A wise Egyptian man once taught me, "If you trade the averages, you'll get average returns". The media likes to focus on what "The market" is doing today?". People want to know, "What did the market do today?". It's just how we are and how we think. But it's not the best approach, in my opinion. Far from it.

This is not a stock market, it is a market of stocks. There's a difference. It's funny how many people have tried shorting the major US averages over the past couple of years only to see sectors rotating and a majority of the components holding them up. While some sectors go through corrections, another one steps up and leads the averages higher. Sector rotation is the lifeblood of a bull market. This one has been no different.

Today I want to turn your attention to a group of stocks that I like to include in the Chartbook. These are a group of some of the most important names that do not fall within the category of the Dow Jones Industrial Average or Dow Jones Transportation Average. We're in the process of doing some updates on the site and will be adding several new workbooks...

Every month I host a conference call for All Star Charts Premium Members where we discuss ongoing themes throughout the global marketplace as well as changes in trends where new positions would be most appropriate. This includes U.S. Stocks & Sectors, International Stock Indexes, Commodities, Currencies and Interest Rate Markets.

We've been bullish towards US and Global Stocks as they remain in strong uptrends on any sort of intermediate-term time horizon. I still think this is an environment where we need to be buying weakness in stocks, not selling strength. The weight of the evidence is still pointing to an increased amount of risk appetite, not risk aversion. We will go over a multi-timeframe approach on this conference call where we will start with the longer-term and then work our way down to more short-term to intermediate-term investing ideas. This will also include other assets like the US Dollar, Euro, Gold, Silver, Crude Oil and Interest Rates.

I'll do my best to lay out my weight of the evidence conclusions and walk you step by step with how I got there!...

Since September we've been in the camp that the US Dollar is heading higher and potentially a lot higher. So if you want to be long the US Dollar, that is one way to take advantage of it. Short Euro has been another. But my favorite has been to be short the Gold Miners, particularly the more vulnerable Junior Gold Miners $GDXJ. So far this is working well. But I think it's worth reiterating that we, in general, want to approach the marketplace within the context of what we think will be a rising US Dollar environment.

Today we're taking a closer look at what's going on here:

They say not to kick someone when they're down. But in the market it's the opposite. When they are down is exactly when you want to kick them. This is especially the case when they are down while other things are up. We don't want to be shorting the strongest stocks. We want to be shorting the underperformers where the holders are losers, they're wrong, stuck and need to get out, but can't. We are here, not only to make money on the upside of things, but also to benefit from the losses of others. When this pain starts to really set in, that's when we want to kick them, when they're down!

In this case I have 3 examples of people who are down. This is in the face of stocks ripping:

It is such an incredible blessing to have monthly candlestick charts of all the markets around the world at our disposal. It's essentially free data which is easily organized into a visual format to help us identify the direction of the underlying trends. It doesn't matter what your time horizon is, the monthly candlesticks offer a longer-term perspective from which to begin your analysis. From there is when you work your way down to more intermediate and shorter-term time horizons, but keeping the direction of the underlying primary trends in context.

I have a massive workbook of Monthly Candlestick charts that I review at the end of every month. I do not even open this workbook in the middle of the month. The fact that I only look at this workbook 12 times a year forces me to always come back to the primary trend, not allowing me to forget it. This exercise really helps me stay true and keeps me honest. It is easily one of the most valuable parts of my entire process.

These are some of the things that stood out to me the most:

Gail Dudack brings a unique perspective to markets, particularly compared to other guests we've had on Technical Analysis Radio. Gail's career goes back to the 1970s. She has served the Chief US Investment Strategist at UBS and Pershing prior to that. She was a rotating panelist on ‘Wall Street Week With Louis Rukeyser’ for over 20 years. As a past President of the CMT Association, I think her experience and approach to markets is one we can all learn from. In this episode Gail talks about how she incorporates the news cycle into her sentiment work along with other more quantitative inputs. Early in her career...

It's a busy time of the year for me. I've been given the opportunity to join a panel of amazing analysts at the 2nd annual Evidence-Based Investing Conference put on by my friends at Ritholtz Wealth Management. I will also be giving an hour long presentation at the Chicago Board of Trade on Technical Analysis and the Intermarket Relationships that I incorporate when making decisions about the current market environment. In a few weeks I will be presenting in San Leandro, CA at the Deaf Community Center and we'll have a sign language interpreter there to help us. This will be a lot of fun!

