Throughout the last 9 months (as US growth went from slowing to stabilizing to accelerating) markets have provided us plenty of opportunity to get into growth related asset classes and out of slow growth ones. August to-date is no different:

1.   Utilities (XLU) are the most overvalued slice of the slow-growth equity pie (with hyper-overvalued securities like MLPs within this Sector Style Risk). XLU is down -1.38% for August to-date (versus SPY +0.5%)

2.   Tech (XLK) and Basic Materials (XLB) are up the most for August to-date at +2.11% and +2.45% respectively. Both are traditionally considered “growth” sectors but for very different reasons. AAPL is not CAT.

Slow Growth? Get Out of the Way - Utilities Yield Spread

Where could we be wrong? Our research on something like Caterpillar (CAT) has been bearish, but now the market signal is stress testing our conviction in maintaining that position. If CAT were to close above my long-term TAIL risk line of $88.67 and hold that level on some real volume, my risk management process stops me out of the position.

Do I live my market life from looking inside our portfolio of ideas or from the outside looking in? The truth is that I do both. It’s a learning process. Whenever I ignore the outside, top-down, macro market signals, I will be reminded that volatility lives on the other side of my position’s underlying assumptions. And not in a good way.

(Editor's note: This brief excerpt is from Hedgeye's "Morning Newsletter" written by CEO Keith McCullough. Click here for more information.)