I think our messaging has been clear that we want to be buying equities, and buying those showing relative strength. The Nifty Financial Services index and the Nifty Bank index are sitting just off all-time highs relative to the Nifty 500, so I've done a deep dive into them to highlight the best large, mid, and small cap names on the long side. I've also included some names from the Nifty Public Sector (PSU) Bank index, but would note that it's hitting 2-year lows relative to the Nifty 500 and therefore has a much smaller representation on this list despite being part of the Financial Services sector as a whole. 

I am a firm believer that the Stock Market, U.S. or otherwise, is in an uptrend that began in early 2016, or summer of 2016. You can buy me beers one day and we'll discuss less relevant data points, like this 6 month difference, that dorks like me enjoy arguing about over beers. The point is, however, that this is a new bull market, not a 9-year old one like some people like to tell you.

So if we're in a bull market, then consolidations within this uptrend should resolve in the direction of the underlying trend, which is up in our opinion. The first industry group to break out from this consolidation the past couple of months and make new highs is Software. It's a major standout guys and we need to pay attention. So here's a breakdown of the sector components and which ones we want to be buying right now.

Every month I host a conference call for All Star Charts Premium Members where we discuss ongoing themes throughout the global marketplace as well as changes in trends where new positions would be most appropriate. This includes U.S. Stocks & Sectors, International Stock Indexes, Commodities, Currencies and Interest Rate Markets.

The new volatility regime in 2018 has caused many to question the uptrend in stocks that we've seen the past couple of years. In this call we will go over all of the markets around the world including intermarket relationships that help us identify whether risk appetite overwhelms any risk aversion we're seeing from institutional investors. On Tuesday, we'll focus on the strongest sectors and strongest stocks that we believe will be leaders during the next leg higher throughout the rest of 2018.

This month's Conference Call will be held on Tuesday May 15th at 7PM ET. Here are the Registration Details:

In a recent report to Allstarcharts Premium subscribers, J.C. laid out a case why he's bullish on the Industrials sector and why that's important to the overall market. Not ever one to mince words: "we want to be buying right here right now and very aggressively. The bet is that Industrials are now heading higher and leading the market to new all-time highs." That sounds pretty convincing to me!

Please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Sean McLaughlin and I’ve been involved in financial markets as a Trader, Exchange Member, blogger, in building social communities, podcasting, training and in sales for 20 years.

Some of you may already know me or have engaged with me on Twitter, Medium, or StockTwits where I go by the handle @chicagosean. Others may know me from the 7 years I spent as Director of Community at StockTwits, and a few more may know me in my role of Sales, Training, & Strategy at Trade Ideas, LLC.

Wherever you may or may not know me from, I’m happy to be teaming up with my friend JC Parets at Allstarcharts.com to build upon his excellent and unparalleled work in providing actionable insights to the financial community.

Together, we are launching All Star Options to leverage JC’s well known skills in separating facts reflected in price action from the ever deafening social and financial media noise, and combining it with my ability to construct simple, straightforward action plans to...

I've been looking forward to this day all year. All Star Options is now live - Go check it out!

Over the years we've built a customer base of smart, well informed and eager to learn investors from all over the world. Active Traders, Hedge Funds, Banks, Financial Advisors and many others come to Allstarcharts for unbiased technical analysis research with invariable consistency. We service most of the largest and most powerful financial institutions on earth, but the price point is also approachable for investors trading their own accounts.

Since creating this research platform, I've noticed an overwhelming demand for options strategies. Until now, traders have just taken my work and then crafted options trades to express some of my best ideas in the derivatives market. I get emails from Wall Street Traders, for example, telling me how much business they get what they turn my ideas into options trades for their buy side clients. Individual traders do the same, but for their own...

In my last post I outlined the evidence from India and around the globe that suggests equities as an asset class are headed higher. I pointed out the failed head and shoulders topping patterns in the Nifty 50 and other indices that should fuel the move higher. With that being said, I wanted to outline the Nifty 50 stocks where I believe the risk is defined best and the reward/risk is still favorable.

When I go through all of the crypto currencies, the healthiest one and the only one already pressing up against key resistance is Ethereum. You guys know I look for relative strength and positive momentum. Ethereum is showing characteristics of both right now.

