In yesterday's Chart Summit, we presented our view on the major asset classes around the globe and noted what we need to see before getting bullish Equities again. (You can watch the full videos of all the presenters for free.)

Unfortunately, current conditions suggest continued volatility so we're looking for short setups to take advantage of it in the coming days/weeks.

Let's take a look at our broader thesis and what stocks and indexes we're shorting to express it in the market.

Since late March we've been watching to see how the counter-trend rally in stocks would develop...and while a few stocks under the surface continue to rally, the Nifty 50 remains stuck below its 2015-2016 highs and most stocks remain in downtrends.

Today we saw the Nifty 50 fail to hold above resistance at 9,000, providing us with a clear level to trade against on the short side to see if bears can retake control of this market. If we do see...

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

We are always looking at intermarket signals and ratio charts for insight into various asset classes. We've recently written plenty about intermarket relationships that signal risk-appetite, or lack thereof, for stocks as well as others to get a read on yields.

Today's Chart of the Day, High Yield Bonds (HYG) vs Short-Term Treasuries (IEI), is one of our favorite risk-appetite ratios.

Credit Market investors favor High Yield Bonds over Treasury Bonds during the "good times" - periods of strong economic growth, rising rates, etc. On the other hand, we know treasuries are a safe-have asset and outperform in environments where investors are uncertain and want a place to park their capital until the smoke clears.

Say what you will about stock market action since the equities bottom was put in on March 23rd, but either way you can't not be impressed.

Do we go higher from here?

I don't know the answer (hint: neither do you), but I do know that if we do, we're going to be continually led by the leaders in this bounce so far. And one of those leaders is the stock who's company everyone uses -- in some way -- whether you realize it or not: Google.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

New Mystery Chart!

For those new to the exercise, we take a chart of interest and remove the x/y-axes and any other labels that would help identify it. The chart can be any security in any asset class on any timeframe on an absolute or relative basis. Maybe it’s a custom index or inverted, who knows!

We do all this to put aside the biases we have associated with this specific security/the market and come to a conclusion based solely on price.

You can guess what it is if you must, but the real value comes from sharing what you would do right now. Buy, Sell, or Do Nothing?

Did you notice how shares of Advanced Micro Devices are trying to finally break out of this 20-year base?

This is a long-term candlestick chart I brought up on our Monthly Conference Call last night.  I used a line chart just to show how clean it is.

The "Multi-decade breakout" thesis is only valid if we're above those 2000 highs. If not, then by definition, it's not a breakout.

That level for me is $44:

This is the video recording of the April 2020 Conference Call.

Options premiums are still pretty elevated across the landscape and the default mode for me when looking for trades to put on is still to prefer selling premium to express any directional bets.

However, JC put some bullish metals ideas in my head last week that are starting to look interesting to me. And there's one in particular that warrants a shot with a debit spread -- where we can use the prevalence of still high options premiums to help us lower our cost of participation in a directional bet.

A question we're getting a lot these days is when the market ultimately does bottom, do we want to be buying the stocks that have been hit the most or the ones that have held up the best during the market's fall?

As with most things in markets and in life, the answer is it depends. In this post, we'll explain why.

This is the video recording of the April 2020 Conference Call.

We're all stuck at home these days and Zoom is how we get to hang out with friends and family.

This week I was chatting with my pal Jeremy over in Laguna Beach about Gold, Silver and Gold Mining Stocks.

I think there are some good opportunities in the space and I think there are areas in which to be patient.

Here's a short video of our discussion:

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Every weekend we publish simple performance tables for a variety of different asset classes and categories along with brief commentary on each.

As this is something we do internally on a daily basis, we believe sharing it with clients will add value and help them better understand our top-down approach. We use these tables to provide insight into both relative strength and market internals.

This week we want to highlight our US Equity Index and Factor tables, as they are both showing near-term reversions in some of the most robust long-term intermarket trends.

Click on table to enlarge view.

This week we saw Mid (MDY), Small (IWM) and Micro-Caps (IWC) outperform the Large-Cap Indexes. If you look at the 1 and 3-month change data, you will notice this was a real divergence from the current trends across market-cap segments. In fact, Large-Caps have been outperforming their...

Earlier this week we discussed an indicator that uses the 200-day moving average to help identify a sustainable low in Indian Equities.

Today, we've got another indicator we're watching closely. Something we call the Breadth of Momentum measure here at All Star Charts.

Yesterday we published a post titled "The Reality Regarding Real Estate" in which we pointed out the long-term underperformance of REITs as a sector. And although we see no signs of this trend reversing any time soon, when we dug into the space we couldn't help but notice a select group of stocks outperforming not just Real Estate, but the broader market as well.

In this post, we will illustrate the relentless strength from this niche group of Data-Center and Cell-Tower REITs and offer two trade ideas in the space.

We also wrote a post lately in which we filtered the S&P 500 down to just 32 of its strongest performers based on a variety of metrics. Despite the weakness from Real Estate as a whole, five of the stocks on that list are actually components in our All Star Charts Custom Data-Center & Cell-Tower REIT Index.

These are the registration details for the monthly conference call for Premium Members of All Star Charts.

This month’s Conference Call will be held on Monday April 13th at 7PM ET. As always, if you cannot make the call live, the video and slides will be archived and published here along with all of the other calls since 2015.

Here are the details for Monday:

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Thanks to everyone for participating in this week’s Mystery Chart. The vast majority of respondents were either sellers or wanted nothing to do with this messy mess of a chart. Some of our less risk-averse participants were willing to bet on a failed breakdown and buy a reversal back above the recent lows.

In our opinion, this is the definition of a structural downtrend and there is very little evidence to suggest that will change anytime soon. With that as our backdrop let's discuss why this chart is on our radar right now.

This is a weekly line chart of Real Estate (IYR) vs the S&P 500 (SPY) looking back about 20-years.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

In our Table Of The Week, we highlighted some of the strongest stocks in the S&P 500 right now. We showed statistical evidence that these stocks have not only performed better over the long-run, but they've also suffered smaller drawdowns in the near-term.

Despite remaining skeptical of what is still a bear market rally in our opinion, there are always opportunities on the long side, we just need to pick our spots carefully and respect our risk management levels. In this post, we're going to outline trade setups in what we believe are some of the most robust uptrends still in place.

If the market moves higher from here, these stocks should continue to exhibit leadership. If it rolls over, they should hold up better than the average stock and our risk will be well-defined to ensure minimal losses in the case we're wrong.