In the month of June U.S. stock markets corrected, and volatility picked up significantly. As always financial media is fast to call the end of the long bull market, and is able to find many ‘reasons’ to justify why a bear market has started. Some of them even call for a stock market crash that is about to start. Nothing seems further from the truth though as it appears that the US stock market went through a healthy consolidation which may have a bullish outcome sooner rather than later.
Some examples of news items that have no value for investors include this stock market being days away from setting a bearish record or stock market bulls vs bears. It becomes even worse, in this stock market article there is clear statement about a correlation between news and market prices. As if news drives markets.
If there is no illusion that we must demistify is that 99% of news has no correlation whatsoever with markets.
The real news is in the charts, that’s why InvestingHaven’s philosophy is ‘start with the chart’. The chart incorporates buy and sell decisions, and that is what first and foremost counts.
When we look at the U.S. stock markets we observe a couple of things:
- A divergence between large caps and small caps. Interestingly, small caps reached new all-time highs last week, which is a very encouraging evolution, even in the light of large caps lagging.
- The S&P 500 has set a series of higher lows this year as seen on below chart, that is bullish.
- 20-year yields are still rising which is a sign of ‘risk on’.
- Tech stocks are on the rise which typically happens during ‘risk on’ cycles.
Specifically the S&P 500 chart broke out in June right before it started retracing. So far, the retracement remained above the resistance which is a good thing. Stock market bulls want the S&P 500 to continue to trade above 2630 points, but, preferably, above 2690 points.
As long as those price levels are respected there is no damage whatsoever, and stock markets will continue their rise, it is just a matter of time until the bull market resumes. All news that tries to make a bearish point is worthless whatsoever.
Smart investors remain focused on the chart, and look for the 1% of the news that is relevant and mostly fundamental in nature.