Today I want to take a look at what we're seeing in Ether, as the great Nasir Jones would refer to it. He's one of our generations greatest poets and I think what we're seeing in the Ether right now is pure poetry.

When I go through charts of the most popular crypto currencies, it's hard to ignore the fact that we're seeing prices breaking out above downtrend lines from their respective highs. Go one by one, we're seeing it all over.

So what does that mean? Should we be buying all the crypto currencies right now?

From the desk of Tom Bruni

Since the market's volatility picked up in late January, one key piece of the bear thesis has been weakness in Technology, yet we've not seen a crack and flush lower. I don't know about you, but I was promised a "Tech Wreck" and will not leave until we get one or Mr. Market provides me a refund.

Okay I'm being facetious, but in this post I want to outline what I'm watching and explore what the implications are if the potential bearish patterns in this sector don't pan out.

Just because a stock or an index is choppy and moving sideways doesn’t mean we can’t participate in some profits. There’s opportunity in every situation, especially with options.

I'm going to disappoint the options eggheads with my opinions here, because I'm going on gut feel.

I haven't done any exhaustive research. I haven't done any volatility skew analysis or 3D modeling. I haven't reviewed seasonality patterns, or dug deep into open interest imbalances.

No, I haven't done any of that.

Simply trusting my gut, it feels to me fear of stock market risk is being overplayed and everyone who is scared of headlines, trouble in the White House, geopolitics, etc (which seems is nearly everyone) has already fully hedged their risk or has put on speculative short positions and are thus natural buyers into any dips to profitably cover their positions -- which in effect helps to put a floor under equities.

Think about it.

From the desk of Tom Bruni

Many have fixated their attention on the "triangle pattern" that's formed the NYSE Composite Index and other major US indices.  This pattern is a visual representation of the indecision between buyers and sellers in the market, and its resolution typically leads to a significant move in the direction of its breakout.  In times like this where the index itself has little directional conviction, a study of the components may offer some insight into which way the market resolves.

It's impossible for me to ignore. As someone who pays such close attention to Momentum, the fact that there are so few stocks showing bearish momentum characteristics is absurd. The overwhelming strength being shown here from stocks is spectacularly bullish in my opinion. Combine that with the fact that everyone thinks the world is coming to end, and boom, you've got a trade!

Until proven otherwise, it is irresponsible to be positioning for a bear market right now. The talking heads and twitterverse all seem to be rooting for -- cheering for, even -- the S&P 500 to break it's 200-day moving average and crash further from there.

It's ok to root for any scenario you'd like, but it's simply unprofitable to act on opinions (yours or others) until there is a basis of fact to back you up. And the only facts we focus on here are those presented and derived by price and volume.

The weight of the evidence still points to higher prices in equities over the intermediate term, and as such we're hunting for bullish trades. Today's hunt yielded a developing opportunity in Caterpillar $CAT.

It's no secret that JC and I are extremely bullish on stocks. Just like you'd like to see in a bullish environment, we're being led higher by tech stocks. And there's no better barometer of health in the tech sector than seeing old bellweather Microsoft still hanging around new all-time highs and cruising comfortably above it's 200 day moving average.

From the Desk of Tom Bruni

Three weeks ago I had the pleasure of attending the CMT Association’s 45th Annual Symposium in the Financial District of New York City. In prior years I’ve lived vicariously through previous attendees’ tweets and blog posts, so this year I was equally nervous and excited when I decided to attend in person for the first time.

This year’s theme was “Navigating the Gap: Forces That Influence Price Dynamics”, which suggests that there’s a “gap” between the market price of securities and their intrinsic value and that technical analysis can help in navigating that gap by providing a way to analyze market behavior and the law of supply and demand. As market practitioners we know that markets are not efficient, which is why we all do the work that we do.

After a strong 2017 for equities as an asset class, 2018 has started off with a bit of a change of character. Volatility is back and frustrating stock market participants, with the median of 43 global stock market indices correcting 11% peak to trough, however, as of today 31 of 43 (72%) stock markets are in a confirmed uptrend as indicated by a rising 200-day moving average. The median equity market is off 5.77% from its 52-week high and has not hit a 52-week high in 66 days, or about 3 months/1 quarter.

