🖥️ Technical Screens: Where Is The Money Flowing? + 20 Most Dominant Themes

Research Notes May 2026 > https://www.unum.capital/post/rmay2026

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In addition to the FREE content, this note contains a PREMIUM section, which highlights the 20 MOST DOMINANT THEMES IN MARKETS i.e. The Strongest ETFs from our screens. This is available to ACTIVE trading clients.

PREMIUM

FREE

OUR +40 TECHNICAL SCREENS ATTEMPT TO ANSWER ONE QUESTION: WHERE IS THE MONEY FLOWING?

The screeners reveals a market characterized by a barbell approach: aggressive yield-seeking behavior paired with targeted, specialized technology accumulation. Professional capital is heavily rotating into hard assets, global defensive stalwarts, and high-cash-flow sectors, while avoiding broad, un-hedged equity index exposure.

While the general market tone appears defensive (heavy allocations to Consumer Staples and Telecoms), the underlying participant behavior is tactical. Traders are chasing technical strength in Energy and Utilities to capture inflation-protected carry, while simultaneously taking highly concentrated, "sniper-shot" positions in niche technology themes like Cybersecurity and Cloud Computing. The dominant trade is a bet on sustained structural friction (energy transition, cyber threats, infrastructure demands) operating in a higher-for-longer yield environment.

Size Factors 📏

Small Cap 🐜: Highly Selective. Broad small-cap indices are not driving the primary momentum. Instead, capital is flowing into specialized small-cap allocations, particularly within niche tech (e.g., specific cybersecurity or software components) and domestic energy exploration.

Mid Cap ⚖️: The Yield Engine. Mid Caps are being heavily utilized for yield and infrastructure plays. The market is treating Mid Caps as the sweet spot for Master Limited Partnerships (MLPs) and energy infrastructure, avoiding the valuation premiums of mega-caps while capturing substantial cash flow.

Large Cap 🐳: Defensive Anchors. Mega-cap exposure is dominated by global cash-flow machines. The "Magnificent Seven" trade is taking a back seat to international giants in telecommunications, tobacco, and non-durable goods. Large-cap positioning is heavily skewed toward capital preservation and dividend capture.

Style Factors 🎨

Value 🏷️: Dominant. Value is explicitly driving the momentum screens. The absolute strength in global telecommunications, regional banks, and legacy energy producers indicates the market is ruthlessly rewarding low multiples and current cash flow over speculative future earnings.

Quality 💎: The Prerequisite. High profitability and elite balance sheets are non-negotiable. The heavy rotation into "Dividend Achievers" and established, monopolistic international infrastructure firms confirms that institutional capital demands proven operational excellence.

Growth 🚀: Niche & Thematic. Broad, market-cap-weighted Growth is absent. Growth capital has fragmented into hyper-specific themes: Cybersecurity, Cloud Computing, and specific Semiconductor supply chains. Investors are buying utility growth, not speculative growth.

Momentum 🌊: The Yield Paradox. The current momentum trade is fundamentally a yield and defensive trade. Technical strength has rotated forcefully into Energy, Utilities, and Consumer Staples, proving that "boring" assets can generate extreme trend velocity when institutional positioning shifts en masse.

Risk & Yield Factors ⚠️

Low Volatility 🛡️: Core Foundation. Institutional money is panic-buying safety that is also performing. The heavy presence of global defensive conglomerates signals a massive flight to assets that provide a buffer against macroeconomic drawdowns.

High Yield / Dividend 💰: The Primary Driver. Funds focused on energy income, MLPs, and high-dividend equities are screaming across the screens. Total return (price + yield) is the absolute focus, acting as an aggressive bond proxy.

Profitability 📊: Absolute Minimum. The screen filters ruthlessly punish non-earners. The market is exclusively chasing companies with trailing profitability and massive free cash flow yields.

Liquidity 💧: Global & Deep. Professional flows are moving into highly liquid, standard-issue sector ETFs and massive global ADRs. Participants are keeping their exit doors wide open.

Carry 🎒: Maximum Velocity. The aggressive surging in Telecoms, Utilities, and Energy infrastructure signals that the "Carry" trade is the dominant institutional strategy, hunting for monthly/quarterly payouts.

Thematic & Sector Factors 🏗️

Defensive 🏰: Absolute Peak. Between global Telecoms, Insurance providers, and Consumer Staples (Food/Tobacco), defensive posturing is at an extreme. Capital is preparing for macroeconomic friction.

