From the desk of Tom Bruni @BruniCharting

The Retail Sector ETF $XRT just made new all-time daily closing highs. I was going to write an extensive piece on how we got here and the lessons we can take away about knowing what we own and exercising professional skepticism when we hear gross generalizations like "retail is dying", but I don't think I even need to make it that complicated.

Not all sectors of the market are glamorous or sexy. And Agribusiness certainly isn't one of the fashionable areas of the stock market. But we're about to wade into our second name here because the opportunities are too good. At the end of the day, we go where the money is -- these are just ticker symbols, right?

Zoetis $ZTS, honestly, is a name I had never heard before. But it has been on my watchlist ever since Tom Bruni blogged about it on All Star Charts last week. I've liked the price action since and think the time is right to take a position.

Sponsored by Investor’s Business Daily – I've known Dan Russo for a long time and he always brings amazing insights and trade ideas. He's experienced, knows the markets and most importantly, he puts in the work. I have a tremendous amount of respect for him and his technical analysis. It was a real treat picking his brain and discussing what he is currently seeing in the market. In this episode, we talk about U.S. Stocks and the sector rotation that is taking place. He shares his thoughts about Healthcare stocks, Consumer Discretionary and life. I really enjoyed this conversation!

Friday we wrote about the US Dollar breaking out to 1-year highs and why it's one of the most important charts we're watching from an intermarket perspective. With that said, we always look at both sides of the story, and while the US Dollar breakout certainly adds to the bear case for Precious Metals, I want to use this post to explore all of the current bullish and bearish characteristics of the space.

During our monthly All Star Options conference call for members, JC & I laid out our bullish case for Berkshire Hathaway. These days, in spite of the diversity of industries that fall under the Berkshire umbrella, the tracking stock $BRK/B trades much like a financial.

Additionally, Berkshire exhibits high correlation to the S&P 500, and with the rotation we're seeing into financials it makes sense to be long $BRK/B while we're still incredibly bullish on the overall market. And of course, the technicals we're watching all point to higher prices.

This weekend all of the Chartbooks on the site were updated, so this is a quick post to highlight some of the significant developments since they were last updated. In our last update summary we discussed  the fresh breakouts in Financial Services, Consumer Goods, and IT, as well as the continued strength in large-caps relative to mid and small-caps. Today we're going to check in on those themes and also highlight some new ones.

It's not about being right, it's about making money. There's a difference and I think that gets forgotten too often. We want to position ourselves where we have the highest probabilities for success as well as where the risk vs reward is skewed in our favor. The goal is not to be right every time. The goal is to be profitable. That's why we're always thinking worst case scenario: always a risk level and always a target.

Today I want to focus in on what we're seeing in the S&P500 because I think that from a risk management standpoint, this 2780-2800 level is a big one today from a structural perspective. Until now, we've used 7000 in the Nasdaq100 and 2650 in the S&P500 as our lines in the sand. We've only wanted to be long if we were above those levels and that has worked out very well. Moving forward, I've identified some higher levels that we need to monitor.

As part of our ongoing partnership with Investor's Business Daily we have added all of the IBD50 components to our equity research coverage. We are updating our Chartbook on a weekly basis and members of Allstarcharts have access to that workbook here.

Today, I wanted to discuss what we're seeing from this group to identify the overall trend for U.S. stocks and also to find trading ideas to profit from that directional move. 

This index is made up of stocks showing both relative strength and positive momentum, in addition to other factors that play a role in adding or removing components from the list of 50. What attracts me to this group, however, is the relative strength and positive momentum, just to be clear.

This is the Innovator IBD50 ETF $FFTY which to me, is still in an uptrend. We want to continue to err on the bullish side of this ETF and the group as a...

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

From the desk of Tom Bruni @BruniCharting

I know the US Dollar isn't as sexy as Tesla's Elon Musk tweeting market moving information every few hours or Apple hitting a trillion dollar market-cap, but I have been waiting all summer for a resolution of this range in the Dollar Index and it looks like we might be finally getting it. Whether this move is successful and the Dollar continues higher, or it's a failed breakout that sends the Euro ripping, there will be significant cross-asset implications that are worth thinking about as this move develops.

Eight months of sideways consolidation and an upcoming earnings event next week are setting the table for the potential of significant upside in shares of Nvidia $NVDA.

The semiconductor space is a leading indicator for the technology sector which has been outperforming in both an absolute sense as well as relative to the rest of the stock market. We view $NVDA as a leader among semiconductor stocks and it is only natural that this name should resume it's trek higher with the market, which we're still incredibly bullish on.

We're going to make a bet that next week's earnings is the catalyst to get $NVDA moving again.

If you've been reading our blog for a while, you're probably familiar with our process and how we identify reward/risk scenarios that are ridiculously skewed in our favor. With that said, the way we accomplish that doesn't always look exactly the same. Sometimes we're buying breakouts and trading with the trend, other times we're trading against the trend for mean reversion, and other times it's some combination of strategies.

I'm so excited to announce that I've started a new podcast with my friend Phil Pearlman! We're calling it "The Money Game" and we'll have a new episode out each week. For you guys who are unfamiliar with Phil, he earned a doctorate in clinical psychology and has always been the person I turn to when I have questions about human emotions and cognitive behavior. As a technical analyst, what I'm doing is analyzing the behavior of the market and market participants. So understanding who we are and why we act the way we do is part of that process.

