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Summary

Jonathan Krinsky, who holds the Chartered Market Technician (CMT) designation, is a Managing Director and Chief Market Technician at BTIG. Before joining BTIG, Mr. Krinsky was the Chief Market Technician at Bay Crest Partners, MKM Partners and Miller Tabak & Company. Earlier in his career, he held a role within the Equity and Derivatives Sales & Trading Group at Miller Tabak & Company.

Jonathan provides clients with actionable technical commentary on U.S. and global equities, commodities, interest rates and currencies. Jonathan looks at the market on a global basis, taking into account inter-market relationships, sentiment and seasonality, in addition to traditional technical indicators based on price.

Jonathan is a regular contributor on Financial Sense, Bloomberg, CNBC, Seeking Alpha, and MarketWatch. He graduated from Penn State University.
Enjoy the latest interview with your co-hosts David Lundgren, CMT, CFA and Tyler Wood, CMT.

Fill the Gap, hosted by David Lundgren, CMT, CFA and Tyler Wood, CMT brings veteran market analysts and money managers onto a monthly podcast.

For complete show notes of every episode, visit: https://cmtassociation.org/development/podcasts/

Transcript

Tyler Wood, CMT 00:13
Welcome to fill the gap, the official podcast series of the CMT Association hosted by David Lundgren and Tyler wood. This monthly podcast will bring veteran market analysts and money managers into conversations that will explore the interviewees investment philosophy, their process and decision making tools. By learning more about their key mentors early influences and their long careers in financial services filled the gap will highlight lessons our guests have learned over many decades and multiple market cycles. Join us in conversation with the men and women of Wall Street, who discovered engineered and refine the design of technical markets. Nova gap is brought to you with support from Optima, a professional charting and data analytics platform. Whether you’re a professional analyst, Portfolio Manager or trader, Optima provides advanced technical and quantitative software to help you discover financial opportunities. Candidates in the CMT program gain free access to these powerful tools during the course of their study, learn more@optima.com Hello, and welcome to episode 33 of fill the gap the official podcast of the CMT Association. My name is Tyler wood. I’m a CMT charter holder and as always, I am joined by my dear friend David Lundgren CMT CFA. How’re you doing today, my friend?

David Lundgren, CMT, CFA 01:59
Fantastic opportunity. I get to sit around and talk about markets with some of my favorite technicians. It’s a good day for me.

Tyler Wood, CMT 02:06
Right? It’s a gift every day we wake up above ground. But today the sit down with Jonathan Krinsky BTIG , TIF, Chief Technical strategist. What a pleasure. And what a puzzle we have in front of us, Dave to try to figure out where this market is headed. Talk to us a little bit about your highlights from the conversation with Jonathan.

David Lundgren, CMT, CFA 02:27
Yeah, you know, I think, how do you how do you follow up a great conversation with with a guy like Gary wall, you have another great conversation with a guy like Jonathan Krinsky, you know, we just really peel back the onion on what he’s seen in the markets today, which, you know, the onion is quite a bit more rotten inside than it looks on the outside. And so we dug into a lot of that I thought was interesting with him, because I think he’s the first guest certainly recently, who tends to take a more mean reverting approach. So we talked a lot about the things that he’s looking for to indicate that the weakness that we’re experiencing now is coming to an end and it start time to start buying, so obviously we’re not there yet, but he did a great job of detailing some of the things he’ll be watching for as time goes on. So really interesting conversation for this time.

Tyler Wood, CMT 03:14
Yeah, you know, it struck me, the phrase that he used so many times was, we take it one step at a time. Yeah. And I think, for any of us that have financial news media, or, you know, the voices on X rattling around in our faces all day long, it’s very easy to get bombastic with market calls, or to hear somebody who’s, you know, comparing the environment, we’re in to some other apocalyptic crash in the markets. And as a technician, you know, sometimes you’re, you’re following trends and sometimes you’re chopping wood, which I think was where our conversation started, before the interview actually began recording. And, I guess that process of reacting responsibly with what’s in front of you is, is really a kind of an evergreen lesson that we could take for all environments that, you know, we’re not going to overreact to the data that’s coming at us from the market, but that you could have a responsible approach to finding key support levels based on that concept of polarity. Jonathan talked about using tools like volume and price to see congestion areas and be able to have kind of an objective view of where’s the next level? And if we break through that, then the level below that and having a more even keeled approach to equity indices that are in a downtrend, right. We’re recording here on September 26 2023. And the weakness is really starting to take hold.

David Lundgren, CMT, CFA 04:44
Yeah, yeah. And it’s obviously we talked about it but the precarious nature of that is that the the average stock has not really moved year to date. So from here, it doesn’t take much to get down through the lows of october so that’s, that’s where we lie and that’s it. We don’t go deeply into that conversation with Jonathan today talking about inter market analysis, what bonds are doing crude oil, gold, gold stocks, all that stuff is moving in ways that we really need to pay pay attention today. And I think, once again, you know, in times like this, the value of having a technician on your team or having the opportunity to listen to the voice of Jonathan Krinsky, Jeff De Graff, Chris Varone, Ari Wald, and others. I mean, it’s just what a community we have, I mean, great people that I just mentioned, and as many many more but but right now, this is this is really, really when you want to sit up and pay attention.

Tyler Wood, CMT 05:36
Absolutely, and in 2023, the names you listed are all you know, top of their game, but as Jonathan and I came into the business, it was it was a different set of of experts that we could go talk to like Philip Roth and Robin Porter, the wheezy Mata, all All guests have filled the gap. And hopefully, for our listeners today, they’re going to take away some evergreen commentary, but also start thinking about their risk management discipline in relation to this market. And with that, we invite you to sit back and relax. Enjoy this conversation with Jonathan Krinsky CMT Chief Technical strategist at btig.

David Lundgren, CMT, CFA 06:19
Welcome to Fill the Gap, the official podcast of the CMT Association in Episode 33, Tyler and I had the pleasure of speaking with Jonathan Krinsky is the chief market technician at BTIG. And Jonathan received his CMT charter just over 10 years ago. Many of you have probably seen him on CNBC and Bloomberg and other news outlets. But I’ve had the privilege of reading his research for over a decade, while we intersected on the buy side. And I also have the unique pleasure of golfing with him many times where he gave me many golf lessons that translated into into the equity space as well. He’s a phenomenal golfer, and we can talk about that as well. The overlap between golf and trading and investing. But it’s a real great pleasure to have Jonathan on the podcast this month. Jonathan, welcome to fill the gap.

Jonathan Krinsky, CMT 07:10
Thanks, guys. Um, been longtime listener first time caller. So happy to be here.

Tyler Wood, CMT 07:17
Nice to see you again, Jonathan.

David Lundgren, CMT, CFA 07:18
Yeah, so it’s great to have you on. Obviously, before we dive into your philosophy process, and then of course, your outlook on the markets, let’s let’s hear a little bit about what got you into the business. How long have you been in the business? What got you to kind of come over to the finance side? And then more specifically, what got you interested in technicals?

