From the desk of Tom Bruni @BruniCharting

There are a lot of messy charts out there, but we've been discussing the importance of having a global perspective and using weekly/monthly charts to stay focused on structural trends as opposed to the day to day noise/chop we've been experiencing.

Today we want to look at an area showing relative strength that's still offering opportunities for those who need to put cash to work.

Sometimes we spot an opportunity, but we have to be quick to capitalize on it. Fading volatility spikes is one of those situations. If we're willing to take on a little more risk in favor of a high probability setup and we act quick, nice profits can be earned. We've got a play in Gold developing right now that offers up this potential.

This post is going to update some key levels in the Commodities we've been watching/participating in.

With markets pointing higher (if you follow price and ignore the headlines, like a responsible trader), it makes sense to take good looks at stocks coming out of strong bases. One hospital stock recently caught our attention as it is beginning to quietly emerge out of a 4-year base.

This is not just a Stock Market, this is a "Market of Stocks". And not just Stocks from America, but Stocks all over the world. Stocks don't move up and down because of what is happening in New York or Washington DC. They move based on the supply and demand dynamics for the asset globally. To suggest otherwise is irresponsible.

Let's look around the world, because it's the right the thing to do. And let's see how stocks look globally, rather than be narrow minded into thinking the world revolves around what happens within US borders. 

Daily charts get a lot of love. I certainly preach the value of monthly charts every 30 days or so. But the weekly charts, ladies in gentlemen....the Weekly Charts, allow us to see through the day-to-day noise, but keeps us within an intermediate-term time horizon. On weekend mornings some people read the newspaper with their coffee. I go through my weekly charts.

Here are a few that stood out in the United States this week:

Connie Brown is the author of one of the first books I ever read on Technical Analysis. She was the one who inspired me to use Momentum as a supplement to price behavior, particularly the Relative Strength Index (RSI). It was Connie Brown who taught me how to think outside the box and question the default settings on traditional charting software. It's that next level thinking that has helped me grow throughout my career. It is a real treat for me to have her on the podcast and I think she is a great compliment to some of the other guests we've had on over the years. In this conversation we go back to the stock market panics of the 1800s, go over different global indexes and how to use them to make decisions in our own markets. If you're interested in Technical Analysis at all and want to learn how to think about things a little differently, this is the podcast episode for you!

Imagine being in a business where you take a nearly risk-free slice of every transaction, world-wide. That would be a lot of money. Well, companies which do just that do exist, and they likely take up some real estate in your wallet...

Yep.

And it just so happens the charts agree with this sentiment, so much so that $VISA is fixing on (another) significant breakout. So let's see if we can take a slice out of the toll collectors ride.

From the desk of Tom Bruni @BruniCharting

Thursday was an important near-term inflection point for several major asset classes.

This post is going to cover what's moving, why we're taking notice, and what it could mean going forward.

In this Episode of Allstarcharts Weekly, Steve and I talk about how important it is for Transports, Small-caps and Micro-caps to hold above their August lows. This is a major risk barometer for sure. The Dow Jones Transportation Avg held its early June lows and so did the Russell2000 Small-caps. As long as that remains the case, we believe the path of least resistance is higher for US equities. As a confirmation, we're looking for Micro-caps to get back above their early summer lows. This period reminds us a lot of what we saw in 2016 right before a historic rally in Stocks around the world!

The headlines certainly haven't been kind to any stock whose company does business in China. You wouldn't be faulted for being cautious in this space. That said, there is one very familiar name that in spite of it all has continued to hang in there, setting up for what could quite possibly become a headlines grabbing upside move of its own.