Phil and I used to do weekly youtube videos back in 2013 that he would call "Weekends With Allstarcharts". Fast forward 5 years later, and with the power of technology, we're bringing it back as a podcast. 

There are many different ways to gauge the strength of the stock market. One of the most valuable is in the Russell3000, which represents approximately 98% of all investable assets in the U.S. equities market. This week, the value of that index was able to surpass its former high value from January. This comes after the Russell Small-cap Index and Russell-Micro-cap Index had already broken out in May.

The thesis here is that we're just now starting a new leg higher for U.S. stocks. The Russell3000 Index is in a similar situation today as Technology was earlier this year. The risk was very well-defined and the upside was exponentially greater. The market implications were also incredibly important. The Tech stock charts at the time suggested buying them all year and that has, in turn, given us greater confidence in being long the market overall. This Russell3000 situation today is the same in a lot of ways.

On Thursday August 23rd I will be putting on a presentation at the Toronto CFA Society at 4:15PM. This is a free event where I will be discussing the current market environment, walking through strategy and talking about how we find individual investing ideas. We will also save time for Q&A at the end because I really enjoy the back and forth. We'll find a local bar afterwards and continue the conversation.

This event is free for everyone but I'm told that space is limited so lock in your seat right away! Here are the registration details:

Life isn't just about Tesla gossip and Apple at a trillion. There is plenty of "less sexy" market behavior to be paying attention to right now that should have serious implications for the overall market. While boring to some, we have a huge amount of respect for Berkshire Hathaway stock. The breakout we got this week is likely to be the beginning of a 25% move higher which should take this one close to a $700B market cap and we want to be buying!

The Agribusiness sector might not often be thought of as sexy, but it is threatening to break out above 2008 highs (as measured by the Agribusiness ETF $MOO) and individual names are starting to look pretty compelling. As such, we're on the hunt for asymmetric reward-to-risk opportunities and we've identified one using a little creative leverage.

This entire year we've been talking about under-performance in the mid-cap and small-cap segments of the market. To take advantage of that we've wanted to be shorting, or at least avoiding longs in, the weakest names in sectors like Public Sector Banks, Infrastructure, Metals, Media, Realty, etc. Last month many of our downside price targets were hit from a tactical perspective and we took a more neutral approach, waiting for better entries on the short side. Now that we've seen a multi-week bounce off the lows in the mid and small-cap indexes, we're going to revisit the space for the best reward/risk setups on the short side.

From the desk of Tom Bruni @BruniCharting

There's been a lot of talk about equity market breadth both in the US and globally, but one thing I've not seen mentioned throughout the debate is Dow Theory. While there are five tenets of Dow Theory, today I want to focus on the aspect regarding confirmation among the three averages: The Dow Jones Industrial Average, The Dow Jones Transportation Average, and The Dow Jones Utility Average, by assessing their primary trends.

Sponsored by Investor’s Business Daily - Todd Sohn does amazing work on a daily basis. We're constantly communicating and sharing ideas with one another. I can tell you for a fact, there are few people in this world who look through as many charts as Todd. Our process is similar so I have really been looking forward to this conversation. We covered a lot of topics in this episode including U.S. Stocks and the sector rotation we've been seeing underneath the surface. Sentiment is a big part of their work over at Strategas and I find it really interesting how he incorporates analyst ratings to find ideas in the market. This is a good one!

I love this game. It's us against the world to try and make a buck in this market. Every day brings new opportunities and story lines. The hard part is distinguishing between what matters and what is just noise. We're hard wired to need to gossip and tell stories. It's who we are going back to the cognitive revolution 70,000 years ago. In fact, it would be unnatural for us not to participate.

Many of us get our gossip from the market. That's one reason why we all get along and share ideas with one another throughout the trading day. I see some women, for example, watching Bravo and the gossip shows on E and stuff like that. We all get our gossip in different ways. While there seems be little harm done by watching the kardashians or vanderpumps, by following some narratives in the stock market, there is actually a lot of money at risk. So for those of us who get our gossip fix from market story lines, it's especially hard to differentiate reality from fairy tales. 

From the desk of Tom Bruni @BruniCharting

Sector rotation in this market continues and the Agribusiness and Chemical Industries within the Materials Sector look to be heating up. While their performance on a relative basis is lackluster, on an absolute basis there are several setups offering reward/risk scenarios skewed in our favor.

First let's take a structural look at the Agribusiness ETF $MOO, which contains exposure to Chemical stocks as there is no ETF dedicated to that industry. Prices got back to their '08 highs earlier in the year and have been consolidating since. A breakout above 66 would signal the beginning of a new long-term uptrend that targets 94.25.

Click on chart to enlarge view.

From a tactical perspective prices are back toward the top of an ascending triangle continuation pattern. If prices can break above 64.70 we'll likely see a move up toward the 161.8% extension of the '15-'16 decline near 68.75.

...

From the desk of Tom Bruni @BruniCharting

Earlier this year I discussed what I look for when picking a bottom in a stock using Twitter as an example. Today I want to look at The Container Store because it's exhibiting similar characteristics that suggest the stock has begun a new long-term uptrend.

We're witnessing yet another breakout attempt in the commodities market, and this time it's Cotton. This post is going to take a look at the setup, how it may develop, and how we can take advantage of it.