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Forget Google as your market tell for tech.
You don't need to watch Advanced Micro Devices if you're curious as to where tech is headed near term, either.
And, just in case you need to hear it one more time -- Dell (DELL, news, msgs) is yesterday's news. (Hmm, typing that makes me want to buy some Dell, so I guess I'll put that one on the potential shopping list for when I'm buying again.)
Nope, instead of those good ol' fashioned tech-trading clues, my eyes keep going back to Titanium Metals (TIE, news, msgs). Since last Wednesday, this stock is down more than 20% from what I am going to officially label a "blow-off top." Whether it's simply a near-term or a full on long-term top is yet to be determined, but TIE now needs to rally a full 30% just to get back to where it was this time last Wednesday noon
It's cyclical
And the catalyst for such a horrid trashing of the stock? Well, you sure can't point to the Wall Street Journal story about Airbus paying big, new high prices to secure titanium over the next nine years, which was supposed to be a big indication of endless boom in the industrial metal sector. At least according to the commodity-loving bulls, of which there are plenty.But as Timothy Rupert, the CEO from titanium supplier RTI International Metals (RTI, news, msgs), said on CNBC's "Kudlow & Company" the other night after actually signing that nine-year contract with Airbus: "It's a cyclical business." His own company's stock is now down about 20% since last Wednesday.
And you want to sell the cyclicals in a boom and buy them in a bust.
You heard about the ongoing longest streak of double-digit earnings growth since the 1950s? I've been calling this economy a boom. I think we're still very early in that boom. Heck, I even think the potential still exists for a true tech echo bubble over the next few years.
But I sure don't want to fight the forces that are trashing RTI when the company just secured nine years worth of visibility.
At the time of publication, the firm in which Willard is a partner was net long Google, although positions can change at any time and without notice.
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