Jonathan Krinsky, CMT 07:38
Yeah. So I guess, you know, start, as you mentioned, Golf was a big part of my life, I was actually on the path to be a head golf professional, I was going through the PGA program. I realized that, you know, ultimately, I enjoyed while I enjoyed playing golf, I didn’t necessarily want to do it as my full time career. And so I was able to get a small role at a sell side broker dealer called Miller Tabak back in 2007. And they were a sell side broker dealer, you know, started as a trading firm, big in the option space, and then had brought on the fundamental research side, they also had macro and technicals. So started there in December of 2007, about two months after the peak in the market there in 2007. And, you know, early as I was learning, kind of, you know, learning the markets learning the business, early 2008, we would have these morning research meetings, as firms still do, where fundamental analysts would kind of go over their, some of their stock calls and update their estimates and everything. And I kind of noticed the theme, as we got into the middle part of 2008. It just seemed like every morning we’d come in, and the fundamental analysts by and large, would lower their estimates, lower their price targets, but would keep the buy ratings on the stock that went on for months as the bear market deepens. And after a while, it was kind of like, you know, you’re recommending to buy the stock at 80. Now, it’s at 40. And you’re still saying to buy it, even though you keep cutting your estimates. And at the same time, we had a technical analyst there, one of the legends, of course, Phil Roth, you know, providing more two sided analysis, you know, giving sell ideas, talking about the downside risks in the market. You know, and after a while, that just kind of really stuck with me and kind of made a lot more sense to me and, and, you know, that’s really how I got into technical analysis. And you know, from there, I went through the CMT program, you know, and kind of incorporated technicals into my process, as at the time it was kind of a Junior Sales trader and trying to sell the research. But as time went on, I really was pushing the technicals a lot more, and then kind of was pushing my own work eventually. And then that led to, as you said, getting my CMT and 2013. And I actually, so Phil Roth retired in 2012, I was able to actually take over as the firm’s market technician at that point, as I was doing a lot of my own internal notes and research and sending it out to clients and getting some feedback and stuff. And so it took over for military back in 2012, as our technician and kind of the rest is history.

David Lundgren, CMT, CFA 10:43
And so what was it like, working with Phil Roth? I mean, that’s, that’s an incredible opportunity to have him as your as your sort of initial segue into technical analysis.

Jonathan Krinsky, CMT 10:53
Yeah, I mean, you know, that he was talking with him was as good as it gets, you know, as far as kind of classic charting and stuff, what’s, what’s funny is, you know, his, his notes, he would do a note every day. And they were, you know, anywhere from 15, I think, to 20 pages every day. But with zero charts. And yeah, yeah. And, you know, I think that was kind of the salespersons job is because most clients, you know, we’re not going to sit through and read a 20 page tax technical note every morning. So, you know, as a salesperson, you kind of have to read through and kind of put your own spin on it, but you know, just Yeah, listening to him and kind of seeing is his, how he, you know, he was very big on on, you know, breath and a lot of indicators that some of which people still use today. Some of them were more proprietary. But yeah, it was an invaluable experience. And definitely a an awesome jumping off point for my career.

David Lundgren, CMT, CFA 11:54
Yeah, no question. That’s a very, very great opportunity for you. And obviously, you took a great, great advantage of it. And it’s interesting, just hearing your your career, you’ve only gotten your CMT 10 years ago, and in the years that we overlapped when I was on the buy side, I would have never known that you were that new to the technical side. I mean, you’re you really took to this because you were I mean, to this day, I think you’re one of the best technicians on the street. So, just to find out now that you you were so young in the business, I probably underpaid you so much.

Jonathan Krinsky, CMT 12:24
Thanks, Dave. You know, yeah, it was it was very much a, you know, once I kind of dove into it, I kind of, you know, embraced as much as I could and, and really, you know, that was my, you know, that still was my life. Right? I’m always thinking about charts and looking at charts and, and technicals. 24/7 even when the markets not open, so I appreciate Yeah,

David Lundgren, CMT, CFA 12:46
absolutely. What is, what was the reason why you decided not to choose golf for a career because I think if I had the skills to choose golf, versus getting my head beat in the market for multiple decades, I probably would have chosen golf at least I while I’m still getting my head beaten in at least it’s outdoors walking through the woods.

Jonathan Krinsky, CMT 13:04
Yeah. Well, you know, the irony in the golf business, everyone thinks it’s all you do is play golf. And, you know, you kind of see when you when you get, once you get to a point where you’re kind of running the show or at a golf club, you really don’t play much golf for the most part. And you’re working a lot of weekends and holidays. And so it’s a it’s tough to, you know, on the family side and be it’s, you know, if you really want to play a lot of golf, it’s probably, ironically not the career for you, because you’re always working. So that was those are the two main aspects of what made me look elsewhere. Yeah,

David Lundgren, CMT, CFA 13:37
yeah, I think I’ve had the great pleasure of golfing with with many technicians over the years. And I have to say, I think you’re the best technician. Not only one of the best technicians, but you You’re certainly one of the best, if not the best golfer that I’ve played, who had played with who has a CMT. I think Chris Barone is up there as well. He’s a pretty spectacular golfer as well.

Jonathan Krinsky, CMT 13:56
Yeah, that’s what I heard we got we should we should get a little reunion going. Yeah, let’s

David Lundgren, CMT, CFA 14:00
come on up, come up to Marblehead, we get we get a place here, Tedesco Country Club, get a little CNT outing. Hopefully, Tyler you can join us dust off the clubs.

Tyler Wood, CMT 14:09
So if if you guys are good golfers with we defined that as trend following I’d say I’m more of an options play. Sometimes my divot goes further than the ball. I don’t know if that’s really a strategy than an employee on the golf course

Jonathan Krinsky, CMT 14:22
options can be very, can be very valuable, you know, very volatile golfer.

David Lundgren, CMT, CFA 14:29
Let’s, let’s keep the analogy going. Because I always especially folks that are really accomplished at other things, whether it be golfing, or we had Jeff De Graaff on and he’s an accomplished pilot and you know other things like this, where there’s just analogies and takeaways that you can learn from very difficult things and how they perhaps have made you a better investor or trader. So what what have you think, what do you think you’ve learned from golf that kind of gives you the wherewithal to, to endure the The ups and downs and ins and outs of investing in technical analysis?

