Is the 2021 Santa Claus Rally in Jeopardy?

Jeff (00:00):

Hello, everybody. Welcome to the latest edition of LPL market signals. I am your host for today, Jeff Buchbinder. I am pleased to be joined by Scott Brown down in Charlotte. Scott is going to infuse this podcast with a little youthful energy today. Ron is  traveling for the holidays and is getting a much deserved week off. Scott, how you doing today?

Scott (00:30):

I'm doing great, Jeff. It's my second time on the signals podcast. I'm pretty stoked for that. I'm glad  to be invited back

Jeff (00:38):

Looking forward to a great discussion here. So let's jump right in here. We're going to do a market update as we always do. You know, Scott, your background is in technical analysis. And so I'm really look forward to hearing your take on this more volatile action that we've seen lately. And then we've got a discussion about what the Feds hawkish pivot means for investors, particularly looking at some of the asset classes and sectors. We'll also talk about Omicron. Of course, that's in the news a lot here lately with very rapid spread. The question is, will that spoil the Santa Claus rally, then we'll dissect the rally and defensive stocks, which have actually been performing very well lately. Finally,  we’ll l conclude with a quick look ahead. So let's start Scott with the  S&P 500. I mentioned we've had seen some volatility, probably most of it is around Omicron. But you've also got some Fed jitters here not a huge pullback, but we did see the three day decline was the biggest that we've seen since September as a technician, when you look at this chart, what do you see?

Scott (01:57):

Yeah, so  we brought a little bit more technical chart and you're right. We haven't had much of a pullback and we don't see a huge change to the intermediate terms structure of the chart. The S&P 500 is still above a rising 200 day moving average. To us that's an uptrend, but if you want to get really, really tactical, what we see is a lot of sellers stepping into sell stocks around the 4,700 level, that's that kind of red dash line. It's where we got to in early November. And if you look on an intra-day basis, we've probably tested that level about a dozen times over the past two months. And every time stocks get up there, they seem to fall just right back down. We also look at momentum in the bottom panel. It's kind of a measure of the speed of the move.

Scott (02:43):

And when it's diverging, it's going the opposite direction of price. It can be a little bit of a short term warning sign. And that's what we've seen also play out over the past six weeks or so, is the momentum making some lower highs basically saying, Hey, maybe the conviction on buyers part really isn't there just below 4,700. So it just seems like we're going take a little bit of a pause, but you're right. We haven't broken down. We haven't undercut the late November, early December lows and we're bouncing big today. Markets are off about a percent here to start Tuesday morning. So I think we're just kind of taking a pause, consolidation  and maybe even hopefully set up for that Santa Claus rally that I know we're going to talk a little bit more about later today.

Jeff (03:26):

Yeah. That Santa Claus rally period starts  soon. I guess there's some disagreement about whether it starts now or maybe it starts in a couple of days, but as we'll see in an upcoming chart here the back half of the December certainly tends to be seasonally strong, just not a great start to the back half of December this year. Certainly if we could get some good news with the Omicron virus variant here that will help us out. So  thanks for that Scott. The other source of volatility has been the Fed in central banks last week. We had central bankapolooza with 20 major global banks having policy meetings. We, of course, focused mostly on the Fed as do global investors. And we got a hawkish  pivot. So wanted to talk about, you know, what potential implications investors may see. Here, you're looking at the dot plots.

Jeff (04:29):

All this really says is that the Fed expects to rate  to hike rates sooner based on the committee, this is an actual policy. It is just marking every individual Fed officials expectation for where rate hikes will be in the future. The dark line is the most recent view and the lighter colored line is the previous view. And you see here it's shifted up. So, you know, what does that mean in terms of when we can expect a rate hike? Well,  we don't know for sure, but it likely means we're going to get a rate hike in the middle of next year. Here you see the updated pricing of Fed rate hikes by  the fixed income markets. The number of hikes column on the left shows you that in December of 2022, the market is pricing in 2.6 hikes. So that means the market is closer to three than two. So and that frankly is a big change from a few months ago when the market was pricing in somewhere between one and two. So my question for you, Scott, is do you think they'll actually do three next year or not, and, and when might they start?

Scott (05:55):

We'll see. So the market odds have, you know, May to June, as you mentioned, kind of first half of the year is probably when that first hike though, we certainly had I believe a Fed governor come out and say March was live  for discussion. Our view is we think more likely to be two. We kind of have to see how inflation readings go in the first half of next year. But I think what the market is saying is that it's going be tough to do much more than three. I mean, the market is kind of pricing in a mistake, maybe a repeat of the 2017, 2018 time period because we've seen the yield curve flattening. And so the market seems a little bit nervous that the Fed is going to do what it's done over the history is be a little bit too aggressive. So we'll, we'll kind of see your right about a 60% chance of actually getting the three. I think our base case is a little bit closer to two start getting up to three, or certainly even looking at the possibility of four, which is priced in and I think the market odds of a really policy mistake and inverting the yield curve, that becomes a real story for the second half of 2022.

Jeff (07:04):

Yeah, that yield curve is going to be really important to watch. It puts a ceiling on how many rate hikes we're going get. The Fed does not want to invert the yield curve, which has been a very effective signal for recessions. Sometimes those recessions  don't come for a couple years after the inversion. Sometimes they come quicker. But they almost always come. So that'll be something they'll be very careful with. So maybe the good news for investors in terms of a broad market outlook is that now that that shift has occurred, a hawkish shift here is unlikely. And so we think the market's pretty much priced in about as hawkish as it's going to get, especially with ongoing COVID risk. You know,  this chart I think is, is a really great way to maybe calm some fed fears.

Jeff (07:56):

The Fed of course, can create some volatility in the short term, but if you look back, this chart was in our 2022 outlook publication. If you look back at history, how do stocks do in the year before the start of Fed rate hikes? They're up every time nine for nine with an average gain of about 15%. So sure there are some wiggles in these lines. You know, this is certainly a reason to expect stocks to move higher. We took another look at this, just taking a six month period because now we might be six months away from the initial rate hike, if it comes in June and there that, you know, you see the same kind of picture the S&P 500 up over 10% on average, this only takes the last six cycles. We didn't have sector data before that.

Jeff (08:44):

But if you look at the last six cycles, you're up on average, over 10%. Wanted to also point out that the cyclical value sectors historically have done pretty well. During this period leading up to Fed rate hikes. Now every cycle is different, so we're not necessarily recommending a big value bet here. But you know, keep this in mind that if we do see a strong economic backdrop leading into the summer you could potentially see some periods where value stocks do better, but at the same time, you know, Scott, you've been talking about this quite a bit and some of our investment committee meetings, the technical picture  for the growth sectors right now you think actually looks better.

Scott (09:35):

Yeah. At least for technology. You know, one of the things that's been really interesting about 2022 is we've just seen rotation, rotation, rotation within all the different sectors and styles and even market caps within U.S. equities. But technology is really the only sector to hit 52 week relative high within the past several months, and most of the other sectors on a relative basis just overall look kind of trendless. So there's more short term opportunities, but there haven't been a lot of great trends or plays that have worked out for the duration of the year. So we'll continue to monitor some of the sectors, real estate, the reopen stocks within real estate look really strong. Financials are still hanging in there on a relative basis. But I think, you know, these last two charts  are really great because as a technician will always try and look back at market history. There's always worries about the yield curve and what is the Fed going to do, but it's pretty clear from those charts, the stocks don't actually do that bad leading up to the first rate hike. Now we start getting several rate hikes in, I think then maybe if the yield curve at the long end, hasn't moved up, maybe you have some concerns, but leading up to that first rate hike, it seems pretty clear that stocks tend to do pretty well.

Jeff (10:53):

Absolutely. We're big fans of looking back at history for similar environments and you know, history certainly doesn't always repeat, but as Ryan often says it rhymes. So this environment is different, you know, than many of those cycles. I mean, the biggest reason why it's different, I would say is because interest rates are so low. And so when you have low interest rates and, you know, connected to that a pretty flat yield curve right now that actually tends to be better for growth. Plus of course it's a great earnings environment for a lot of the growth stocks that have thrived during the pandemic. So, you know, kind of a mixed picture when you put fundamentals and technicals together but certainly possible that, you know, value does a little bit better than it's certainly done in recent years. So  here's for me, the highlight of this podcast, you know, Ryan's not here, so I can beat up on him.

Jeff (11:48):

We talked about our fantasy football matchup on the last podcast. And I just wanted to say that, you know,  the cream rises to the top  and you see here, I know Scott, you weren't following this closely, but it was a miraculous comeback. You know, you see  the scores by day, Ryan had that early lead and then just right at , you know, that last, the last game of the week the Rams game on Monday night the better team pulled ahead and secured victory. I also, again, want ask people to look at the record, my team, “Hanging with Mahomies” 9-5 Ryan's 4-10. So clearly  the better team one. So maybe Ryan answer to that when he is back with us next time, which I think will be in January, but just wanted to celebrate that. I know everyone listening is, was very interested to hear how that game played out. So Scott, you're not a big fantasy football guy I know anymore, but I'm sure you were glad to see me come out on top of that one.

Scott (12:57):

Yeah. It looks like the  better team definitely won based on the record. You're right.  I haven't played fantasy football in a couple years. I used to be really into it, you know, multiple teams. And I just realized that I have enough things to make me angry on a Sunday, watching the Carolina Panthers. I don't need the Cleveland Browns wide receiver dropping a pass late in the afternoon to ruin my day. And so I'm about three years fantasy football sober for that reason though. You're right. I mean the worst team sometimes will come out on top, win the championship. So I am glad to see you won Jeff.

Jeff (13:32):

Awesome. Well, thanks. Thanks for that. I still recovering from some bad losses in previous years, so I totally get the frustrations. It's, I mean, it's been particularly hard this year. But yes, the better team definitely won and I'm, I'm glad that I have a couple teams still alive. So let's, let's transition from that. You know, it wouldn't be LP on my market singles podcast with a little nod to Ryan though. Let's transition to  the Omicron story, right? Will this stop the Santa Claus rally? You know, I've always been taught that the Santa Claus rally is the last five trading days of the year, and then the first two of the following year. So we haven't even started that yet, but it's coming soon. Maybe today is the start of that. But look what we started the week with right Omicron headlines everywhere.

Jeff (14:24):

The Dow was down over 600 points at one point before pairing those losses, I pull a bunch of these, right. You know, stocks tumble, oil plunges, Omicron fears weigh stocks sell off on Omicron  fears, so much for a quiet Christmas week, right. And on and on. There's actually some pretty negative sentiment out there. If you look at investor surveys you look, I know you follow these Scott. If you look at you know, like the CNN Fear & Greed index, the American association of individual investors survey, and other sentiment measures there there's caution. And that may, you know, load us up for the next move higher.

Scott (15:06):

Yeah. That’s a great point, Jeff. And we want be, you know, crystal clear about what we're saying here. We're not saying that Omicron itself is a market positive. There's, you know, clear negative implications, but all these headlines that are up on the screen, those are a positive because we definitely look at sentiment from a contrarian standpoint, we tend to see stocks do better when there's a lot of uncertainty when there's a lot of worry. And that's kind of been the story of 2021 as we've had these four to 5% pullbacks, suddenly fearful headlines, everybody, everybody gets really scared. And then the market pops right back up to all-time highs. We actually, you know, we get concerned when everybody's steadfastly bullish. I think it's pretty clear  that's not what we have right now. And so a Omicron from that perspective, providing a little bit of a fear and S&P 500 is only three to 4% off those all-time highs, really just hanging out, taking a pause.

Scott (16:03):

And so you're right. I think this could set us up. We're kind of seeing a rally today. I, I, for one, will tell you, I'm firmly with you. The Santa Claus rally does not begin until Monday. It's the last five days of the trading year and the first two of the next year. We know that the whole second half of December. Yes, it's historically strong, but I'm a stickler for that Santa Claus rally. And it, and it's true definition. We aren't there yet, but I think the pullback we've had gives us a chance for Santa Claus to still come this year.

