The market opened down 50 and is up 40 at midday - you can't keep a recovering market down. Positives include the iron ore price as Brazil runs into production concerns, a recovery in the Chinese economy with PMI numbers above 50 this morning, the oil price up 5% ahead of an OPEC meeting on Thursday that has been brought forward, a bounce in the banks from the lows this morning and the falls on Friday, a continuation of the 'Travel Trade' (FLT and WEB going up) and a less severe than expected US response to the Hong Kong moves by China. Rising case numbers in a number of countries and Race Riots in the US don't help but have been overwhelmed. We have updated the ALL ORDS SPREADSHEET this morning and have an interesting email from a Member in the Strategy piece which describes how to invest as a private investor. Worth the read. Sorry about the Golf analogy I made in the reply. 

This week Henry's guest is a technical analyst with a serious pedigree. Most members of Marcus Today will know that Henry is not a technical analyst. Being colour blind does not help. But many follow Technical Analysis and it is a significant part of investment timing.

Regina Meani is one of Australia’s best-known technical analysts and had a career working for some of the biggest brokers and investment banks in Australia. She has written a book on the subject which is available on her web site called "Charting". When Henry first met Regina she had emigrated to Sydney and was working for Bain and Co (as it was, now Deutsche Bank). At that time technical analysis was called "charting" and was a very hands on business that required a pencil and graph paper. Henry and Regina talk charting as well as her current technical market view and the levels she is looking at. Regina is now an independent technical analyst and consults extensively to brokers and private professional traders.

A floppy end to a great week. The ASX 200 is still firmly in uptrend having broken out in the last week. The bank sector tops out today after an 18% rise in four days but is still 40% off its pre-COVID-19 high and is the second worst performing sector after energy. If this V-shaped recovery optimism continues the sector will go higher having over-provided for bad debts and on the chance some of them reinstate deferred dividends. No change to the strategy settings today. Still overweight technology, resources, REITs, recovery plays (Travel). We'll see what Trump says tonight - whether he turns the market's attention from recovery to trade. He would have to go hard to do that. We go through all our Watchlist charts every day. A few stocks are topping out and others looking good. See the Strategy section. 

The markets are piling it on again led by the banks. The weekly chart of the ASX 200 registered both MACD and RSI buy signals this morning. The main Strategy message today is about the banks. We are getting back to a neutral weighting in the sector in the Growth SMA as an insurance policy against underperformance rather than in our excitement over banks. This is not the tech sector, it is a low growth large sector seeing a sentiment recovery. Read the newsletter to tell you why the sector is moving but the message is that for income focused investors it could be the end of that once in a decade opportunity to pick up big income stocks. There is just a chance they reinstate those dividends as well having over-provisioned for a economic Armageddon that may not happen. The Marcus Today growth SMA is now up 24.76% from the bottom and you can add another 2% if the market holds up today. That's also an outperformance of 23.1% since February 20. Whatever we are doing in these Strategy sections and in the podcasts, it works. Keep listening. 

Banks are flying again as the Morrison speech highlights that gloomy economic forecasts, and the Jobkeeper forecast budget hole, had been based on erroneous medical advice in February predicting lockdowns to September. As we come out three months earlier than that it means the Government is better off than expected, has the ability to stimulate certain sectors more than expected and that all the economic forecasts are too gloomy. Brokers are upgrading GDP forecasts this morning. At the same time, for the banks, it looks like they too have over-provisioned for the economic damage to their customer base and have raised more capital than they need and over-provisioned for bad debts, provisions that will now flatter future results as they are added back. The two day Bank Bounce adds to the Recovery bounce elsewhere in the market, particularity in Travel and REITs. Meanwhile Technology and Healthcare are almost back to their highs. Happy Days. 

The "Recovery Trade" is on. Our market up 118 yesterday with recovery sectors like Travel, Leisure, Tourism, Energy and REITs leading the way. Even banks put in a show. And it continues this morning with the US and UK markets shut but the German market up 2.9% with travel and leisure in the lead in Europe as well as they consider lifting European travel restrictions/flights by the end of June. Our market up 90 at midday ahead of what is expected to be an Economic arousal speech by Morrison at 12:30pm. Today, as an added extra, we talk about some of the lessons that we have learned running a fund over the last few years and how they have led to our outperformance in this episode. The Marcus Today SMA is as high as its ever been and is up over 3% since the COVID-19 sell-off hit whilst the market is down over 20%. 

We were worrying about Hong Kong upsetting the markets this morning but it wasn't to be. We are flying along again. We have written about Hong Kong but judging from the market's reaction we needn't have bothered. Strategy remains pretty much unchanged - fully invested, biased to recovery stocks, and watching for something to go wrong but there's no sign of that yet.  

In this week’s podcast, Henry is On the Couch with Martin Crabb, the CIO of one of Australia’s broking success stories Shaw and Partners. Martin talks about why we have such a disconnect between economic reality and the market rally. He also talks about the sectors and stocks that he believes will continue to do well as we return to normal. Martin is a very experienced strategist and is instrumental in developing the model portfolios at Shaw and Partners. Another great guest and as you will hear, he used to for a billion dollar soccer team with...Henry. Enjoy!

Martin joined Shaw and Partners in April 2011. Prior to joining Shaw and Partners, Martin was an Executive Director at Macquarie Group where he worked for over 20 years in roles spanning Institutional Stockbroking, Wealth Management, Research and Portfolio Management. Martin holds a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and Mathematics from the University of Melbourne, with postgraduate studies in Applied Finance 

There's a podcast available in which the Equity Mates interview Marcus for an hour. Worth listening to. Not much change on the strategy front this morning. Still fully invested. Still playing recovery stocks. Still playing energy stocks. Been going underweight banks to fund other recovery plays. Seems to be working, recovery stocks (like IEL, WEB, FLT, QAN, WOR, STO) seeing the most interest yesterday and today and boring quality (CSL, Banks, WOW, RMD, FPH, RHC, COL) underperforming when the market rises. Holiday in the US on Monday. We're sliding silently into the weekend. 

The US market takes another solid step overnight.  It seems every man and his rat has a vaccine now. Reminds me of the Lithium boom. Suddenly everyone's involved in a vaccine. Not complaining.  Not sure there is much to add this morning, the market is doing exactly what we are positioned for. The light in my office has gone from Red to Green and there is a chance that today we will break up and out of the sideways trading range. There is one strategy change today. We have decided to progressively use the capital tied up in the banks to fund more geared recovery plays if the market continues to rally. They are high street banks not investment banks which is why their US counterparts (JP Morgan, Citibank, Goldman Sachs) are enjoying the bounce whilst they are out in the cold.