Jonathan Krinsky, CMT 15:05
Yeah, that’s a great question. And I’ve definitely thought about that over the years. And I think the main, the main thing that I think is a great analogy is in both golf and investing, a lot of times you have to do the opposite of kind of what seems obvious or what, what you what your mind wants to do. And, for example, you know, if you’re trying to hit, you know, chip shot, hit it up in the air, when you start out in golf, you’re hitting go, I got it, I gotta hit it, I gotta lean back and flip the hands and get the ball to go high. And that’s actually the complete opposite. You want to keep keep away forward, keep the club moving down, you know, and that creates the backspin that gets the ball to go up. And, you know, investing, there’s so many, you know, just counterintuitive moves that you need to do. And I still struggle with that today. And you know, trend following is probably one of the one of the best examples and listening to your, your podcast last week was with Ari Wald at Oppenheimer, you know, he’s probably one of the best momentum analysts I can think of out there. And, you know, and that’s one of the hard, hardest things to do is just stick with stick with what’s working, whether it’s on the upside or downside. You know, and there’s, there’s just, it’s easier said than done. But that’s, you know, it’s very hard to train your mind to, to kind of do that, I think.

David Lundgren, CMT, CFA 16:23
Yeah, I think that’s a really fascinating observation, because that’s a lot of what investing is about doing what’s actually counterintuitive. And the more counterintuitive things that you can do, the more likely it is that it will work. Obviously, that’s not true across the board. But you know, the the idea of hitting down on a ball, as opposed to trying to scoop it off the ground, is in the beginning stages is clearly not is not intuitive. But it works. It’s the right way to do it. And I think momentum is something similar in the sense that that nobody wants to buy what’s working. And but it’s it’s very counterintuitive to think that that’s a good decision. Certainly, we’re not taught that in school. But, that turns out to be one of the best things you can do in investing is buy what’s going up and sell what’s going down, of course, adjusted for trend structure, whatnot. But you know, that’s that’s an interesting takeaway, the counterintuitive nature of success, right? Totally, totally. Yeah. So maybe, maybe vet out a little bit more for us your process? What kinds of things do you look at? Are you are you more of a trend follower momentum? Or are you more mean reversion and counter trend trading? Or?

Jonathan Krinsky, CMT 17:34
Yeah, I would definitely say, um, I try to I try to, I try to be trend following until there’s a reason to be mean, reverting, and I would say, I’m definitely more, I look for more mean reversion opportunities than I’d say a lot of my peers, and part of that is because I do tend to focus on some of the, some of the faster money, some of the shorter term, institutional investors out there that, you know, we’re always looking for kind of quick, shorter trades, which oftentimes, you know, those tend to be counter trend, right. And at the same time, a lot of long, short community, you know, is looking for opportunities where something may be too stretched on the upside or to oversold on the downside, and that’s really, you know, it’s a, it’s a tough, it’s tough to explain it, because, you know, on the one hand, you know, I do believe that trend following and momentum is very powerful. And so finding when, when something becomes too strong in one direction, or too weak in the other direction is, is a bit, there’s a bit of a feel there for me. And part of that also goes back to the golf analogy, right? I mean, you can, you can teach somebody, you know, the fundamentals and what’s what’s a correct swing, and what you know, what makes a proper golf swing, but at the end of the day, there’s also a feel element to it. And you kind of, you know, have, the more you do it, the more you kind of know what you’re looking for. So you know, and for me, there’s also got to be some of the best mean reversion opportunities are those in which it’s it, the price action goes counter to the news, right. And so if you’re looking for something that’s been an extremely strong uptrend, and you’re looking for an opportunity to feed it, you know, the best setup is probably when you get good news out of that, whether it’s a stock or an asset class, and you get, quote, unquote, good news, and the price action is bad, or vice versa. You know, when you get bad action on, you get bad news, and the price action is good. So those are the opportunities where I’ll look more for mean reversion. But generally, yeah, I mean, I try to kind of stay on on the primary trend of things as best as I can.

David Lundgren, CMT, CFA 19:49
It’s interesting the speaking to the corollaries between, I guess, life and trading just this happens to me all the time. And I think most people can associate with this that whenever I’m on a driving range and it doesn’t count, I’m like 250 down the middle of on every drive and I can almost nail the flag on my chips and everything else, but then when you get out onto the, into the actual round, when it actually counts and money’s on the line and things like that, it gets a lot more difficult. So the analogy in investing, of course, is back testing and paper trading, and all these wonderful things that can happen without the pressures of real life. Money management, with clients and everything else. So paper trading versus real trading is a world of difference. And I think when folks are asking me about getting into the business, and they’re talking to me about all the back testing they’ve done, and all the paper trading they’ve done, I think that the next most important step in their journey is to definitely get some money on the table, because it changes when you’re actually doing it for a living

Jonathan Krinsky, CMT 20:45
100%. And the same thing with what I do and my analysis, and even though I don’t directly have money on the line, and I’ll use last October, as an example, you know, the market was in a bearish trend. And at the end of September, inflation worries were very high. Obviously, we got that extremely hot CPI print in mid October, and the market, you know, couldn’t go down anymore. And in hindsight, you know, that was a signal for a mean reversion to the upside opportunity. You know, and I think, you know, I didn’t, I didn’t put enough weight in that emphasis in that in the moment. So that’s an example of, in hindsight, everyone can look back and say, oh, yeah, was a horrible, you know, hot CPI print, and the market couldn’t go down. Of course, that was an easy buy. And, you know, in real time, it’s not always that easy.

David Lundgren, CMT, CFA 21:32
Yeah, we also, we also remember, the past the way we want to remember which is, which is, again, it’s why it’s really, really important to journal, and to write down what you were thinking in the moment, because everybody’s prone to remembering things that way they want to remember it. And you know, you know, I remember when this happened, and I remember calling it right, and what will you if you actually put it down in words and put it in a journal, you don’t have to show it to anybody. But it’s extremely instructive. And I often find that one of the best teachers over times is not only the market itself, but also you won’t experience that your journal, and just go back and read it six months later, to get the honest truth of what you were actually feeling in that moment. And from there, you can actually learn but if you if you’re just going by your own memory of what you thought you don’t learn anything. In fact, if you do learn anything, it’s usually bad practices embedded. 100%.

Tyler Wood, CMT 22:21
Yeah. So Jonathan, thinking about that mean reversion and we talk a lot about the universality of technical analysis, meaning, it’s timeframe agnostic, it’s asset class agnostic, you can use this on any publicly traded security. When you’re talking to clients about, you know, a counter trend trade or taking a contrarian view, do you also emphasize the, you know, certain tools to look for a confirmation that indeed, there is a reversal in place? And what I mean by that is, you know, how do you coach, what do you what do you look for? What do you coach clients to look for, in terms of confirmation that the market is indeed coming back around? And we can keep looking at that October 2020, to low? I mean, the following week, pretty impressive counter trend rally? Do you wait? Do you wait for a certain signal to get back in?

