Year End Mid Term Election Year Rally Underway. Small & Mid Cap Stocks Leading.

The strong mid-term election year end rally is underway.  Small-cap (IWM) and mid-cap (MDY) ETFs have taken the lead.

Biotechnology ETFs post new 52 week highs

Public Investor Sentiment is Extremely Negative

Public market sentiment is extremely negative.  Fear is currently running higher than it did during the Euro Debt Crisis of 2011.  The difference then was that fear didn't reach similar levels in 2011 until all of the problems with the euro zone became apparent and the S&P 500 had corrected approximately 15-20%.  Fear is higher today with less downside movement in equities.  What's interesting is how negative public sentiment is when compared to investor sentiment.  Investor Intelligence reports somewhat bearish or neutral sentiment while public sentiment has become extremely negative, extremely fast.  This is generally good for the stock market.

(charts courtesy CNN Fear & Greed, Stockcharts.com)

How much is oil worth?

How much is oil worth?  In my opinion, much less that its current price.  As illustrated above, the price of oil does not have a definitive long term price trend.  Analysts will often use supply and demand data in order to forecast the price of oil as they do with gold and other commodities.  They do not, however, take into consideration how technological evolution not only affects oil exploration, but oil usage.  Is it reasonable to assume that the world will consume more oil in the future than it does today?  I think the price of oil is based on approximately 75% public psychology and 25% current fundamentals.  It is short sighted to suggest that over time, a better technology won't replace oil as a primary source of energy (ie. solar).  Oil, other commodities, bonds and real estate tend to go up in price when global stocks are not (i.e. during a secular bear market).  We're now in a secular bull market for global equities that probably began in 2012.  Expect most commodities (including oil) to fall in price.  Based its historical price, a barrel of oil is probably worth around $30.

Small Cap Stocks To Lead Long Term

Everyone knows that small cap stocks are the canary-in-the-coal mine for the economy.  One can assess the strength of the overall global economy based on the performance of small cap stocks relative to large cap stocks.  They tend to outperform when business conditions are good (i.e. consumers are spending, fear is moderate, lenders are lending, interest rates are low, etc.)  During bear markets, small cap stocks underperform.  During bull markets, they outperform.  We are currently witnessing the beginning of long term small cap stock outperformance.

From a technical perspective, IWM which tracks the Russell 2000 small cap index, has broken out of a large ascending triangle pattern and is on its way to new highs.  We're just getting started...

Akamai breaks out. Tech leadership expands.

What began as market leadership in biotechnology stocks quickly spread to internet stocks and is now perpetuating in the NASDAQ 100 mega cap stocks.  We are entering a period of broad based tech market leadership which may continue for the duration of this bull market that began in 2009.  It is important to note that both the biotechnology and the internet index has doubled in a 2 year time frame.

Fear Seems Overdone

There seems to be an awful lot of fear present in this relatively neutral market lull.  I'm not sure what to make of it.  A "difficult" period of market congestion may lay ahead.  Fear index is from CNN, VIX chart from stockcharts.com.