The song remains the same. Picking directions in this market is a crapshoot. The way I explained it to a non-trader friend of mine was like this:

Imagine lighting firecrackers with extremely short wicks. Fun and exhilarating when the payoff happens, but way too easy to get burned.

So for me, the safest way to navigate this market profitably is to continue seeking out ETFs to put delta-neutral credit spreads on.

Next up?

It's hard to have a conversation about the previous bull markets in the United States without including Apple $AAPL. It hit a Trillion Dollar market cap and actually doubled in value last year, believe it or not. This is the poster child for big strong US stocks.

Today, I want to talk about just how clean this stair-step pattern has been for the stock. It's inability to continue this bullish tradition could mean big trouble for US Stocks. However, holding on to last month's lows could mean the worst might be behind us for the overall stock market. My bet is on the former, more volatility, but the market doesn't care what I think. So let's try to figure it out together.

Here is a chart of Apple going back to the great financial crisis. As we always do, we take the high for the stock, pre-crash, and then measure it all the way to the low (You can learn more about this simple math here). One thing you'll notice is how Apple bottomed out in January of 2009, months before the S&P500 and Dow bottomed later on in...

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

As always, thanks to everyone for participating in this week's Mystery Chart. Almost all respondents were buyers. A few also mentioned they would only want to be long against potential support at the prior lows which is likely the same approach we'd be taking with a long-term timeframe.

Something we've hit on a lot lately which was also a common theme among the Technicians that presented at Chart Summit 2020 last weekend, is that the relative trends that have been in place have more or less remained in place throughout the recent volatility. Check out this week's podcast episode where JC and I discuss this and other key themes from the conference.

Chart Summit 2020 is officially in the books. What an amazing time we had. Wow!

The videos of all the presentations are now up and you can go to ChartSummit.com and stream them for FREE!

As we always like to do here after Chart Summit, Steve Strazza and I sat down to discuss what we just witnessed. This was one of the most amazing list of speakers I've ever seen at a Financial Conference. I can't even believe we were able to pull this off! Plus, we raised over $50,000 in donations, on the first day alone, to help fight coronavirus. Thank you to everyone who attended and donated! Also, big shoutout to Traders4ACause for helping us choose the organizations we're donating to and collecting all the money. We could not have done this without you!

In this...

With $VIX still holding above 50 and picking a direction is a crapshoot here, I'm still on the hunt for delta-neutral premium selling opportunities.

The way I do it is I scan the most liquid ETFs out there and rank them by volatility. And then I look for evidence of sideways action forming, or at least some very clear risk management levels to lean against.

From the desk of Tom Bruni @BruniCharting

Last week we talked about some of the positives in the market...Copper holdings its low, Tech leadership, etc.

This week we're taking a look at why this rally is likely a dead cat bounce with some stats.

In this post, we're going to outline the inter-market signals we're watching for stocks next move...and why they suggest it's likely lower.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

The market rallied almost 20% in just three days after making new lows last Monday. Stocks recently sold off in record fashion so it's no surprise to see them bounce with the same ferocity. But with the VIX still elevated above 50, we're not out of the woods yet and should expect the swift moves in each direction to continue for now.

Some say we're in a new bull market, but the charts tell us we're actually at a logical level for what appears to be no more than a bear market rally to stop and reverse.

Last week we outlined why 170 in the Nasdaq 100 ETF (QQQ) was such an important level of interest if buyers were going to take control of stocks in the near term. Now that they have, we're looking for sellers to reassert themselves at current levels, which we wrote about yesterday.

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?

If you're one of these people who thinks the lows for stocks are in, which sectors would you expect to be leading the way higher? The big important groups that fell the hardest, and therefore should bounce the most? Probably.

Well, what if I told you that it's been the opposite.

The leaders off the lows are Utilities, Consumer Staples, Healthcare and REITs:

Options premiums remain elevated in this market. This continues to put me on the hunt for premium selling strategies in the most liquid ETFs.

One of the ETFs showing the highest volatility appears to be starting to settle into a range. And we can sell options very far away from current prices which gives us a lot of wiggle room. 

Wow what a weekend! Thank you all so much for your support.

We had 10,000 people register for Chart Summit, our Live Virtual Technical Analysis Conference. There were over 30 presentations and we raised over $50,000, just on the first day, to help fight COVID-19. You can still donate here.

We made it really easy to access the videos and organized them so you can go back and watch whenever you want. Just go to Chartsummit.com and click Watch The Videos and you're on your way!

In our market view update, we outlined how we're approaching stocks after catching last week's 20% rally in the Nifty 50.

In this post, we want to share an intermarket signal that's suggesting a defensive posture remains best when approaching stocks as an asset class.

Last week we looked for a counter-trend rally in stocks and we got it. The Nifty 50 rallied 20% from its intra-week low to its intra-week high, leaving a lot market participants asking if Indian stocks are out of the woods.

In this post, we're outlining why our defensive stance remains and how we're approaching the weeks ahead.