CLIENT TALKING POINTS

10YR

Did the 10-year US Treasury Yield just go over the waterfall of interconnected risk? After one of the more epic 2 hour moves I’ve ever seen for the 10-year yield (between 8:30-10:30am on Friday), my long-term TAIL risk line of 2.60% broke (2.58% this morning). Gold is breaking out again and European stocks don’t like it inasmuch as high multiple US Growth Stocks won’t. 

GOLD

After frustrating people who missed the rip higher to $1380 in early March, Gold has been consolidating and finally broke out above my immediate-term TRADE momentum line of $1292 on Friday. There is 0% coincidence in that after the 10-year yield gave it direction. Gold loves falling bond yields.

EUROPE

Europe is down hard this morning (Germany's DAX -1.3%) after most European Equity markets failed to make higher-highs last week. While EuroStoxx600 was up +1.3% last week to +2.9% beats being long the Russell2000 (down -3.0% YTD), it is May… and I’m not into the "Buy in May and Pray" thing.

TOP LONG IDEAS

HOLX

HOLX

Hologic is emerging from an extremely tough period which has left investors wary of further missteps. In our view, Hologic and its new management are set to show solid growth over the next several years. We have built two survey tools to track and forecast the two critical elements that will drive this acceleration.  The first survey tool measures 3-D Mammography placements every month.  Recently we have detected acceleration in month over month placements.  When Hologic finally receives a reimbursement code from Medicare, placements will accelerate further, perhaps even sooner.  With our survey, we'll see it real time. In addition to our mammography survey. We've been running a monthly survey of OB/GYNs asking them questions to help us forecast the rest of Hologic's businesses, some of which have been faced with significant headwinds.  Based on our survey, we think those headwinds are fading. If the Affordable Care Act actually manages to reduce the number of uninsured, Hologic is one of the best positioned companies.

OC

OC

Construction activity remains cyclically depressed, but has likely begun the long process of recovery.  A large multi-year rebound in construction should provide a tailwind to OC shares that the market appears to be underestimating.  Both residential and nonresidential construction in the U.S. would need to roughly double to reach post-war demographic norms.  As credit returns to the market and government funded construction begins to rebound, construction markets should make steady gains in coming years, quarterly weather aside, supporting OC’s revenue and capacity utilization.

DRI

DRI

Darden is the world’s largest full service restaurant company. The company operates +2000 restaurants in the U.S. and Canada, including Olive Garden, Red Lobster, LongHorn and Capital Grille. Management has been under a firestorm of criticism for poor performance. Hedgeye's Howard Penney has been at the forefront of this activist movement since early 2013, when he first identified the potential for unleashing significant value creation for Darden shareholders. Less than a year later, it looks like Penney’s plan is coming to fruition. Penney (who thinks DRI is grossly mismanaged and in need of a major overhaul) believes activists will drive material change at Darden. This would obviously be extremely bullish for shareholders and could happen fairly soon driving shares materially higher.

Asset Allocation

CASH 30% US EQUITIES 0%
INTL EQUITIES 10% COMMODITIES 24%
FIXED INCOME 18% INTL CURRENCIES 18%

THREE FOR THE ROAD

TWEET OF THE DAY

Yield Spread (10yr minus 2yr) coming in hot to +216bps - fresh YTD low (bearish for Financials $XLF) @KeithMcCullough

QUOTE OF THE DAY

"Courage is fear holding on a minute longer." -General George Patton

STAT OF THE DAY

Sorry, Vladimir. The Russian stock market continues to crash. It is down 20.7% year-to-date.