In our opinion, the main concern that the market has to deal with going forward is inflation. Fed Chairman, Jerome Powell’s recent comments that it was transitory are becoming increasingly more suspect, notes technician and relative strength specialist Dan Sullivan, editor of The Chartist.
As you can see by the chart below, the yield on the 10 year note has been trending higher since the beginning of August and, as you know the bond market is a very good barometer of inflationary expectations.
The angle of ascent of the consumer price index (CPI) is beginning to steepen. But the most dramatic of all has been the jump in the CPI over the last several months.
The producer price index measures price changes before they reach consumers which makes it an earlier prediction of inflation than the CPI.
If you want further evidence of inflation, the light crude oil continuous contract clocked in at the highest level since 2014. Inflation is definitely the major part of the wall of worry that the market has to climb. Meanwhile, here we spotlight two stocks that have ranked highly in terms of relative strength.
Paycom Software (PAYC) currently holds down the #18 spot in our ratings. It provides a cloud-based human capital management software solution delivered as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). The company provides functionality and data analytics that businesses need to manage the complete employment life cycle from recruitment to retirement.
Its applications streamline client processes and provide clients and their employees with the ability to directly access and manage administrative processes.
These processes include applications that identify candidates, on-board employees, manage time and labor, administer payroll deductions and benefits, manage performance, terminate employees and administer post-termination health benefits, such as COBRA. The company’s solution allows clients to analyze employee information to make business decisions.
The stock has been in a strong uptrend since its mid-May lows. It has traded above its 50 and 200-day moving averages since July 20. It gapped higher on August 4, after reporting better-than-expected second quarter earnings.
The company posted revenue of $242.1 million, up 33.3% from a year ago. Earnings rose 56% to $0.97 per share, beating the consensus estimate of $0.83 per share. The shares currently trades near their all-time highs.
Datadog Inc. (DDOG) enters our ratings this week at the #20 position. It provides monitoring and analytics platform for developers, information technology (IT) operations teams and business users in the cloud age.
Its Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform integrates and automates infrastructure monitoring, application performance monitoring and log management to provide real-time observability of its customers’ entire technology stack.
Datadog is used by organizations of all sizes and across a range of industries to enable digital transformation and cloud migration, drive collaboration among development, operations and business teams, understand user behavior and track key business metrics.
The stock has more than doubled since its May 6, intraday low at $69.73. It moved above its 50 and 200-day lines mid-June and remains comfortably above these areas.
Second-quarter earnings and revenue topped estimates. Earnings rose 80% to an adjusted 9 cents per share from the same period a year earlier. Revenue jumped 67% to $233.5 million.
