Is there such a thing as too much momentum in today’s market? Not according to one technician, who says stocks haven’t seen this much force since 1999.
Jonathan Krinsky of MKM Partners compared the MSCI Momentum index, which tracks stocks with the best performance over the prior year, with the S&P 500.
“The spread between the two is 15 percent for the year right now,” he said Monday on CNBC’s “Trading Nation.” “That’s the biggest spread in favor of momentum since 1999, so it’s not surprising that we’re getting people thinking that we’ve gone too far.”
While the market’s sustained momentum has some investors nervous, Krinsky said it isn’t showing hints of two key indicators that show the trade is going too far.
The first is when momentum stocks stop outperforming and start breaking down below their moving averages. The second is when they extend even higher from their moving averages, creating what the technical analyst calls a “blowoff scenario,” where essentially the stock runs up too far and “exhausts all the buyers.”
Since neither scenario looks to be on the horizon, Krinsky says the typical high momentum stocks, namely the FANG stocks, banks and some of the semiconductor stocks, still have room to run.
But if investors are looking for more of a catch-up trade, Krinsky also believes energy stocks are looking more attractive. The “anti-momentum trade,” as he refers to the sector, has actually seen heavier trading volume on positive days despite still being the second worst-performing sector of the year.
The Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq all closed at all-time record highs on Monday.
Stocks are trading like it's 1999, and that's actually a good thing