It’s been a wild ride since the March lows.
In the past four months, the S&P 500 has roared 47% off that bottom and now holds just over 5% from its February record high.
Todd Gordon, managing director at Ascent Wealth Partners, takes a step back to assess where it heads next.
“We’ve seen a very, very sharp move higher without any real retracement or weakness to allocate capital towards so in this kind of environment, you need to be OK with buying strength because there really is no weakness to give you an entry,” Gordon told CNBC’s “Trading Nation” on Thursday. “This is not the kind of market to let you get in on deals. You need to be OK with buying momentum.”
This bounce is even sharper in the five largest stocks in the S&P 500 – Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet and Facebook. Amazon, for example, is up 85% since March.
“We’re sort of moving into this ‘winner take most’ or ‘winner take all’ sort of environment where large-cap tech is driving forward and changing the way we will interact,” said Gordon.
To make sense of this move, Gordon said it helps to view it as part of a longer-term move.
“It’s really important to keep in mind that this sharp rally that we’ve seen since the March lows is in the context of a much larger consolidation pattern that began back here in January 2018,” he added. “Don’t be afraid to look at the charts, whether you’re a short-term trader, maybe you’re a swing trader, or a longer-term investor, just know your context.”
Gordon added that his previous price target of 4,000 within the next two years is still feasible. The S&P was trading at 3,220 on Friday. Since the March 2009 bottom, the benchmark index has rallied 375%.