Jonathan Krinsky, CMT 23:12
You know, it depends on what your what your kind of timeframe, an objective is, as, as an investor, right. And so, you know, if you are somebody who’s, you know, looking for a very fast, you know, three 5% trade, then you kind of have to, you know, you kind of have to see it in real time. And that’s, you know, I do try to try to do that as well, I think, you know, I try to be actionable as real time as possible with clients. And so as it’s happening, and the issue there, of course, is you don’t necessarily get the confirmation, right. And so, in that scenario, you have to either use proper risk management, whether it’s, you know, stop outs below the day’s low, or that sort of thing, or risk defined through options and that sort of thing. And so in that case, you can kind of be a little more aggressive, and you kind of get a feel for things are not acting like they should, it’s probably going the other way, and you can take a shot. If, if you want to be a little more conservative, and you’re a little bit of a longer term investor then, yeah, you probably want to wait for some more confirmation, whether that’s, you know, getting, getting above some previous highs or, you know, allowing the moving averages, short term moving averages to kind of turn up that sort of thing. So, you know, there’s no one answer for that. I would say it’s just a it’s just a risk management and timeframe issue.

Tyler Wood, CMT 24:34
Yeah, I think you answered it perfectly. There’s there’s always something right. We don’t just jump in front of the train hoping that it’s going to stop and go backwards on the tracks. Right.

David Lundgren, CMT, CFA 24:45
Yeah. Especially if it’s already ran you over.

Tyler Wood, CMT 24:49
Exactly. Exactly. You know, I just thinking about how how folks develop a thesis, right that that we can have some Probability is on our side, I know you look at a lot of things beyond just just the price and volume of any given security. Let’s talk a little bit about, you know, what, what you see as the big factors pressing on this market right now, what do you look for outside of, you know, equity indices to inform your opinion on on where they might be headed?

Jonathan Krinsky, CMT 25:23
Yeah, so I do look at a lot of cross asset factors and whether it’s rates or currencies, commodities, and, you know, it’s, it’s a function of you have to know what the environment you’re in right, because correlations come and go and so, you know, since the start of 2022, and markets have been very sensitive to rates and for the most part, trading inverse to inverse to rates. So, rates have been going up stocks have been under pressure, you know, so, I do look at a lot of intermarket analysis. You know, I look at a lot of sector relationships, you know, whether it’s equal inverse cap weight if you’re looking at you know, cyclicals versus defensives, i beta versus low vol, that sort of that sort of thing. And, yeah, I think it you know, it’s kind of trying to take the entire universe of information we have and narrow it down to what’s most important and what’s what, what the market cares about at any given time.

David Lundgren, CMT, CFA 26:30
You know, when you when you look at the most recent environment that we’ve been in, I mean, we were talking a little bit about about this before we started the recording. We all know about how strong the quote unquote market has been with the S&P up as much as it’s been. But you know, I don’t know what the percentage is these days, but it’s probably 30 to 40% of the top, say, 20 stocks represent the S&P 500. And that’s why the markets gone up so much and the rest of the markets kind of gone gone sideways, and if not down. But your your task is to kind of help institutions outperform their benchmark. And, if we’re being honest, the only way you could have outperformed the benchmark today is if you actually owned these stocks in equal representation to what they’re in the S&P to begin with. So when you’re trying to help PMs and analysts and whatnot, navigate this from an institutional standpoint, what, what kind of guidance Have you been giving them where there’s been such an almost historic disconnect between what the average stock is doing what what this very narrow set of mega cap stocks is doing?

Jonathan Krinsky, CMT 27:40
Yeah, I mean, that’s, that’s a great question. And it’s been a it was a difficult, you know, summer in that regard, because the, like you said, the average stock has massively, you know, I think people would actually be shocked to know how poor the average stock has done over the last nine to 12 months, and yet the S&P is up significantly. So, you know, I tried to identify more, you know, single stock or sector areas, obviously, energy has kind of been one area that’s on and off, you know, performed very well. But I certainly didn’t give enough emphasis to the strength and quote unquote Magnificent Seven, you know, largely because they were still under, you know, what, I considered an overhead supply. Right. And that doesn’t mean that they can’t rally and they did, in fact, rally, but a lot of them went much further into into the supply than I had anticipated. But, you know, the seer is a great example of, you know, just how, how the average stock and the indices Can, can be bifurcated by a significant amount.

David Lundgren, CMT, CFA 28:50
Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, what’s your assessment of those? All the 10 stocks today, I mean, many of them are still the low there. They’re 21 highs. And so there’s always that risk of this being a failed high or just a counter trend rally that maybe just kind of segways into a range, if not something worse, down the road. What do you think in here are these Is this the early signs of new bull market leadership, which is, which is how bull markets start where you get whatever, whatever leaves off the bottom is the new leadership for the bull market. So is that what we’re looking at, or do you think this was just a counter trend rally in an ongoing bear market?

Jonathan Krinsky, CMT 29:28
Well, yeah, I think the latter I mean, if you look at you know, so we looked at every major market bottom, you know, after a 15% drawdown or more that we have data on and you know, at this point 11 or 12 months in into a quote unquote, new bull market, the average reading for a percentage of stocks above the 200 day moving average has been about 76%. The weakest reading was 50% coming off the October 98 bottom into the tech bubble top. And we’re at you know, we’re under 48% right now. So, you know, the issue, the issue for really for this whole market call is, is one of two things will, will look back on this period and one of two things will have been true, it’s, it’s either going to been the slowest, longest start to nibble market right to get that breadth expansion to get more participation, really, that we’ve ever seen, let’s call it in the last 30 years, and probably even even farther, or it’s going to be, you know, the longest largest bear market rally that we’ve ever seen, right, because we got back to 4600 of the ultomiris 4800. So that’s, that’s if we in fact, go and break the October love 30 3600, let’s call it. So one of those two things will be true. You know, and the issue is really the internal breath. And, you know, we tried to get some improvement, improving breath in February, that failed, we had another attempt in in July and August. And that couldn’t really get, you know, escape velocity. And now things are actually breaking down pretty significantly. And we actually did another study this week, and in our note to clients. So what we looked at, we noticed that the equal weight S&P 500 was pretty far below its 200 day moving average while the s&p was still above it. And so we looked at all times over the last 30 years when equal weight S&P was at least 2%, below its 200 day moving average while the S&P was still above it. And then to weed out the, you know, the times when we were newly in a newly bull market, for instance, coming off the COVID bottom. We we also said okay, let’s look at those times bull in the S&P 500 itself is down 2% Or more over the last two months. So we have a divergence equal verse cap weight, and we’ve been a little bit weak over the last two months. And, the occurrences that we get are actually pretty, pretty ominous. There’s only been five kind of occurrences if you will. The first was in August of ’98, right ahead of the Asian financial crisis. The second was in September of 2000, I’m sorry, January of 2000, right out of the tech bubble top. The third was September ’07 a month before the peak in oh seven. The fourth was October of ’18. Before that pretty significant fourth quarter drawdown in 2018. And then the last one was early March, March 2nd 2020. Right in the early innings of the of the COVID crash. So pretty ominous, ominous set up and, you know, obviously a sample size of five is, maybe, not relevant. But I think if it really just speaks to the fact that, you know, we’ve had 11 months of, of quote unquote, a new bull market and yet equally as back under its 200 day moving average, that’s just not consistent with what you see in new bull markets.

