Archive Category: Apex Alert (Market Intel)

Every week, we look at short-term charts. This week, I took a step back and examined a five-year chart for small caps. This chart tells an interesting story. The Russell 2000 Index is at important support, the same level that defined resistance before the pandemic. It’s obvious the index got ahead of the fundamentals after the pandemic. It’s still more than 20% below that all-time high. But we are now at a point on the chart where we could see a sharp rally that will finally end the multi-year bear market in small caps. I have the full details in this week’s nine-minute webinar.

Last week was a holiday-shortened trading week. Markets were closed Thursday for Thanksgiving, and Friday was a half day for traders. On holiday weeks, many large traders take time off. They often tell the junior people left in the office to aggressively manage risk. It was the kind of market where large traders were positioned to sell first and ask questions later.

Prices never move straight up or straight down. Large gains in stocks are followed by pullbacks. This is a normal pattern in a bull market. Last week, traders continued adding risk, which led to an improvement in market breadth. It also led to more bullish charts for all of the major indexes.

I follow a number of indicators, and the majority are bullish. That includes the risk-on trade. This indicator measures whether large traders are adding aggressive or defensive stocks to their portfolios. It’s now at an almost two-year high.

Buyers returned to the market last week. We saw earlier signs of this a week ago. Now, we have a number of reasons to expect higher prices. The biggest factor might be interest rates. Ten-year Treasury yields have broken important support levels and appear to be headed lower. This supports higher stock prices. The biggest winners could be small caps, as I explain in this week’s 10-minute webinar.