CNBC's Fast Money Halftime Report:What's Next For Tech Stocks, IBM?

Asbury Research's John Kosar appeared on CNBC's Fast Money Halftime Report earlier today.

John discussed:

• whether Asbury thinks today's spike higher in Technology stocks will continue from here,
• Asbury's near term expectations for IBM, and
• Asbury's outlook for the Financial Sector.

To view this interview, please click on the image below.

Professional Investors can learn more about our investment research by clicking here, and can request a trial by either clicking here or calling 224-569-4112.

Are US Equities Peaking?Check Dow Theory.

The following (green highlights) is an excerpt from today's Keys To This Week report.

Keys To This Week (access requires subscription) is one of 6 different reports that Asbury Research produces for subscribers throughout the month. It provides a weekly bullet-pointed list of the most influential market factors for:

• the US stock market,
• US interest rates,
• the US Dollar and
• economically-influential commodities like copper and crude oil.

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Keys To This Week
The US Stock Market
Key #3: Dow Theory
July 13th, 2009

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) rose above its May highs between June 1st and June 16th, but the Dow Jones Transportation Index (DJT) did not (see Chart 1 below).

According to Dow Theory, this non-confirmation of a new closing high indicated that a bearish change in the minor trend may be emerging - and would be confirmed by a decline in both indexes below their May lows (at 8,268 in the DJIA and 2,999 in the DJT).

The DJIA took out its May low last week (see pink highlights on chart) but, going into this week, the DJT has not done so.

A decline below 2,999 in the DJT would confirm this potential Dow Theory sell signal and indicate that a near term top is in place in the US stock market at the recent highs.

We first discussed this emerging Dow Theory sell signal in our June 16th Asbury Alert (access requires subscription) entitled, The US Stock Market: 3 Reasons Why A Near Term Peak May Be Emerging At The Recent Highs. We also discussed it during our June 17th appearance on CNBC's Fast Money Halftime Report.

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Asbury Research subscribers can view the entire report by clicking here.

You can request a sample copy of Keys To This Week by clicking here .

Professional investors can learn more about our investment research by visiting the Asbury Research website, and can request a 2-week trial by either clicking here or by calling 224-569-4112.

CNBC's Fast Money Halftime Report:Sector Ideas, & Crude Oil vs. The Broad Market

Asbury Research's John Kosar appeared on CNBC's Fast Money Halftime Report earlier today.

John discussed:

• some sector plays that Asbury Research likes, and
• the relationship between crude oil and the S&P 500 and how that may affect US equity prices over the near term

To view this interview, please click on the image below.

Professional Investors can learn more about our investment research by clicking here, and can request a trial by either clicking here or calling 224-569-4112.

Are The Crocuses Croaking?

The following (green highlights) is an excerpt from today's Keys To This Week report.

Keys To This Week (access requires subscription) is one of 6 different reports that Asbury Research produces for its subscribers throughout the month. It provides a weekly bullet-pointed list of the most influential market factors for:

• the US stock market,
• US interest rates,
• the US Dollar and
• economically-influential commodities like copper and crude oil.

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Keys To This Week
The US Stock Market
July 6, 2009

Back in our March 4th Keys To This Week (access requires subscription), we said; "most of our "Keys" are again situated in the Near Term Negative category -- which continues to suggest that the March rally in the US stock market is either at or near completion".

Despite all the cheerleading in the financial media, amongst talk of "green shoots", crocuses, etc. we note that the S&P 500 is exactly where it was on May 14th.

This Week, and as has been the case for the past two months, the biggest concentration of key factors (see table below) once again falls into the Near Term Negative category. This continues to indicate favorable conditions for at least a several week decline in US equity prices.

Of these factors, the ones that are likely to most immediately and directly affect the US market are crude oil prices (Key #5) and emerging bearish chart patterns (Key #2) in several US and European indexes.

continued...

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The rest of this report is available to Subscribers and Trial Users by clicking here .

You can view sample copies of Keys To This Week and our other reports by clicking here .

You can view some of our recent appearances on CNBC by clicking here .

CNBC's Fast Money Halftime Report:Tech Stocks, The VIX & Gold

Asbury Research's John Kosar appeared on CNBC's Fast Money Halftime Report earlier today.

John discussed:

• whether or not Tech stocks are a good buy here,
• the recent decline in the VIX and what it means for the broad US market, and
• what we can expect from gold prices this Summer

To view this interview, please click on the image below.



Professional Investors can learn more about our investment research by clicking here, and can request a trial by either clicking here or calling 224-569-4112.

Sickly Health Care: Set For A Recovery?

The following (green highlights below) is an excerpt from our Monday June 29th Keys To This Week report.