David Lundgren, CMT, CFA 32:50
When you’re talking about equal weight versus cap weighted, do you follow the I’m assuming you rank the stocks, I mean, the sector’s for their relative performance to rank them according to, you know, what’s the best sector versus what’s the worst sector?

Jonathan Krinsky, CMT 33:08
We don’t know.

David Lundgren, CMT, CFA 33:09
You don’t, okay, I was going to ask only because if you if you do that exercise, what I find is the best ranked sectors are number one is energy. And then you have technology industrials, discretionary, and energy. And then believe it or not financials, that’s the top of the rank right now, when you’re looking at over the some blend of the series 369 and 12 month momentum, when you kind of plan those out, you end up with with a pretty cyclical pretty bullish sector leadership, which is kind of confounding only because we also know that the average stock is basically unchanged on the year and most of what we’ve seen is just these mega caps rallying across the range. And, and yet, despite all that, which that’s all, that’s all cause for concern, but despite all that we have the equally weighted sector ranks are actually pretty cyclical. So it’s, it’s it’s a pretty interesting, kind of foggy environment that we’re in, would you say?

Jonathan Krinsky, CMT 34:05
Yeah, and, and, you know, also say that along those lines, the traditional, you know, bond proxies that are more typically more defensive or not, you know, showing any leadership and I think part of that’s the, you know, the fact that we’re in, you know, a rising rate environment, right. And so that’s, you know, not not a typical what we’ve seen over the last 40 years, let’s say so, yeah, there’s some, there’s some interesting things going on, for sure.

David Lundgren, CMT, CFA 34:32
Utilities today are down 3%, which is just incredible. When I mean, obviously, we have rates there by proxy. So if rates are heading south, which they’re doing again, today, rates are going up, price is going down, makes sense that utilities would struggle, but at the end of the day, they’re actually I think they’re probably down the most today. Yep, yep.

Tyler Wood, CMT 34:53
Down the most today, but as a relative outperformer over the last week, right? Yeah, yeah. Speaking of corollaries, I couldn’t help but notice, you know, just last week, looking back at 2015, and we had the, you know, sort of expected seasonal weakness, August and then into the end of September where we had we had real weakness in the s&p 500, before a rally through the fourth quarter that just preceded a deeper dive in, in January and February, where we came back to double double test the October low from 2014. In terms of, of where we’re at, right now, I mean, is that do you guys do scenario analysis about, you know, perhaps further chop versus a longer dated thesis on? I mean, you were referencing Oh, seven, and in the year 2000? Is that what you’re preparing for something much more severe? Or something akin to the 2015 2016?

Jonathan Krinsky, CMT 35:58
Yeah, I mean, like, we try not to get too far too many steps ahead. Right. And that’s, you know, it’s easy to, to kind of draw the really bad scenarios given, you know, given what breath is doing, and then such, but, you know, we kind of, we kind of take it one step at a time. So, I think, you know, we’ve been focusing on the 4200 area, initially, which was the breakout, you know, in in May. It’s also kind of right around the rising 200 day moving average. So I think that’s kind of a logical first step, and then, you know, we’ll evaluate how the market reacts, right, because, you know, in a, if it’s, if it’s still a more constructive environment, then we should see, you know, a strong reaction there, strong buyers come in, and a positive reaction. And if we, if we fail to see that, then, you know, you’re probably looking at something in the high of 3800-3900, something like that. So what kind of take it that, you know, one step at a time, you know, beyond that, you know, whether you’re talking, you know, the cyclical or secular cycles, that gets a little, you know, a little more, a little hairy, right, because, you know, we, we, the data set, we have over the last 100 years or so, we tend to think, you know, secular markets moving these 15 to 20 year cycles, and I think it’s pretty consensus that we, we started the new secular bull in in 2012. And so if you are a believer in that, and you’re gonna say we’re at a secular peak, that would be a very short secular bull market, right, about about 10 years. So on the one hand, it’s, it’s hard to say that the secular bull is over. On the other hand, you know, maybe it’s, maybe it’s, we just have too small of a sample size. And, you know, I think the, you know, the 1966 282 bear market, given what interest rates were doing is an interesting analogy, given we had a, a rising interest arising secular trend for interest rates during that bear market. And you just really went sideways for a long time. So, you know, that’s kind of something that big picture is, is as valid, I think, but it’s not necessarily worth making that call, because we don’t have to make that call at this point.

Tyler Wood, CMT 38:11
Right. Right. Right. Because clients care about what you did for him last quarter, not that the secular trend, right. Yeah. So So let’s, let’s move on to that a little bit, Jonathan, obviously, your clients are not passively owning the whole index. So even you know, even in a range bound market, you have a lot of bifurcation between individual securities. So in in this kind of choppy market at the index level, where are you steering people for for great opportunities, even within sectors that have been beaten down?

Jonathan Krinsky, CMT 38:45
Yeah, I mean, like I said, energy has probably been one of the standouts on the upside, even, you know, it’s not a sector, but a group, within kind of the energy materials spaces. Uranium stocks have been been acting very, very well, for the last couple of months. So that’s very, we’ve been been looking at. And, you know, outside of that, though, it’s been, it’s been tough. I mean, you know, if you didn’t catch the tech move this summer, then outside of that, there has not been a lot of strong uptrends on a sector basis. So, you know, it’s really been kind of protecting, you know, protecting gains more and, you know, for those that have been able to short and looking for opportunities on the short side, and I think, lately, the consumer area has been, you know, an area showing a lot of weakness. You know, whether it’s restaurant stocks or retailers, you know, some of the travel names, that sort of thing has been a focus on on the downside of it.

Tyler Wood, CMT 39:50
Yeah, anybody who’s sat in a plane recently knows that. That’s a really uncomfortable position. Maybe we don’t want to be arrested.

Jonathan Krinsky, CMT 39:59
Yeah, that’s it. I mean, airlines, maybe one of the best mean reversion groups out there. I mean, they, they had a 52 week high, you know, in mid July, and now they’re back to almost lowest level since last December. So, tough group.

David Lundgren, CMT, CFA 40:16
I was just gonna mention that they did turn the 200 day average, we had a bunch of base breakouts, and then they literally v-top law, this is the small, probably, you could identify on a daily chart, a small head and shoulders top there, but yeah, pretty much cascaded straight down since then. That’s kind of the environment we’re in, right? I mean, it’s just trend following has been tough in this environment.

Jonathan Krinsky, CMT 40:37
Yep. And and corresponded with the breakout in crude, right, crude starting to pick up and yeah, in mid July. Yeah.

David Lundgren, CMT, CFA 40:45
Yeah, so if we step back and kind of look at taking into consideration your your overall view of the market, I mean, what, what are some of the big levels that jumped out at you on the say, the S&P 500, maybe the cues that some of our listeners can tee off of?

Jonathan Krinsky, CMT 41:01
Yeah, so you know, I mentioned 4200, on the S&P, which is also the 200, day moving average. I also know that one of the tools I’ve found has been useful over the years, is something called Volume at Price. And, you know, most people, they’ll look at volume on a time series, so how much volume trades on any given day, but you can also look at it on a price basis. So let’s say over the last three years, which is I tend to use that for my volume at price charts, how much volume over the last three years is traded each given price level. And what you find is there tends to be times where there’s gaps in volume, or what I call a volume pocket. And we’re just starting to break into on now. And basically what what I’ve found over the years is price tends to move very slowly through areas where there’s been a lot of volume history, and very quickly through areas where there has not been a lot of volume history. And so the fact that we’re in this volume gap in the S&P which started at, I call it 4375. That kind of the volume pocket gets you down to around 4150. So, we’re in that in that area, which which you could see prices move fairly quickly. And you know, that kind of also lines up with that 4200 level. And then as far as the NASDAQ, if we talking QQQ’s, we’re also in that volume pocket and that’s, that’s a bit bigger. That gets you down around 320 on the Q’s, which is still about 10%, lower from here. And that also, I believe, lines up with the 200 day moving average.

David Lundgren, CMT, CFA 41:20
A little below it, yeah.

Jonathan Krinsky, CMT 41:59
329, yeah. So you know, there’s there’s some interesting downside objective is just based on on on a volume pattern as well.

David Lundgren, CMT, CFA 42:46
And given the big moving crude, I mean, is this here, a lot of people talking about this being the start of a new secular bull market in commodities, not just crude oil? I’m curious what you think there. I mean, there’s a lot of great charts in that in the commodity space.

Jonathan Krinsky, CMT 43:01
Yeah, I don’t I don’t know about that. I mean, there’s, there’s also a lot of ugly ones. And you know, whether it’s the Soft Commodities and stuff that commodity see more bifurcated to me. And crude, you know, we’d been constructive on it. Since the breakout through an 81 or 82 was a kind of a key breakout for us. There’s maybe a bit more upside, but when you you know, the other thing that I that I put a lot of weight on is kind of the anecdotal evidence, right. And sometimes you can look at sentiment positioning through the hard data, whether it’s you have to CFTC positioning, but you know, the anecdotal stuff, it’s the conversation you have with clients, it’s what you see on CNBC, it’s what you see on Twitter. And I’d say the sentiment on on crude has come a long way in the last two months from from when it was sub $80. And so we’re, you know, the trend is so good momentum still pretty good, but I just wonder if there’s a little too much optimism now in crude after the run its had. But, yeah, it’s I’d say overall, and commodities is much more of a mixed bag for us.

David Lundgren, CMT, CFA 44:05
Yeah, you know, the the real. I think the real tell for bull market, at least historically, and it’s got a very good track record over time is just the ratio between copper and gold. And when copper is outperforming gold, you tend to have a pretty robust bull market. And that’s that peaked with the market back in early 2022. And it’s been pretty much in a straight down downtrend, since then, which which was another warning that that what you see on the surface is painted by the those 10 mega cap names, pushing the S&P higher was just not at all corroborated from the bottom up. And the whole idea that that one of the one of the things you hear folks saying on CNBC is that the markets whistling past the graveyard and it’s kind of like this big disconnect between all the really bearish macro data and what the markets doing, ie the S&P But the reality is most stocks are not doing that and in most inter-market relationships that would normally be firing positively. Inn a bull market it’s just not triggered. I mean, did you watch this copper to gold? And I’m curious on your thoughts.

Jonathan Krinsky, CMT 45:07
Yeah, no, I agree with that. And it’s, it’s good you bring up gold, because that’s been a very frustrating trade as well. I mean, there’s been a couple of times where it’s really looked like it’s poised to maybe break out as consolidation. And but I can look at it two ways, right? Because gold is one of the best assets that has the trades correlated to other assets. And I mean, it’s, it’s very, very strongly inversely correlated to the dollar and to real rates. And so on the one hand, you know, the fact that gold still at 4% on the year given what real rates have done, they’ve exploded the upside the dollar has broken out to the upside, you know, it’s still a pretty good performance for gold given the given that backdrop. And then on the other hand, you know, you just can’t really say it’s in any kind of trend, it’s, you know, it’s Dow today, it’s breaking down below its 200 day making lower highs since May. And so gold, I think, is very going to be very fascinating, heading into the fourth quarter. Again, if we see a little bit of pullback in the dollar and if rates, real rates, start to top out a bit you know, maybe gold becomes more interesting, but it’s kind of just in no man’s land here. So we’re just on watch for it.

David Lundgren, CMT, CFA 46:21
You know, one of the one of the biggest losers today actually is the GDXJ, which is the junior gold miners. That thing’s down three and a half percent almost. Yeah, I think this this is a good opportunity to to get get your thoughts on where you kind of detailed a big part of your, your process is mean reversion or at least trying to detect indications that the that the current lack of a trend is terminating. So, what kinds of things you’re going to be looking for at the S&P, I’m assuming that a holds above 4200 or 4150, or something, but beyond the level, what are the kinds of things you’re going to be looking for to indicate that this is a good mean reversion trade setting up to go higher?

Jonathan Krinsky, CMT 47:05
Yeah, I mean, it’s going to be in an ideal world, obviously, you’ll see a pickup in volume, you’ll see elevated protocol ratios or you start to see a little bit of pickup and put call ratios a little more fear. Obviously, the VIX is hitting 19 today, it’s getting out there. You know, one thing we did not see at all last year, which was really the first time since we have data on on VIX and VIX futures, is we didn’t really see a big inversion in the VIX curve. So usually you see, spot VIX get at least 10 points above the second month VIX future and you never saw that all last year. So, I don’t know if we’ll get to that point on this move. But you know, I think for a bigger washout, that’d be something we would look for a, you know, and then and then it’s kind of, you know, are they selling all the winners? I mean, today, as we’re talking S&P down almost one and a half percent, but Nvidia was only down 74 pips. So, you know, I think ultimately, you’re gonna see some of those real winners get, you know, have had some big three, four or 5% down days and stuff like that, as are things that we look for.

Tyler Wood, CMT 48:18
So you’re looking for leadership to catch down to the overall market, not to trade that as a signal of, you know, there’s some some other unforeseen strength within those leaders that aren’t following the rest of the crowd.

Jonathan Krinsky, CMT 48:33
Yeah, and that’s a good point. I mean, it’s always, you know, it is you can look at it two ways, right. If you’re bullish, you’d say, well, there’s still you know, stocks acting well, and Nvidia, it’s down decently from from its all-time highs, but it’s, you know, really has, I would not say it’s been, I would not say it’s been damaged enough. And so you could say, well, maybe that’s a sign that leadership is there. And, but I think that’s where you have to kind of take a step back and look at there’s been enough deterioration under the surface that it usually does not end without, you know, kind of those names, seeing some sort of capitulation in the near term.

