Hartnett: The Buy Signal Triggered In Mid-October Ended Last Week

It's the final month of the year, and most strategists are closing out their books, taking vacations, and generally looking to write as little as possible, and BofA's Chief Investment Strategist Michael Hartnett is one of them. As a result his latest Flow Show is relatively sparse, but still contains enough information to keep his fans satisfied for a few days.

Hartnett, like most commentators, starts off by highlighting the tremendous "November to Remember" for all asset classes (profiled here in great detail), and focuses on the stunning performance of 60/40 portfolios which soared by +9.6% in November, their best month since Dec'91 (which just happened to be the month the USSR dissolved). And in keeping with his cautious nature, Hartnett warns that pullbacks tend to follow monster months (60/40 -2.5% in Jan’92, -3.2% in Q1’92).

Next, the bearish strategist who correctly called the November meltup even as his bullish peers were doubling down on pessimism (see "Wall Street's Biggest Bear Turns Bullish: "A Buy Signal Was Just Triggered"), turns to his favorite theme for 2024, namely the 3Bs of Bonds, Bullion, Breadth, which was bid-only in Nov as the narrative suddenly flipped back to “lower = softer”, resulting in an 11% surge for 30Y Treasuries, the 4th best month since 1988, as well as i) HY CDX bond spreads back to YTD tights (400bps), ii) gold >$2000/oz; iii) US regional banks +16% besting Magnificent Seven +14% as buyers’ strike in "leverage" ends.