Sideways Correction in the Short Term
Not all is lost.
We’ve held up quite well in April largely experiencing a sideways correction.
That - after a great January and March.
I quietly predicted that April would be an underwhelming month for tech shares and it appears that I am spot on with that call.
It’s true with poor earnings looming, the path of easiest resistance is to the downside, but like we saw with last week’s sideways correction, bad earnings are already priced into the Nasdaq.
Margin compression is widely consensus at this point.
But the real thing going in the markets is that banks have delivered pretty strong earnings debunking the narrative that a recession is coming sooner than first thought.
That means it will take a longer time to reach that rate-cut cycle that all investors are clamoring for.
Then at today’s open we had Alphabet (GOOGL) in the red by 3.5% and growth metaverse stock Roblox (RBLX) down over 12%.
Even if one might surmise that blue chip tech stocks can muscle through the short-term headwinds, the growth stocks are likely to get whacked as investors avoid stocks that have bad balance sheets in times of stress and are most reliant on a rate-easing pivot.
Then if one might believe that the retail trader might bail out the pros, then think again.
Retail traders are usually the ones to pile in at the end delivering that one last magical surge at the end of the bull market.
Well, they won’t be rescuing the Nasdaq anytime soon as retail traders are currently underwater.
The average retail investor portfolio is down by about 27% since November 2021.
Since then, stocks have staged four double-digit bear market rallies. Tech stocks in particular rallied more than 20% — twice.
Retail investors will remain hesitant to raise their risk exposure as they got burned multiple times last year.
Timing is everything with traders and retail traders usually time it wrong without the help of John Thomas.
Wall Street had a turbulent 2022, clocking in its worst year since the 2008 financial crisis while ending a three-year streak of gains. Inflation, rate hikes, and authoritarian lockdowns in China plagued all financial assets last year.
As earnings season gets underway the S&P 500 is projected to post about a 7% decline in first-quarter earnings from a year ago.
Tech forecasts are also predicting lower revenue and growth.
Still, the outperformance coalesces around the usual suspects such as high-profile stocks like Apple (APPL), and Tesla (TSLA), which account for about 30% of the average retail investor’s portfolio while Nvidia (NVDA), and Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) account for 10% of their portfolio.
From these stock picks, NVDA has had a gangbuster rally, up 84% this year given the excitement around ChatGPT and AI engulfing the market.
The Nasdaq pricing in a generative artificial intelligence revolution does not have legs and some of this hot money is bound to escape, setting the stage for some reversion to the mean.
In whole, I’m quite impressed with a sideways correction substituting a selloff and that type of price action is only positive moving forward.
Ultimately, conditions in tech are setting up for yet another possible short-squeeze in the following months.
