Last Monday we discussed our thesis for a bounce in Indian stocks and by Friday we were talking about how to manage those trades so that we could avoid letting winners turn into losers.

Now that we've gotten a decent bounce, many are asking what the next directional move in the market is going to be. In this post we'll outline why we think that Financials and Smallcaps are the areas to watch for clues.

Well, here we are folks... Election Day.

Depending on who you talk to, today could be "the most important mid-term election of our lifetime." (aren't they all?)

All the hype. All the buildup. All the angst.

Regardless of the outcome, it's possible U.S. stocks can experience outsized and emotional moves. We all remember November 2016 when final voting tallies were coming in and overnight futures were signaling the end of times, all trading limit down. Every market participant was scared and likely had a sleepless night. And what happened when they rang the opening bell?

There are assets out there that have a lower or no correlation with the rest of the U.S. Stock Market. These investments are really helpful, but even more so when we're looking for stocks to buy in an environment where we think most stocks keep falling in price. One of these less correlated areas is the Uranium space.

Investors in Uranium stocks over the past 7 years have been some of the worst stock market investors in the world during that period. Think about this, Uranium investors have performed even worse since 2011 than gold and silver investors! That is saying a lot. We've already been buying precious metals stocks the past couple of months so it seems like rotation into the worst of the worst areas is happening in unison.

First of all, here is the Uranium Futures chart breaking out from the downtrend it has been in since the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011 that marked the top in the space:

Click On Charts To Zoom In

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05/01/2019 UPDATE:

As a result of the labor intensive process needed to maintain the Chartbook Notes and their lack of use by the majority of members, we have decided to discontinue this feature. We will be adding new tools and functionality to replace it by the end of the quarter. In the meantime if any of the charts in the Chartbook are unclear and you need further clarification, please feel free to contact us and we'll get back to you within 24 hours. Thank you in advance for your patience as we make these improvements to the site.

In June we made some major changes to the format of our Chartbooks based on your feedback and today we're happy to introduce some new changes that we think are going to be very helpful for us as we maintain them and for you all as you use them in your analysis.

One of the beauties of options trading is even when we don't have the highest conviction in a trade, we can still participate by lowering or shifting our risks.  I come from the school that says spread your bets out across the market -- small -- because the constant pursuit of edges will yield results over the long run as long as no bad individual trades are too big to take us out.

In our most recent monthly All Star Options Conference call, we highlighted a desire to play for a bounce in bonds. In the days since, the market gods are either taunting us, or smiling on us -- offering better entry levels.

It's easy to say. You hear it all the time. That word, "Patience".

How many of us actual put this into practice? It isn't easy. We're an instant gratification society. How happy does it make you feel when someone 'likes' a picture of your kid, or the beach selfie you took over the weekend. Traders get similar dopamine kicks when we enter a trade, and that soothing bling sound on the computer goes off, almost as a reward for entering the trade. You notice how those post trade sounds are never something ugly and nasty like the sound of a car accident or something horrible. It probably should be, because that trade you just put on is most likely going to lose you money. That's not blingy like the default audio settings on your trading platform are suggesting.

The point is that in both markets and in life, I think we need to recognize what is just making us happy today vs what will make us happy in the future. Temporal Discounting is what the behavioral finance people call it. Who are you trying to make happy - the JC now or the future JC? I think it's important to approach both life and the markets by proposing this question.

From the desk of Tom Bruni @BruniCharting

The TSX Composite is down roughly 6.75% year-to-date, with stocks getting hit hard since their July 13th, 2018 high. Only one sector is positive over that time period, but I think its recent action gives us a really good perspective on the type of market environment we're in.

Counter-trend trades are lower probability by nature, which means risk management is vital both when they work and when they don't. Taking the loss and reevaluating when the trade thesis is invalidated is something most traders think about, but managing risk on a trade that begins to work right away is just as important and not discussed as often.

Today I want to look at the importance of managing positions that begin working right away, so that we can avoid winning trades turning into losers.

This is the video recording of the November 2018 Conference Call for Members of All Star Options

It is not often that we fade stocks here at All Star Options. Mostly, we like to identify emerging trends or smart entry points in long established trends and hop along opportunistically for the ride. But given the market environment we're in, we believe it is only a matter of time before everyone gets touched. And we've identified a possible "home run" opportunity to get short a stock that -- gasp! -- printed new all time highs twice this week! It might truly be the last man standing.

Small-caps have been lagging for most of the year with that trend really accelerating in May, posing a major headwind for the broader market. One thing we were looking for before putting cash to work on the long side was a sign(s) of risk appetite for stocks, which we're seeing for the first time in a while. The question now is will it last and how does it affect our portfolios?

Rates are at multi-year highs and bond prices are at multi-year lows. This has been the trend. We've been in the camp that rates would break out above 3% and that 4% was next. This has been logical target for a variety of reasons, but today that is not necessarily the point. I just don't think it will be quite so simple for rates to continue higher, and a break back below 3% would make rates incredibly vulnerable to fall quickly. 