Keys To This Week (access requires subscription) is one of 6 different reports that we produce for our subscribers throughout the month. It provides a weekly bullet-pointed list of the most influential market factors for the US stock market, US interest rates, the US Dollar and economically-influential commodities like copper and crude oil.

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Keys To This Week
June 29th, 2009
US Stock Market Sectors: Health Care

Correlation studies show that the defensive Health Care Sector typically underperforms while the broad US stock market is rising (as has been the case since early March), and outperforms when the broad market is declining.

Chart 2 below shows that, as recently as June 17th, just 8% of all sector bet-related assets (according to our own metric based on the daily asset flows of the 18 Rydex Sector Funds) were being allocated to the defensive Health Care Sector.

This is a 10-year under-invested extreme which suggests that investors are still too complacent and unworried about a US broad market decline for the March rally to continue much further -- at least without a corrective decline first.

For perspective, the 10-year average percentage of assets invested in the Health Care Sector is 26%, and this percentage actually moved into the 40% to 50% range during the 2002-2002 bear market.

Chart 3 (not shown) provides another look at investor sentiment in the Health Care Sector -- this time via the 5-day moving average of the total daily assets invested in the Rydex Health Care Sector Fund (RYHIX). The chart shows that the amount of assets currently invested in the fund is less than $31 million -- a multi-year under-invested extreme that had previously coincided with or led most of the important bottoms in the Health Care Sector SPDR ETF (XLV) since 2002, as well as extremes in relative underperformance by the XLV versus the S&P 500 Depository Receipts ETF (SPY, not shown).

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In our February 16th blog posting entitled How Long Can Health Care Stay Healthy?, we pointed out that the Health Care Sector was testing its October 2002 peak in relative outperformance. We pointed out that this level had previously marked the beginning of a new trend of relative underperformance by Health Care, and a coincident major bottom in the S&P 500.

Now, Health Care seems to have moved to the opposite end of the spectrum as it has underperformed the S&P 500 by 21% since late February while reaching previous under-invested extremes over the past week or so. We think this carries important directional implications for the US stock market.

We discuss these implications in greater detail in our June 29th Keys To This Week report, along with our latest analysis of the US stock market, stock market sectors, and the US Dollar.

Asbury Research subscribers and Trial Users can view the rest of this report by clicking here .

More information about Asbury Research is available on our website at http://www.asburyresearch.com including:

• some information about us
• some of our recent market calls
• some recent appearances on CNBC
• what our clients are saying about us.

US Stock Prices May Be Getting A Bit Frothy

The following (green highlights below) is an excerpt from our June 22nd Keys To This Week report.

Keys To This Week (access requires subscription), one of 6 different reports that we produce for our subscribers, is a weekly bullet-pointed list of the most influential market factors for the US stock market, US interest rates, the US Dollar and economically-influential commodities like copper and crude oil.

In Monday's report, one of our "Keys" was the percentage of NYSE stocks trading above their 200-day moving average, which had changed dramatically from late February / early March.

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Keys To This Week
June 22nd 2009
The US Stock Market

Key # 8: Overbought/Oversold Metrics
NEAR TO INTERMEDIATE TERM BEARISH

Through Friday, the major US stock indexes remained technically overbought on a near term monthly basis. In addition, there is now some emerging evidence that a more intermediate term overbought condition is also developing.

One of these indications can be seen in the percentage of NYSE stocks trading above their 200-day moving average (blue line, upper panel of Chart 1 below), which is closing in on a 10-year high extreme of 73%.

The red highlights show that previously similar extremes have either coincided with or led most of the near to intermediate term peaks in the S&P 500 (lower panel) since 1998.

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In addition, the green highlights on the chart show that back on March 6th, when many analysts and commentators were calling for a depression (if not saying that the US was already in one) and an even deeper decline in US equity prices, this indicator was at a 10-year low of less than 19% -- one that had previously either coincided with or led every important bottom in US equity prices since 1998.

This was one of a number of different measures that told us that, if the US stock marketwasn't bottoming right then, it was probably close to doing so. I actually discussed this on CNBC's Fast Money on February 25th. You can click here to view the video.

Now the opposite seems to be true. Most of the analysts interviewed in the financial press seem to think the US economy is out of the woods, and that US equity prices are a bargain at current levels. However, the indicator displayed above disagrees and, based on its track record over the past decade, we think its worth paying attention to.

The excerpt in the green font above was one of our 8 US stock market "Keys" for the week of June 22nd, as listed in our Keys To This Week report. This weekly report also includes a similar list of Keys for the US stock market, stock market sectors, and the US Dollar.

You can request a sample copy of Keys To This Week by clicking here .

Professional investors can learn more about our investment research by visiting the Asbury Research website, and can request a 2-week trial by either clicking here or by calling 224-569-4112.