Tyler Wood, CMT 49:10
Yep. You know, you just to circle back for a second to one of the tools, you mentioned volume at price for any of our listeners, and I know, we have a lot of fundamentally grounded investors who tune in to fill the gap. You mentioned volume at price. And we’ve talked a lot about these areas of potential support. I think that that concept of polarity, that’s something that there was resistance where you had high volume and a lot of trading around or concentration around certain price levels. It’s amazing to me that, you know, some of these tools on a longer term basis on a chart are the same ones that traders in Chicago we’re using, you know, with market profile, or adaptations of similar concepts that traders in Chicago we’re using on the intraday basis. And it’s really the same concept that we’re We’re trying to capture what investor behavior is doing. So for you, those those levels are concentration of price, the narrowing of ranges where we had some consolidation before breakouts. Do you see buyers stepping back in at those levels?

Jonathan Krinsky, CMT 50:17
Initially, yeah, you know, I would not expect us to just slice right through the 4200 level without without a fight, right. And so, but that’s, that’s why we want to take it one step at a time. And so it’s not worth talking about potential downside below that until you were to see 4200 tested and fail. And so yeah, I think you would expect some, some support from that zone initially, and then we’ll take it from there.

Tyler Wood, CMT 50:48
4200, and maybe closely, followed by some concentration around 4150. I’ve heard some, some technical analysts talking about drawing their support lines with, with wide markers or crayons, given the structure around a lot of trading vehicles, or algorithmic funds, systematic funds, setting entry points or stops, stops above or below what would be key levels so that we trade past them and get rid of the novice traders and then find our support, maybe slightly below. Is that held up for you?

Jonathan Krinsky, CMT 51:24
That’s, that’s, that’s a great point. And it’s really we try to emphasize a way to the evidence approach. And so you know, I think, I think people do get a little too hung up on on levels, right. And so they want to know, if it breaks this, where’s it going. And well, it’s, you know, it’s not always, it’s not always that easy, it’s more, you know, these are potential areas where market could stabilize, but, you know, it’s pay attention to, you know, what, what interest rates are doing at that point, let’s pay attention to what breath is doing. And, you know, kind of take, take that whole way to the evidence approach, as opposed to just oh, we’re, we’re bearish below this level or bullish above it?

Tyler Wood, CMT 52:00
Yeah. It’s not a binary. It’s not just it’s not just one chart at the time. Right. It’s the whole Yeah. All seem very well said.

David Lundgren, CMT, CFA 52:08
Jonathan, in your, in your mean reversion framework. I’m curious what you think about banks, because that’s obviously a big part of what’s been driving the narrative for the year, they had a big washout into March. I’m looking at Citigroup right now. I mean, I think it’s actually below its level from where it, you know, posed the bank crisis. So obviously, when you think about supply and demand and fundamentals drive price, why is Citigroup sitting below its low from the bank crisis?

Jonathan Krinsky, CMT 52:35
Yeah, it’s actually it actually hit a 52 week low today. So, it’s October, October of last year low. Look, so for mean reversion, you know, we generally think of it as kind of a rubber band effect. And so, you know, it needs to be kind of stretched to get that snapback, and I would say the banks in general, you know, maybe on a long term basis, you could say they’re stretched, but really the fact that they’ve just gone sideways since since March for talking about the KRE or the KBE you know that that doesn’t really signal mean reversion to us, or mean reversion opportunities. It’s kind of, I think it had the mean reversion, after the, you know, after the after it made a low and may and that kind of ran its course, and now it’s bounce back in the middle of its range. So to us, it’s another indication that you know, it’s very tough to call this new bull market with what banks are doing and, again, maybe it’s different this time, but yeah, I would say it’s a it’s a bearish signal but not not so bearish that I’m ready for to look for a mean reversion and banks yet.

David Lundgren, CMT, CFA 53:46
Yeah. Is there a is there a setup where you want to mean reversion I’m just thinking about like banks, for instance. I mean, they’ve obviously had some pretty powerful rallies over the years but if you actually look at the relative performance of banks, relative to the market it basically peaked in 2004. So, it’s been 20 years almost where where banks have been just to complete a void and that’s the market telling you that the fundamentals here are terrible so really, the latest blow up in the banking sector is just another chapter chapter in an ongoing saga. So is this something that you would actually mean revert or do you actually need a bigger picture longer term uptrend for you to buy a mean reversion?

Jonathan Krinsky, CMT 54:23
No, it’s but again it’s more gets back to a great hit on initially is you got to know your timeframe I mean, if you if you’re if somebody asked me what I put on a mean reversion and banks for the next two years- no, because of your point. But, you can get a you know, you can get a multi week or multi month mean reversion balance and you did see that in in the summer. But, I guess to your to your point relative to the market, it really didn’t do much even on that bounce, a little bit, a little bit outperformance but not much.

David Lundgren, CMT, CFA 54:57
So, maybe what’s going on in the market today? Any that you think is under appreciated that people don’t see or people don’t really acknowledge? Maybe because they just don’t have the proper lenses to observe these important data points. So, what do you see that people are really not seeing?

Jonathan Krinsky, CMT 55:15
Yeah, I mean, I think big picture, it’s the breadth issue. And, you know, it’s, we tend to we all determine whether it’s a bull or bear market based on the S&P 500 for the most part. And, and, you know, if so, if somebody says, oh, you know, bears have been wrong this year. I mean, it will. It’s like, what are you defining by that? Because if we look at the equal weight S&P 500, it is now, I think, it’s barely up on the year might even be flat. Right. And so, you know, if you’ve been bearish, you took a little pain on the average stock, but you are now, yeah, we’re basically dead flat on the equate S&P 500. And we’re down pretty significantly from the, from the February and July peaks, right. So, you know, it’s just another way of saying breath is, is poor. And, you know, again, I think Tyler asked us, is that mean that, can we get breadth to catch up because some of the leadership stocks are still holding up, or we’re gonna get the leaders to succumb to the downside, and I tend to think it’s the latter. So I think that’s the main issue that I would say is not being discussed enough. Yeah,

David Lundgren, CMT, CFA 56:27
So your take on this, then, is the idea of buying these mega caps on a pullback is not even though you’re a mean reversion? Do you think that if you get a pullback on the Mega caps is going to be something better to buy either for mean reversion or for a trend resumption, as opposed to focusing on these mega caps?

Jonathan Krinsky, CMT 56:47
Big picture, I would probably say yes. But that’s why we take it one step at a time, right? Because I don’t know, you know, let’s take, let’s take apple, for instance, the biggest of them all, you know, let’s say pulls back to its 200 day, which was another $6. You know, is that going to be the best buy over the next two weeks from that point? Maybe. You could argue in videos, well, but beyond that, we just, we just don’t know, and we don’t know how this bear markets gonna unfold and, you know, where the new leadership is going to be? And, you know, I tend to think that these mega cap stocks, Magnificent Seven, have kind of run their course for their leadership after this move, and so yeah, I probably be more interested in maybe even energy right on this pullback. We’ll see how that acts. That’s kind of more interesting to me. But, yeah, it’s, it’s tough for me to get too too far ahead because I do tend to work in shorter timeframes.