I don't know about you, but at face value these stats do not seem to support the prevailing sentiment that stocks are headed lower, and much lower at that. There are some valid concerns, yes, but after looking at charts from all over the world, the weight of the evidence continues to suggest higher stock prices globally. Still, many question what will be the driving force behind higher prices. Well, in regards to India I see several failed bearish patterns that could fuel new highs in the major indices.

It's hard for a mechanic to tell you what's wrong with your car without lifting the hood to see what's inside. In the stock market it's no different. We often hear people giving a diagnoses of the market's health simply by using the S&P500 or some other popular index. To me, that's irresponsible. This is not a stock market, it's a "market of stocks". There are 500 stocks in the S&P500. The market is not a thing, it's a lot of things.

Sector rotation is the lifeblood of any bull market. Some sectors are indicators of risk appetite while others point to risk aversion. Consumer Discretionary stocks include companies where we spend our discretionary income: retailers, homebuilders and autos for example. Consumer Staples, on the other hand, consist of companies that consumers would use regardless of whether times are good or bad. No matter how the economy is doing, we're still going to drink beer, smoke cigarettes, brush our teeth, wash our dishes and clean our clothes. These types of companies are the Staples.

If you're a buy side long only manager, you can't short stocks and you can't go to cash. The mandates of these mutual funds require managers...

From the Desk of Tom Bruni

This past Wednesday I had the privilege of joining 7 world-class Market Technicians in the Stocktoberfest East Chart Battle Competition. It was a lot of fun to share my work with the 450+ conference attendees and surreal to share the stage with people I've learned from since day one of learning Technical Analysis. With that being said, I was knocked out in the second round by Charlie Bilello so I'm writing this post to show all three of my ideas in their entirety.

From the Desk of Tom Bruni

Commodity strength has been a clear theme over the intermediate term, with the energy complex and base metals doing a majority of the heavy lifting in helping the CRB Index break out of its 2+ year range. The 41% of the index made up of Agricultural commodities has seen mixed performance, with Cotton and Cocoa leading and Sugar and Coffee struggling to put in any sort of meaningful bottom. However, there has been some improvement in the action in Soybeans and Soybean Meal, as well as Corn and Wheat which should support the CRB Index in moving higher. With that being said, this post is going to focus on the three Soy related commodities.

I think seasonality is often misused. Although economic cycles, political climates and public markets are constantly changing, the behavior patterns of humans remain the same. I spend a lot of time studying cognitive behavior and markets and it is very clear how foolish humans can be, including the robots they build. We behave in specific ways during some parts of the year and completely different in others. Those cycles play a role in annual cycles.

One of the most popular, and misunderstood, is the old "Sell in May and Go Away". But what exactly does that mean? Should we blindly enter the month of May with a bearish selling strategy? Does that sound like a good idea? Historically stocks are up for the month of May about half the time and since 1950 the S&P and Dow average a 0% return. June has a similar history of 0% average returns and positive return close to half the time. But that's not really what we're interested in here, which is my point.

We care more about what this "Sell in May and Go Away" saying means for rest of the year and what it says about the current behavior of investors? Remember, the reason this phrase is popular is...

This is the most valuable analysis I do every month. When you sit there with some music on and just rip through monthly charts, it really gives you perspective. We're taking a step back and reanalyzing the trends. It's easy to get caught in the day-to-day noise. This exercise helps avoid getting whipped around. I encourage everyone to make their own list of Monthly Candles.

I just got back from a week in New York City and here's what I see: The winners keep winning, the losers keep losing, things keep getting better and people think they're getting worse. I like that combination.

When I was 18 years old I moved to the New York area and spent a total of 15 years out there, most of which was in the financial space surrounded by entrepreneurs, traders, investors, analysts, fintech, traditional media and the biggest names in financial social media.

For the past 3 year's I've lived in beautiful Sonoma Valley, CA in what some might describe as something of a bubble. I don't watch financial television. I'm not ‘in the know’ about the daily gossip except for what I see on twitter. And even then, I don't consume nearly as much of it as most people. I'm not at the Hunt & Fish club once a week, I don't attend every book party in New York and I'm not surrounded by financial journalists every day. I'm out.

This can be a good thing or a bad thing. I worry about what some of the negative implications are from this strategy. That's how I think: Risk Management. “How is this wrong?” is my concern. Why don't other people...