Cyclical 🔄: Energy & Infrastructure. Cyclical exposure is narrowly focused on Energy equipment, services, and midstream operators. Classic cyclicals like Consumer Discretionary are largely ignored in favor of hard assets.

ESG / Clean Energy 🌿: Targeted Rebound. Clean energy (Solar, Broad Clean Energy) is showing targeted technical thrusts, operating as a parallel energy security trade alongside traditional hydrocarbons.

Multi-Factor 🧩: Size + Yield. The winning systematic strategies are combining Mid/Large cap stability with extreme dividend yields, particularly in international markets.

Investment Factors 🏭

Investment (Capex) 🏗️: The Grid & Security. Strength in Utilities, Energy Infrastructure, and Cybersecurity implies a massive, structural belief in continued capital expenditure toward modernizing the grid and securing digital assets.

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What is a Technical Screen?

In trading and technical analysis, a technical screen (or "screener") is a systematic process used to filter a vast universe of securities—such as the 100+ liquid names on the JSE or the thousands on the NYSE—down to a manageable shortlist that meets specific, predefined criteria.

Rather than analyzing every chart manually, a screen acts as a quantitative "funnel" to identify setups where the odds are mathematically skewed in your favor.

Why Professionals Use Screens

For an investment professional, a screen is less about "finding a tip" and more about process efficiency and bias reduction:

• Scalability: It allows an analyst to monitor hundreds of shares across multiple timeframes (Daily, Weekly, Monthly) simultaneously.

• Objectivity: It removes emotional attachment to specific "story stocks" and focuses strictly on price action and momentum profiles.

• Early Detection: It identifies sector rotations or "alpha flows" before they become obvious to the broader market.

The Goal: A technical screen doesn't tell you what to buy; it tells you what is worth your time to investigate today. It turns a sea of data into a high-probability "watchlist."

Types of Technical Screens

Rotation: Absolute & Relative

Trend & Phase Scans

• Leading Phase: Strong across all timeframes.

• Lagging Phase: Weak across all timeframes.

• Waking Up / Turnaround: Short-term strength appearing in a long-term downtrend.

• Deteriorating: Short-term weakness appearing in a long-term uptrend.

Momentum & Velocity

• Power Trend: Extreme bullish momentum pushing a strong trend higher.

• Hyper Momentum: Parabolic, highly volatile upside.

• Violent Breakout: Explosive short-term push reversing a weak long-term trend.

• Momentum Squeeze: Timeframe convergence (coiling) usually preceding an explosive price move.

Over-extended & Extremes

• Extreme Overbought: Euphoria across the board.

• Extreme Oversold: Severe panic selling across the board.

• Overbought Warning in Bear Trend: Violent counter-trend rally ripe for short-selling.

• Deep Dip in Bull Trend: Sharp, over-extended pullback in a primary uptrend.

• Capitulation: Total institutional abandonment.

Volatility & Accumulation

• Steady Accumulation: High-quality, low-drama buying.

• Low Volatility Compounders: Slow, steady, highly predictable uptrends.

• High Volatility Momentum: Strong trend with wild daily swings.

• High-Vol Laggards: Dangerous wealth-destroyers with massive daily swings.

• Dead Money: Trapped in a tight, directionless neutral zone.

Market Structure & Divergences

• Perfect Bull Alignment: Textbook sequential leadership (Short-term leads medium-term, which leads long-term).

• Perfect Bear Alignment: Textbook sequential breakdown (Short-term leads the decline, dragging down medium and long-term trends).

• Bullish Divergence: Shorter timeframes dragging a dead long-term trend higher.

• Bearish Divergence: Shorter timeframes breaking down while the long-term trend still looks great.

• Stealth Bull: Creeping accumulation while the long-term chart still looks bad.

• Stealth Bear: Creeping distribution while the long-term chart still looks good.

• MT Turnaround: Medium-term momentum just crossing out of weakness, pulled by short-term strength.

• MT Breakdown: Medium-term momentum just dropping out of strength, dragged by short-term weakness.

Transitions & Pullbacks

• Bull Market Correction: Healthy pullback into weak territory within a strong primary trend.

• Bear Market Rally: Sharp bounce into strong territory within a primary downtrend.

• Bullish Stall: Short-term momentum flatlining inside a strong trend.

• Base Building: Bleeding has stopped, chopping sideways at the bottom.

Lester Davids

Senior Investment Analyst: Unum Capital