David Lundgren, CMT, CFA 57:51
Right. Okay. What else? What’s got what else is going on that you think you want you think the listeners want to know about in this difficult environment?

Jonathan Krinsky, CMT 58:02
So to me rates of bond the bond market is at a very interesting juncture. And, you know, we this is an area we’re looking at for mean reversion opportunity, because – So, like I said, one of the things I look at is how does, how does price react to the news. And we haven’t necessarily seen that set up yet for bonds. But from a volume perspective, last Thursday, on the TLT, which was probably the most actively traded bond ETF, it was a second highest volume day on record last Thursday and we’re lowering price higher and yields from that point, but the volume last four days is really starting to feel capitulative. And then you combine that with we have actually have a bullish weekly RSI divergence on TLT for now versus the October lows. So, you know, basically, it’s on, on watch for potential upside, mean reversion. And I think it’s setting up as I also pay attention to calendar and we’re coming into the end of the quarter – bonds are, have been very, very poor performing this quarter down about 13%. So, I think the setup is there for this kind of final washout in bonds. And then also, you know, again, you look at what’s going on under the surface. And, you know, if we if we think that stocks tend to lead the economic data by six to nine months, you know, what, what the consumer stocks and financial stocks and travel stocks are suggesting to us is that the data is probably going to start to weaken. And if we think about the stocks that they topped in February, by and large, we’re kind of at that point where you should start to see the data weaken. So, you put that all together and to us it says that, you know, bonds are a very interesting mean reversion potential. And you again, you ask this question, how do you trade it? Well, you know, you can try, you know, bottom fishing with some tight stops and risk management. Or, you can kind of wait for some better confirmation and, you know, I think the best confirmation would be, you know, if you get some, maybe some hot economic data and bonds can’t sell off anymore.

Tyler Wood, CMT 1:00:17
And on that bond question, John, I mean, like high yield or junk bonds to treasuries have been a supreme out performer now for a couple of years. Aree you seeing this only in sovereign bonds, or do you think there’s some corporate debt plays to make as well?

Jonathan Krinsky, CMT 1:00:33
Yeah, you know, I’d say that if there’s one area that is the knock against our more cautious outlook, it’s, it’s credit spreads, because they really haven’t, they haven’t started to expand or widen, like you would expect, given what has been going on under the surface, they’ve started to widen a little bit the last couple of days, but really nothing to write home about. So. And, you know, I don’t know the reason for that. But it’s not that you have seen some, some in some instances where credit spreads are a bit late to kind of, you know, they don’t always lead I think, I think a lot of people assume that credit always leaves equities. And it’s not always the case, sometimes you need to see a bit more volatility in that greater market, and then you start to see credit spreads widen. So we’re certainly watching that. But I think that’s probably if you’re a bull, that’s probably your best, only your best arguments right now that you just haven’t seen any reaction and credit spreads.

David Lundgren, CMT, CFA 1:01:34
Have you seen any work that that breaks down that relationship in and where we would draw the same conclusion there that we just drew with respect to the mega cap, large cap S&P 500, so the S&P 500 doing so well gives the impression that the stock market’s doing fine, when it’s actually not. Is there anything beneath the surface of that credit spread that might belie what otherwise seems to be a pretty benign interpretation of the economic economic outlook? Is it cap weighted or anything like that?

Jonathan Krinsky, CMT 1:02:10
I mean, you’re talking examples of when credit spreads

David Lundgren, CMT, CFA 1:02:13
Throughout their indices, right? You were comparing credit spreads versus treasuries? Those are just pure credit spreads? Are they cap weighted? Are they asset? Are they besides that the asset and the credit are?

Jonathan Krinsky, CMT 1:02:27
Yeah, I haven’t dug into the weeds that much on those. I’m just using the generic, you know, triple beavers, 10 year Treasury spreads. So I don’t know the breakdown of that. But again, if you’re, you know, if you’re just using it, as more kind of, to get get a sense of the weather out there. You know, it’s, it’s probably sufficient. But that would be interesting to kind of break it down below the surface.

David Lundgren, CMT, CFA 1:02:52
We’ll have to dig into and see if we can find anything to put in the show notes.

Tyler Wood, CMT 1:02:55
Yeah, absolutely. I did a financial literacy podcast the other day, and the host was asking about, you know, so there’s all these charts out there, like, what what should we start looking at? And I said, well, the danger for a lot of new entrants to the markets is that they’re looking at something super short term. And they think the sky is falling based on intraday trading, or people are looking at such long term views. I made the analogy that if you want to know whether to carry an umbrella, it doesn’t really help to look at, you know, average annual rainfall at the country level, right? Like, you need to take it a little bit deeper, to get a sense of, you know, what, what this afternoon’s forecast might look like, right? Yeah, Jonathan, such a wealth of wisdom. I know, your weekly notes to clients are so well regarded. For the generation that’s coming up behind you in terms of, you know, their career path, and the kinds of things that you find are most valuable to your client audience? What kind of advice would you have for young technicians?

Jonathan Krinsky, CMT 1:04:03
I would say, you know, there’s, again, there’s so much to look to look at when you’re first, you know, trying to figure out, you know, how to use technical analysis. And I would say, as I’ve gone on, I’ve probably used less of the information out there as opposed to more and you really just have to find out what works for you and just wrapping it up into the, to the golf analogy. I mean, there’s a million different swings out there, and they can all work right, and a lot of different ways, a lot of different ways to get the ball in the hole. So I don’t think, you know, there’s one way to analyze markets, it’s kind of whatever works for you. And, you know, some people use different moving averages. Some people use different indicators. And so just find what works for you and then, you know, just just read as much as you can. There’s a lot of smart people out there putting out content, whether it’s on social media or from the financial community, so just try to try to read as much as you can and also, you know, take a look at some of the fundamental analysis, the macro, you know, I think a lot of the macro analysis can be helpful as well, to kind of tie in with with the technicals.

Tyler Wood, CMT 1:05:14
Really well said, What a glorious age we live in. When I first got involved with the CMT Association, I too got to spend a lot of time with Phil Roth. And, unfortunately, you know, that generation didn’t didn’t really jump on to Twitter when it took off. And so you had to, you had to go out to lunch or grab a cup of coffee to get theirr input. And now we have access to hundreds of thousands of folks right at our fingertips, so good advice to access that info. Jonathan, as always, it’s great to talk with you. Say hi to my hometown community, they’re in Minnesota and looking forward to seeing you again in person real soon.

Jonathan Krinsky, CMT 1:05:54
Same here guys, it was a pleasure, talk soon.

David Lundgren, CMT, CFA 1:05:56
Thanks for your time today, Jonathan.

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Originally Posted November 1, 2023 – Fill The Gap Episode Thirty-Three, with Jonathan Krinsky, CMT