A Breakout of Breakdowns in Europe

Faithful readers are familiar with our use of point-and-figure charting.  As a quick review, we prefer to use a relative strength methodology wherein each 'x' (or 'o') represents a 2.5% gain (or loss) relative to the benchmark.  This results in a reduction of the day-to-day noise in price fluctuations and we are left with a better idea of important trends in a particular stock.  After noting a general uptick in new lows and declining shares among MSCI Europe constituents earlier this week (see here), we took a closer look at the technical scores of individual companies.  It is not uncommon to see a handful of names with a decline of two or more points over a month's time. However, we usually don't see seventeen companies that have deteriorated so much on a technical basis-- especially when you consider the aforementioned efforts to moderate the noise in price movements.  Of note, about one-third of these companies are in defensive sectors (Consumer Staples and Health Care) while another third are in the Industrials sector.