There's something fishy going on in Interest Rates and the U.S. Bond market right now. We've been bearish bonds and constructive about higher interest rates for as long as I can remember. This has worked out well. It was a big part of the bullish stocks thesis and it's played out. Bonds are at lows and rates are at highs. I just don't think it will be as easy for this to continue, particularly with what we're seeing from both a sentiment and intermarket perspective.

Here's what's got me thinking differently:

I've just updated the Monthly Chartbook, and although October was a rough month for the equity market, our opinions really haven't changed all that much from last month in terms of trend and risk management levels. With that being said, I want to use this post to highlight a few things that stuck out to me.

I am really enjoying these conversations with Phil Pearlman. This is the 3rd episode we do where we're discussing important topics about our feelings and emotions. Today's topic is Grit, and the advantages that someone with grit has these days over those who don't. Taking a loss and moving on is not just part of investing, it's part of life. In this conversation we discuss the Bond Market and the implications of U.S. 10-year yields losing 3% and why Phil is Bullish Grit going into 2019.

Here is the second episode in full:

In corrective and bear markets, bounces and false rallies are powerful and swift. They should not be feared, but they should be respected. And the patient among us will use these rallies for better entry points on our short ideas.

Tuesday's stock market bounce affords us a great chance to get a better entry in a name that is high on our list to be short -- Boeing $BA

As you guys know, we've been rooting for a stock market crash for most of October. When we're shorting stocks, we want the market to drop as fast as possible so we can make a profit. You may not like the repercussions of a severe market correction, but since there is nothing we can do to prevent it, all we can do is try and profit from it. Innocent people's portfolios will get slashed under those circumstances, companies will shut down and people will likely lose their jobs. An economic recession may even follow. We have no idea and no say in the matter anyway. So we've had two options in October: Close our eyes and ignore it? Or prepare and profit? We've chosen the latter.

In case you're wondering, we're still rooting for a complete collapse in U.S. Stocks. The only thing that would make us more neutral is the Russell2000 Index Fund $IWM holding above 151. Under those circumstances and more neutral approach towards equities is best. In the meantime, we'll keep pressing shorts and hoping for the worst.

Today, I want to bring up two charts that I believe are pointing to further...

The last two months have not been kind to India's stock market, which is why we've been approaching it from a more neutral perspective for most of that time. Although big selloffs are never fun, the progression of this trend from its start to now has been pretty orderly.

We want to use this post to lay out that progression for educational purposes, as well as update our views on the market now.

For this entire month we've been discussing why a continued neutral approach toward equities was best and what we needed to see to get more aggressive on either the long or short side. The bull case has been building all month and after weeks of patiently waiting the market has finally given us the last piece we needed to get involved, a well-defined risk level.

Welcome to the new market regime, young lads. Many of us, and many more that are way older than me, have seen plenty of bear markets. At our shop, we rely heavily on global markets to give us information about stocks as an asset class, so we're accustomed to seeing bear markets all the time. It's nothing new to us. But I understand that many of you are new to this whole up AND down thing. It's normal, I promise.

Today I want to stress an important point that I think gets forgotten: The biggest stock market rallies come in bear markets! You don't get 6% rallies in the Dow when we're in healthy uptrends! You need serious volatility to spark something like that, and it only happens when risk is extremely elevated. I'm sure you've noticed that we’re getting much bigger down days AND up days in the market lately. This is not characteristic of the type of environment where stocks are going up. It’s the type of behavior we see, historically, when stocks are going down. This is one of many reasons why we’ve wanted to sell ...

The market is a beautiful thing. We have uptrends and we have downtrends. We weigh the evidence regularly to determine which one of these we’re in, or if it's a sideways trend. Our approach to the market has to depend on the market environment we have. In other words, we have to play the cards we're dealt, not the cards we might want. So we first determine how we want to approach the market, and then we decide which vehicles would be the best way to express that thesis.

Here are a list short ideas that I think present favorable risk vs reward opportunities:

From the desk of Tom Bruni @BruniCharting

Over the weekend I ran the performance metrics of the Russell 3000's Sectors and Industries to get some perspective on where the leadership is since the S&P 500's high on October 3rd and year-to-date. In this post I just want to share this table and talk about some of the themes I see.

From the desk of Tom Bruni @BruniCharting

On the blog we've been discussing why a more neutral approach to the market is best, as well as what we're looking for to mark a tradeable bottom. Last week we saw an expansion of new lows and stocks hitting oversold conditions in the Russell 3000, however, we are beginning to see some improvements in its daily momentum readings.

It has been a wild couple of weeks for participants in US equities. Up is down. Black is White. Dogs sleeping with cats. This is what happens when market regimes go through change. The ripples can be seismic.

The one thing we can count on as options traders is that implied volatility -- more specifically, the fear premium being priced into options right now -- will eventually subside. If there is anything that can be counted on to be "mean-reverting" in this crazy world of ours -- it is most definitely implied volatility. This means we definitely want to be on the hunt for opportunities to put elevated options premiums to work for us. We want to be net sellers of options here.

With 53 days until December options expiration, now is the ideal time to start scanning the most liquid ETF options in our universe for income trades.