Equity Clock

Stock Market Outlook for March 17, 2021

Weakest February change on record for Retail Sales and Industrial Production, but is the pro-cyclical trade in the equity market still alive and well?

 

 

 

*** Stocks highlighted are for information purposes only and should not be considered as advice to purchase or to sell mentioned securities.   As always, the use of technical and fundamental analysis is encouraged in order to fine tune entry and exit points to average seasonal trends.

Stocks Entering Period of Seasonal Strength Today:

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Ashland Global Holdings Inc. (NYSE:ASH) Seasonal Chart

AZZ, Inc. (NYSE:AZZ) Seasonal Chart

Circor Intl, Inc. (NYSE:CIR) Seasonal Chart

Anheuser-Busch InBev ADR (NYSE:BUD) Seasonal Chart

BioDelivery Sciences Intl, Inc. (NASD:BDSI) Seasonal Chart

Macquarie Infrastructure Company Trust (NYSE:MIC) Seasonal Chart

Verint Systems, Inc. (NASD:VRNT) Seasonal Chart

Lassonde Industries, Inc. (TSE:LAS/A.TO) Seasonal Chart

SunOpta, Inc. (TSE:SOY.TO) Seasonal Chart

Manulife Financial Corp. (NYSE:MFC) Seasonal Chart

Storm Resources Ltd. (TSE:SRX.TO) Seasonal Chart

First Asset Morningstar Canada Value Index ETF (TSE:FXM.TO) Seasonal Chart

Workiva Inc. (NYSE:WK) Seasonal Chart

WisdomTree Europe Hedged SmallCap Equity Fund (AMEX:EUSC) Seasonal Chart

iShares Russell 2000 Growth ETF (NYSE:IWO) Seasonal Chart

First Trust Multi-Asset Diversified Income Index Fund (NASD:MDIV) Seasonal Chart

Global X MLP ETF (AMEX:MLPA) Seasonal Chart

Global X MLP & Energy Infrastructure ETF (AMEX:MLPX) Seasonal Chart

 

 

The Markets

Stocks closed mixed on Tuesday as the notorious quarter-end mean reversion begins.  The S&P 500 Index shed just over one tenth of one percent, peeling back slightly from the all-time high charted in the prior session.  Momentum indicators are showing signs of struggle on the upside again as the negative divergence versus price continues to evolve, indicative of waning buying demand.  As has been highlighted, the back half of March tends to be dominated by portfolio rebalancing as investment managers attempt to bring allocations back inline with investment policy statements.  This entails selling the winners from the past couple of months and buying the losers.  This is precisely the type of action that was apparent in the Tuesday session as energy, finanicals, and industrials pulled back while beaten down names in the technology sector caught a bid.  We still have yet to see the big push to rebalance allocations away from stocks and back towards bonds given how out of whack bond allocations would have become amidst the selloff through the first ten weeks of the year, but this is expected to occur as well before the quarter comes to a close.  Downside risks for the S&P 500 Index remain to previous horizontal resistance at 3550.

Today, in our Market Outlook to subscribers, we discuss the following:

• US Retail Sales and the subsequent reaction in retail stocks
• US Industrial Production and what emerging opportunity is becoming apparent

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Sentiment on Tuesday, as gauged by the put-call ratio, ended slightly bullish at 0.89.

 

 

 

Seasonal charts of companies reporting earnings today:

 

 

S&P 500 Index

 

 

TSE Composite

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