Jeff (16:32):

I like the precision there. Let let's be, let's be consistent. So even though we're talking about the last five days of the year as Ryan has highlighted recently the positive seasonals actually come in the second half December. So, you know, here, you're looking at chart this is average December performance broken up by whether you have an up November or down November. If you have down November, like we had this year, you actually see a stronger December. That's the orange line up at the top, you know, two plus percent gains. But even in a, just an average December, you see that really strong move from the middle of the month. So that's been a little bit delayed but we still think this can happen. Of course Omicron is  going to be a big wild card, but based on what we've seen thus far you know, in terms of mild cases, in terms of the effectiveness of the vaccines, particularly the, the three shot regimen with the booster, we have reason to believe that even though Omicron is very, very transmissible that we'll be able to move through this without a lot of severe illness and that we will not see the overcrowding in hospitals that will potentially lead to lockdowns.

Jeff (17:54):

There is no political tolerance <laugh> for lockdowns again. So we don't think we're going to go there. Even though we have seen some pretty tight restrictions in Europe, in particular in the Netherlands. And I think Austria. So we don't see that here. We have a playbook, we know how to get through this. Certainly some people will change their behavior a bit, maybe not be quite so let's say mobile, maybe holiday shopping, you know, gets tamped down just a bit. But frankly you know, we see still a pretty good economic environment here and, and strong enough, even with this variant to drive stocks higher. How does that sound to you, Scott? You think we've got a good enough backdrop here to push us higher over the next couple weeks?

Scott (18:46):

I do. And I think one thing that people don't realize, this podcast is called Market Signals. And a lot of what I try and do is, you know, find those market signals. One kind of proxy or a couple of proxies we've looked at throughout the year. There's an airlines ETF. There's also a travel and leisure ETF. So you've got, you know, online booking agencies, hotels, things like that. Most people don't realize here we are recording this on December 21st. Most of those stocks, most of the airline, the travel leisure stocks actually bottomed in early December. They're only slightly higher, but I think people don't realize they're actually quietly outperforming over the past couple days. We actually saw a bunch of these stocks up Friday and Monday, even though the broad market was selling off, you know, maybe there's still some concerns what the Fed is going to do in 2022. But based on those market signals, actually a little bit skeptical that so much of the recent weakness is really due to Omicron.

Jeff (19:43):

Couldn't agree more, yeah, here's  a reason to be comfortable with the risk. I mean, of course there's uncertainty. And, and so you, you know, it's hard to have too much confidence in this, but we have  not seen in South Africa where Omicron was first discovered. We have not seen new cases lead to hospitalizations  in any sort of meaningful way, a little bit of an uptick in hospitalizations, and certainly by all accounts more among the unvaccinated. But look at this disconnect here, a huge increase in cases, right? 22,000 per day, and a small increase  in hospitalization. So this is encouraging. We obviously don't know for sure if this is going to translate over to the U.S. where we're still early but Omicron is  according to the CDC, 73% of spread  of the cases. And so to still not see it takes a little time, but to still not see the spike in hospitalizations is still very encouraging.

Jeff (20:45):

There are certainly some pockets of the  country where, you know, hospitals are overcrowded. We don't want to minimize the health impact here, but you know, in terms of the economic and market outlook, we don't see lockdowns. Therefore we think we can continue to see solid economic growth. The data's been very good lately. In fact the consensus economic growth forecast for the fourth quarter on Bloomberg is now 6%. That's up a point over the last month. And the Atlanta Fed GDP tracker is even higher than that. So we think we still got a solid economic foundation. We could see a good holiday shopping season. It's already started off really strong, potentially making a run at a 10% increase. The National Retail Federation forecast for holiday shopping is up between 8.5% and 10.5%.

