I have moved around a lot in my life as my husband's job has taken us to many cities. Someone told me early on after the first move that the second year is always easier, because you can look back and remember what you were doing a year ago because a year ago you were living in that city, not your prior city. It's more familiar.
I think about that a lot, because markets are like that. We tend to remember certain events that took place and what the market was doing a year ago, two years ago, five, or even decades ago, if we are lucky enough to still be involved in the markets for most of our career.
I ask you to consider what the chatter was in markets one year ago -- that would be late March/early April 2022. I'll give you one hint: Everyone was watching Cathie Wood and her Ark Funds, namely (ARKK) . As the market slid in the April -- or even before that -- folks were quoting ARKK the same way they quote the bank fund (KRE) or regional bank index today. I see CNBC now has the KRE quote up as part of its rotation in the box in the lower right. They did that with ARKK a year ago.
But who quotes ARKK anymore? Oh sure, Cathie is still on TV. Folks still listen to what she says, but I'd bet that most folks couldn't tell you where ARKK is trading these days. A year ago they could probably quote it down to the penny and if it was up or down on the day and how much.
Let's take a look at this chart that no one fusses over anymore. It's certainly got lower highs, but notice that with the exception of that spike down to $35, when the Silicon Valley Bank (SIVB) crisis hit, it's done a whole lot of nothing in the month of March. If it crosses that downtrend line -- let's call it $40 -- will folks get excited over it again? It's worth thinking about, isn't it?
Wednesday's market had another day of good breadth. It's not good enough to say it's leading the market, because it isn't, but it is now the fourth straight day of positive breadth, something we haven't seen since early January. And it has been good enough to turn the McClellan Summation up enough that we can see it with the naked eye.
Still not much has changed in the indicators since many of them turned upward in the last week or so. Short-term we're still not overbought yet. I'll call it a smidgen overbought, maybe enough to see the market down for a day or two.
Finally the VIX is a teenager again, but the Daily Sentiment Index (DSI) is at 34 this time, so while I would say don't get complacent in this market, a down day or two in the indexes could lift the VIX back over 20.
