcing and marketing footwear for women and men at a variety of price points. The company's Brand Portfolio segment sells footwear on a wholesale basis to retailers as well as through its branded retail stores and e-commerce businesses.

Designer Brands Inc. Class A

Designer Brands is a footwear and accessories designer, producer and retailer. The company has three segments: U.S. Retail, which includes stores operated in the U.S. under the DSW Designer Shoe Warehouse banner and its related e-commerce site; Canada Retail, which includes stores operated in Canada under The Shoe Company, Shoe Warehouse, and DSW Designer Shoe Warehouse banners and related e-commerce sites; and Brand Portfolio, which includes sales from wholesale, serving retailers as the design and buying agent for products under private labels, and direct-to-consumer e-commerce sites. The company separates its merchandise into three categories: women's footwear; men's footwear; and accessories and other.

Duluth Holdings Inc. Class B

Duluth Holdings is a lifestyle brand of men's and women's casual wear, workwear and accessories sold through its own channels. The company provides a line of products, such as its Longtail T? shirts, Buck Naked? underwear and Fire Hose? work pants. The company's product assortment includes shirts, pants, underwear, outerwear, footwear, accessories and hard goods. The company has two operating segments: direct and retail. The company's direct channel segment reaches customers nationwide through its website and catalogs. The company's website, www.duluthtrading.com, serves as a storefront for its product assortment, and its website's homepage and category content include pricing, seasonal promotions and products.

Genesco Inc.

Genesco is a retailer and wholesaler of branded footwear, apparel and accessories. The company's segments include: Journeys Group, which includes Journeys, Journeys Kidz and Little Burgundy retail stores, e-commerce and catalog operations and sells footwear and accessories for young men, women and children; Schuh Group, which includes e-commerce operations and sells a range of branded casual and athletic footwear along with a private label offering; Johnston & Murphy Group, which includes retail stores, e-commerce and catalog operations and wholesale distribution; and Licensed Brands, which includes include the sale of footwear marketed under the Dockers? brand.

Guess? Inc.

GUESS? designs, markets, distributes and licenses collections of apparel and accessories for men, women and children. The lines include collections of clothing, including jeans, pants, skirts, dresses, shorts, blouses, shirts, jackets, knitwear and intimate apparel. In addition, the company selectively grants licenses to design, manufacture and distribute a range of products that complement its apparel lines, including eyewear, watches, handbags, footwear, kids' and infants' apparel, outerwear, fragrance, jewelry and other fashion accessories. The company's businesses are grouped into five reportable segments: Americas Retail, Americas Wholesale, Europe, Asia and Licensing.

L Brands Inc.

L Brands is a holding company. Through its subsidiaries, the company is a specialty retailer of women's intimate and other apparel, personal care, beauty and home fragrance products. The company sells its merchandise through company-owned specialty retail stores in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Ireland and Greater China, and through its websites and other channels. The company's other international operations are primarily through franchise, license and wholesale partners. The company has three reportable segments: Victoria's Secret, Bath & Body Works and Victoria's Secret and Bath & Body Works International. The company operates the following retail brands: Victoria's Secret, PINK and Bath & Body Works.

NetApp Inc.

NetApp is the data authority for the hybrid cloud. The company's product, services and solutions portfolio include: cloud data services, which include the NetApp Data Fabric, which manages, secures, and protects the data of its customers from on-premises to public to hybrid cloud; cloud infrastructure, which helps customers build cloud-architected data centers; storage systems and software, which enables customers to modernize their IT architectures with cloud-connected flash to free the resources necessary; and support services, which enable a portfolio of technical services including independent support services, support account managers, residency services, and managed services.

Seagate Technology PLC

Shoe Carnival Inc.

Shoe Carnival is a family footwear retailers. The company provides customers a a range of dress, casual and athletic footwear for men, women and children with an emphasis on national name brands. The company operates stores in the states and Puerto Rico and provides online shopping at www.shoecarnival.com. The company's stores carry complementary accessories such as socks, belts, shoe care items, handbags, sport bags, backpacks, scarves and wallets, while its e-commerce site provides certain handbags, sport bags and backpacks. Women's, men's and children's non-athletic footwear categories are further divided into dress, casual, sport, sandals and boots.

Urban Outfitters Inc.

Urban Outfitters is engaged in the operation of a general consumer product retail and wholesale business selling to customers through various channels including retail locations, websites, catalogs and mobile applications. The company has two segments: Retail, which consists of its Anthropologie, Bhldn, Free People, Terrain and Urban Outfitters brands and its Food and Beverage division; and Wholesale, which designs, develops and markets young women's contemporary casual apparel, intimates, FP Movement activewear and shoes under the Free People brand, home goods, including gifts, tabletop and textiles, under the Anthropologie brand and the BDG apparel collection under the Urban Outfitters brand.

Western Digital Corporation

Western Digital is a developer, manufacturer, and provider of data storage devices and solutions. The company's portfolio of technology and products address the following markets: Client Devices, which consist of hard disk drives (HDDs) and solid state drives (SSDs) for computing devices, flash-based embedded storage products, and flash-based memory wafers and components; Data Center Devices and Solutions, which consist of enterprise HDDs and enterprise SSDs, data center software and system solutions; and Client Solutions, which consist of HDDs and SSDs embedded into external storage products and removable flash-based products, such as cards, universal serial bus flash drives and wireless drives.

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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