Jeff (21:40):

Maybe 10 given Omicron is a little too optimistic, but certainly something north of eight and a half  is probably doable and, and will be a really good number. So we're still optimistic here about the economic and market outlook, just certainly we have near term uncertainty to fight through. So  the last segment here we want to  talk about is  the fact that these less volatile or defensive stocks  have done well. And I know Scott, you've talked a lot about this internally with the LPL Research team, you know, we've seen real estate do really well, actually a sector that we really like and have liked for a while. We've seen utilities over the last month, utilities and staples have led, done really well. Some people fear that's a sign of weakness ahead. So, you know, talk folks off the ledge. Why should we look at those defensive sectors and the strong performance and not be concerned about a market downturn?

Scott (22:50):

Yeah, I, I think that's a great point, Jeff, and you're right. What we're showing here is the S&P 500 Low Volatility Index. And so it has big overweights to all those defensive sectors you just mentioned. And earlier in the program I discussed, you know, sector rotation has really been the story of 2021, not a lot of great relative trends. Well, the exception that at was actually this trend here, you can see since the market bottom in March of 2020 straight under performance for those sectors. So really just avoiding the defenses and have some, having some technical value and some quality growth has been the way to play it and just underweight utilities and consumer staples and healthcare. Now this ratio is finally up above its 200 day moving average, but I think we need to have some perspective here and recognize that there's a short term move or over bought.

Scott (23:39):

And so we're actually seeing underperformance today and we would not be surprised to see some underperformance over the next couple of weeks. Over the more intermediate term, what the story might be is something I know you've talked a lot about is maybe we're moving to mid cycle. Maybe we've seen the worst of the underperformance and we now don't need to just have no defensive exposure or be underweight, every single defensive sector, but we're getting a little bit more mid cycle where you kind of want to start balancing things out, but we still don't see an up-trend. Like we would expect in a true late cycle. We would see, we would expect to see months and months of out-performance for this index and these types of sectors leading up to a recession or kind of the end of the bull market cycle. So we still, we don't think it's that, but maybe a transition to more of a mid-cycle environment. And we don't want to completely eschewal of these sectors. I mean, I know Jeff, you've talked a little bit about healthcare, maybe being a preferred destination, if you wanted to add some defensive exposure, if this index were to pull back.

Jeff (24:46):

Yeah, absolutely healthcare, you know, I like  a good story, right. As a catalyst you know, in addition to following the technicals and certainly following the earnings, which for healthcare are starting to get better, with the build back better plan, at least for now off the table, there's actually some positives for healthcare. The reforms in that plan are mostly negative for healthcare. And so you take those off the table, at least for now, they could come back, but if you take them off the table that could be a positive catalyst. So, you know, healthcare is a defensive sector. It's been part of this defensive rally, relative rally, over the last month or two, it might be a place to look for folks building stock portfolios or just you know, investing with sector ETFs.

Jeff (25:39):

Again, we like real estate. So, you know, some balance is important here. Staying diversified, you know, a lot of you are probably pretty loaded up with the tech type names that have been doing so well over the last couple of years. Maybe this is a time where it might make sense to diversify a little bit, have some defensive sectors to mix with the cyclical. So we'll, we'll keep watching for this. It looks like, you know, maybe it's just a short term blip and you know, we'll resume that trend toward the more economically sensitive areas doing better. Certainly some help from the COVID news would be welcomed. So thank you for that, Scott. This is certainly something we will be watching. So let's wrap it up by just previewing the week, what we're watching, you know, as I mentioned Omicron, we will be watching the statistics there in the U.S., hopefully those cases do not translate into serious illness.

Jeff (26:40):

I also mentioned the holiday shopping, you know, we're, we, we had a pretty good start and we think we're on track to have some really strong numbers, but we need to finish strong with December. Of course, a lot of shopping happens in December. Actually it continues into January with the gift cards, but hopefully we'll get some good numbers for December and that COVID doesn't keep people away from the malls too much. We also get the core PCE  this week, I believe that's on Thursday, the Feds preferred inflation measure, you know, that'll probably tick up a little bit, might tick up again next month, but we're really close to an inflation peak. We think it's going to maybe be a few months before people get comfortable that we've seen the worst.

