From the desk of Tom Bruni @BruniCharting

Stabilization in European Financials has been a big part of our bull case as they're one of the largest sectors of the Stoxx Europe 600, our broad measure of European stocks, and many individual European countries.

The other aspect of it is risk appetite. If the worst of the worst sectors is catching a bid, then market participants are not likely pricing in the end of the world.

With that in mind, let's take a look at what we're seeing in the space right now and what it means for risk appetite.

Here are European Financials (EUFN) on an absolute basis. After confirming a failed breakdown and bullish momentum divergence by closing back above their December lows, prices rallied nearly 20%, but are now experiencing waning upside momentum.

After running 18% in 10 weeks, a pause would be constructive. The question now is whether prices can digest these gains through price, time, or both. Being bullish Equities we'd prefer the latter, but the market...

When stocks are in strong uptrends, they tend to not only do well on an absolute basis, but they outperform their alternatives as well. Two obvious ones are Gold and Bonds.

So if stocks are going to fall hard, like so many people keep telling me, we are likely to see a bid in Precious Metals and US Treasury Bonds. As it turns out, however, we've only seen the exact opposite - bonds and metals struggling below overhead supply.

Back in August I made the case that if stocks were going much higher, as we thought they would, then the S&P500 will hold support at the late December lows relative to both Gold and Bonds. You can watch that short video here. This is what that chart looks like now:

JC recently published a piece highlighting the action in the Financials space:

Today we’re looking at Financials pushing up against their historic 2007 highs for the 3rd time.

The way I learned it was that the more times a level is tested the higher the likelihood that it breaks through. I don’t know if this is going to be it, or if it will take a 4th or a 5th test. But I do think there is a blog post coming soon where we’re looking at Financials at all-time price highs.

Meanwhile, on a total return basis, Financials are already making new all-time highs this week.

Looking at these charts, it is hard not to be enthusiastic about the potential for a major breakout in this sector:

Thursday we looked at two lagging sectors that have been developing signs of a potential bottom like we saw in Energy, Autos, and others several months ago.

Today I want to follow up on that post by diving into the Nifty PSU Bank Index components to see if what we're seeing there supports the action that's occurring in the equally-weighted index.

We're seeing a pretty sexy opportunity set up in the auto space. <--- that's a sentence I never thought I'd write.

Even more sexy is the potential breakout could be from a nearly TWELVE YEAR BASE.  Mizutamari!!

Naturally, we want to go along for the ride.

In September we saw a massive spike in the number of new 63-day highs in the Nifty 500's components.

Today I want to take a look at look at the data and answer the questions how rare is this signal? and what are the forward returns?

The Nifty Public Sector Bank and Media sectors of the market have been laggards for a while, but we're now beginning to see signs that rotation into these areas is ahead.

From the desk of Tom Bruni @BruniCharting

Tuesday's Mystery Chart had a lot of people talking and guessing (incorrectly, as usual), so thank you all for your feedback and participation.

Opinions were mixed on how to approach it, but I'd say the majority are looking to position themselves for further upside.

With that as our backdrop, let's get into it.

You can now add the Financial Sector Index to your list of new 52-week highs. This is further evidence of expansion in upside participation, not contraction. Breadth improvements like this keep adding up, there's no denying that. It's hard to make the argument that Financials are underperforming when they're hitting new 10-month highs relative to the S&P500, which is the exact opposite of underperforming.

Rotation rotation rotation. It's the lifeblood of a bull market.

Remember when the bears were arguing that it was defensive rotation and the market was being driven by Utilities and Staples? Well both of those sectors are actually down YTD relative to the S&P500 and still making new relative lows.

So yes, positive rotation is what we're seeing.

Today we're looking at Financials pushing up against their historic 2007 highs for the 3rd time:

I recently received an email from a subscriber asking about best practices in exiting options positions:

How do you automate managing risk on options if you want to define it through the base stock price? E.g. you have calls on MSFT that you bought based on MSFT holding support at $100. Do you auto-sell (put a stop loss) on the option based on the MSFT price, not the option price itself?

Good question. And the answer is no. 

From the desk of Tom Bruni @BruniCharting

In today's Chart of The Week we look at the ratio of Chinese Internet stocks relative to US stocks and why it's potentially pointing to outperformance in the months and quarters ahead.

This premium post will outline the stocks we like to take advantage of that thesis. If you've not read that post, I'd recommend you do so you have the proper context around these ideas.

Stocks are breaking out to new highs, however, not all areas of the market are participating to the same extent.

Today we're looking at a chart that suggests one market laggard is potentially undergoing a trend change and may outperform in the weeks and months ahead.

In this Episode of Allstarcharts Weekly, Steve and I talk about all of the new highs we're seeing on both Weekly and Monthly charts. We've been pointing to the improvements in market breadth in recent months and how we've been getting an expansion in positive participation, not a contraction. This week we started to finally see this work its way into the weekly and monthly charts, but that doesn't change anything we didn't already know. We continue with the breadth discussion by pointing out that the world doesn't start and end with the 52-week highs list. We're seeing breadth improvements in the 21-day high and 13-week high lists and I'm in the camp that we'll ultimately see that reflected on the 52-week high list as well. It's a process, remember:

This week I sat down with Pearlman to talk about the fact that stocks are making new highs but the amount of bulls betting on higher prices is near now lows. It was a really interesting conversation so make sure to check it out.

At the end of our chat Phil asked me about some comments I made recently regarding the CCI Commodities Index.

Here is the chart he was referring to where Commodities are doing something they haven't done in 8 years. I think it's worth pointing out for sure: