New Address as of 10/4/24 — 60 Broad Street, 39th Floor, New York, NY 10004
DJIA: 48,063
“If Santa Claus should fail to call… bears will come to Broad and Wall.” We’ve always liked that little ditty, though its history when it comes to the Santa Claus rally is a bit dubious. A better ditty this year might be from the Doors, “Strange days have found us.” Selling the winners at year end is a bit of a surprise, carving up some sectors a surprise as well. Granted Semis have outperformed Software for some time, now even a Semi like Micron (MU – 285) is outperforming AMD (214). Meanwhile, Nvidia (NVDA – 187) and Palantir (PLTR – 178) leaders of the pack, or should we say cult, still look right. The “Mag 7” might better be called the “Mixed 7” with Google (GOOG – 314) and Amazon (AMZN – 231) seemingly preferred. That said, even here it has been a year of rotation. Healthcare and Financials have helped hold things together, and seem likely to continue to do so. Recently some Retail has picked up, particularly discounters like DG (133) and DLTR (123). Lagging remains Energy though Exxon (XOM – 120) is making new highs. As we said, strange days.
Exxon aside, Oil and the stocks are swimming upstream. Still, at only around 3% of the S&P by market cap, they are worth keeping an eye on, as it would not take much buying to push prices higher. And, in general, we like commodities and think Oil could join the crowd. For the market overall, it’s holding its own technically. Stocks above their 200-day moving average at 60% remain in the 50–60 range which has prevailed most of the year. Most bull markets see 70% or more, we’ve excused the shortfall as part of rotation. Disappointing of late, however, has been some poor A/D numbers —Not what we would have expected this time of year.
Frank D. Gretz
PLEASE NOTE: Unless otherwise stated, the firm and any affiliated person or entity 1) either does not own any, or owns less than 1%, of the outstanding shares of any public company mentioned, 2) does not receive, and has not within the past 12 months received, investment banking compensation or other compensation from any public company mentioned, and 3) does not expect within the next three months to receive investment banking compensation or other compensation from any public company mentioned. The firm does not currently make markets in any public securities.
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