Jeff (27:30):

And you know, before we start to see those inflation numbers cool. But we do expect them to cool. And you know, a lot of the inflation pressures are from temporary, you know, supply chain issues, material shortages. The labor supply challenges, you know, we've all seen the help, wanted signs everywhere. Those will take a little bit longer to work through, but eventually we'll have more labor supply and that we think can help take a little bit of the pressure off of wages and you know, by let's see, let's say the spring a few months, we think the picture there will look a lot better. And then lastly, we touched on this a little bit, consumer confidence, you know, you look at a lot of these surveys and you know, there's caution, right? It's not just the investment side that we talked about earlier.

Jeff (28:21):

It's also just, you know, regular people and you know, why are they not very confident? Well, COVID obviously, also inflation, maybe just as obvious, but when you look at what people are spending, what they're doing, the picture actually looks pretty good. So we're going to continue to watch what consumers are doing, not what they're saying. And we might end up with, you know, a 7% increase in consumer spending annualized in Q4. That's certainly what the consensus GDP numbers are telling us. Let's call it maybe somewhere in the six to 7% range. That's a really strong number and suggests maybe not getting too nervous about some of those surveys. So anything else, Scott, you think investors should keep an eye on this week or should we just start getting ready for the holidays, although I'm sure many of you have already started.

Scott (29:17):

Yeah. You know,  I don't pay a ton of attention to the economic detail. My focus tends to be the price charge, but if we're basing how holiday shopping season on what my mother in-law has bought for our  16 month old baby, I'm looking for a beat in the holiday shopping season and those retail sales numbers in December to be very, very strong.

Jeff (29:42):

Well, I  think that's a great way anecdotally to support our abuse. God, I think we're helping too. I have a 12 year old daughter and those of you who have a daughter that age, or have had a daughter that age, you know many of them like expensive clothes. Ryan Dietrich certainly can relate to this. So I can tell you that some of those teen retailers might see a bump because of the Buchbinder household talking about, you know, Abercrombie, Aeropostale, Aerie, you know, all of that Lululemon , we're helping some of those retailers, not stock recommendations, mind you, but certainly our family doing its part <laugh>. So I hope everybody enjoys holiday shopping season and and get out there and spend be safe, but get out there and spend support the economy. And certain we all need as much joy as we can dig up these days. So with that I'll go ahead and wrap. So Scott, you and I talked about holiday plans before we jumped on here and we kind of skipped through that at the beginning. It sounds like you eat a lot during the holidays and I do the same, your metabolism is probably a little faster than mine, but you know, what kinds of delicious treats do you find at the Brown household?

Scott (31:12):

Oh yeah, there, going to be a lot of eating. I don't know how great the metabolism is these days, but I'd say for Christmas day ham, mac and cheese some green bean casserole, some cornbread dressing that there's a lot of essentials it's, it should be a pretty full day of eating in the brown household.

Jeff (31:33):

So for, for me, anything with mac and cheese is a winner. So I, I like the sound of that. We, we do a lot of desserts. We've got actually my daughter and I just, my younger daughter and I just baked a cake the other day. It was really good. I was pretty proud of myself. So we're going to do, you know, cakes, cupcakes, brownies, pies, you know, we really focus on the sweets, the meat, you just kind of get your protein with that, move on to the good stuff. So maybe in January,  when we're back with you, we don't think we're going to do the podcast next week. Unless there's such outrage that, you know, Ryan and I feel compelled we'll probably take next week off and be back with you in January. And we can maybe talk about all the sweets that we ate.

Jeff (32:17):

So looking forward to that. So let's go ahead. And then there, Scott, just thanks so much, for jumping and on and filling in for Ryan. We greatly appreciate you know, you and I complement each other well. I bring this sort of fundamental story. You bring the technical story and that's what it's all about. Seeing the full picture we think makes you better investors. So great discussion hope you all enjoyed it. Again, we expect to be back with you in two weeks for the next edition of Market Signals, where you will see Ryan Dietrich back with us. enjoy the holidays, everybody. And we'll see you then.