New Address as of 10/4/24 — 60 Broad Street, 39th Floor, New York, NY 10004
DJIA: 50,667
There is the possibility of peace in Iran… and there is the possibility there is a Santa Claus. Given the choice, we would put our money on the latter. Yet, that’s what makes this market almost spectacular. It is after all, the market that makes the news. You can say, when it comes to Iran, “deal with it,” and the market has done so. You can say the market doesn’t keep discounting the same news over and over, and the market has not. Still, it is a bit surprising and impressive. Then, too, the technical background is not only far from perfect, one could also say it’s an accident waiting to happen. Glaringly negative is the almost equal number of new highs and new lows last week. And while the averages push to new highs barely more than half of individual stocks are themselves above their 200-day moving average, that is, in uptrends. Historically these divergences eventually cause problems, the keyword being eventually. And of course, the clock has no hands.
Ground control to Major Tom, as the other Space Oddity rapidly approaches. The UFO ETF (UFO – 68) and the stocks in it haven’t waited, indeed, they have… choose your pun. While we speak of a narrowing market, it is a bit amusing to think that space stocks like SpaceX not long ago were not a thing. The same might be said for Quantum stocks like IONQ (70), or the Bitcoin miners found in the ETF WGMI (69), some of which have turned AI power suppliers. And remember when Caterpillar (CAT – 887) was a tractor company, rather than loved now for the turbine business. Meanwhile, Biotechs would seem out of the way of both war and peace, and somewhat out of favor. The charts are improved, and the group is in a seasonally favorable period through most of July. Advance/decline numbers remain important, but there is a not always obvious market broadening.
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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