Image Source: Pixabay

As a long-time baseball fan, I know a lot of the classic expressions around that sport. One comes to mind when I look back at what has transpired in the stock market recently: Every time you go to a ballgame, you see something you’ve never seen before. Meanwhile, I recently reviewed the iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF (EEM) and said it was “what a strong chart looks like”.

Remember oil futures going negative? Bond yields flying up from near zero? The S&P 500 falling 33% in five weeks? Few remember those events now. After all, they were all the way back in 2020. But they happened.

Now, I’ve just seen something none of us have. The Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ) falls down, then falls some more...but as if there was some giant swap agreement from QQQ to small caps and industrials, funds like the iShares Russell 2000 ETF (IWM) and the SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF (DIA) move practically in the opposite direction.

There are some market “events” that can be blown off as merely part of the long-term investing process. I’m going to wait a bit before I chalk this up to another mini-meltdown, a la Nvidia Corp. (NVDA) dropping 10% in a day last spring.

As for the EEM and that strong chart? My vision was out perhaps six months into the future. And, right on cue, EEM reminded me/us what markets are about these days. A lack of “sustainability” in up and down moves. Here it was as of late last week.

The difference is that what looked like a potential “curling up” in the price of EEM did occur in DIA and elsewhere, but not here. There is still such a “home bias” by US investors, that when both presumptive US presidential nominees speak about policy toward Asia, that can stop what looked like it might be a moving train.

But this is just short-term trading stuff. My work looks more to what hasn’t changed about EEM during this nutsy week we just had.

Specifically, while the strong breakout up through $44 has not yet occurred, the not-unusual-to-see pullback still puts EEM squarely in the middle of the up-trending set of lines I’ve drawn in. Think of this as a car staying in its lane, even if it is not going exactly straight. Frankly, it is too much to ask of nearly any ETF or stock to break out “cleanly” as this one looked poised to do.

Recommended Action: Buy EEM

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