Here are all of the details. I hope you can join me for one or all of these!

I think a lot of people are asking the wrong question. To me, it's not whether or not Bitcoin is in a bubble? It's whether or not the bubble in Bitcoin already popped?

This is Bitcoin week at Allstarcharts. I didn't really intend for this to happen but the phone calls have flooded in lately asking for more technical analysis on the digital currencies (See Bitcoin and Ethereum Posts). It's given me an opportunity to talk to a lot of smart people about things I know little about. They are fascinated by the fact that I analyze bitcoin by using simple math. For me it's something I do every day for things like Microsoft, Apple, Soybean Futures, Euro/Yen, Gold and pretty much anything else that has enough liquidity. I analyze supply and demand. That's it.

One of the issues I have about this whole Bitcoin bubble thing is the irresponsible nature of the returns reporting. Any idiot can pick a starting point and say, well if you would have invested x amount of Dollars into...

The Nasdaq 30 is an equally-weighted index that I created which consists of the 30 largest stocks in the Nasdaq. Collectively these 30 companies represent over half of the entire market capitalization of the Nasdaq Composite. So just like the Dow Jones Industrial Average is a good gauge of stock market strength, I feel that my Nasdaq30 Index offers similar insight but for different types of companies.

Today we’re going to do a deep dive into these 30 Nasdaq stocks. As always I walk through them on both weekly and daily timefames. We want a longer-term structural perspective and then break things down to more tactical time horizon for execution purposes. Then we look at them collectively to weigh whether there is more good or more bad so we can make better, evidence-based decisions.

Here are a few things that stood out to me:

One of the great things about technical analysis is the ability to compare assets to one another so we can responsibly judge true value. If you bought some stock in March of 2009 and are thrilled by the fact that you made 30-40% on the investment since then, I'd say you failed. You could have almost bought anything else instead of what you decided to buy and made 200% or 300% during that time if not a lot more. On a relative basis you suck.

When it comes to measuring risk appetite I generally like to measure the more speculative asset to a more conservative risk-averse asset. Many of you who know me already see my Copper/Gold Ratio charts or Small-caps/Large-caps or Consumer Discretionary Stocks vs Consumer Staples. I have a lot of them. When it comes to precious metals specifically, I particularly like the Silver/Gold ratio as a measurement of risk appetite for precious metals. Historically, if metals are doing well, Silver is going to be outperforming Gold because it is the more speculative of the two. On the other hand, when precious metals are selling off, Silver gets destroyed while Gold outperforms the other metals....

Bitcoin seems to be the hot topic these days. I send out a couple of bitcoin charts and the twitterati goes wild. It's a quick tell that there is certainly interest. It was not quite like this before Bitcoin was able to exceed the 2013 highs. But once prices got going and all-time highs became a regular thing, the cults start to follow.

Contrary to popular belief, the price of Bitcoin hasn't just gone straight up. The cryptocurrency, in fact, has gone through a series of very symmetrical and well-defined corrections along the way. Today we're taking a look at Bitcoin from multiple time horizons to get both long-term and short-term perspective using our Fibonacci tools.

Dr. Phil Pearlman is a stock market psychologist who I have turned to for help and guidance throughout a large portion of my career. In this episode we dive deep into cognitive behavior and discuss some solutions to flaws in the behavior of investors. Phil discusses exposure therapy for traders in a similar way that PTSD patients are treated. Technical Analysis is the study of the behavior of the market and market participants. The more we learn about ourselves and the way we are trained to think emotionally, the more aware we will be as we enter and exit the public marketplace. I asked Phil to give us his take on Bitcoin, Stock Market Volatility and Precious Metals. This conversation is one I recommend going back to on regular basis to remind ourselves to be more in tune with what we're thinking and why we're thinking it.

Every Fall for the past 7 years I've gone to beautiful Coronado, CA for the annual Stocktoberfest conference put on by Stocktwits. Sometimes they even let me get up and show off some of my favorite charts. They know that I rip through thousands of charts a week and I could literally be up on that stage all day talking about markets from all over the world. So this year they limited me to 15 charts in 15 minutes. Let's just say I cheated a little and brought a few more :)

This year's Stocktoberfest was different than the others. Rather than selling tickets, they just invited about 100 investors, analysts, members of the media and VCs to have some fun and share ideas. I liked that it was less formal than other years. It was cool. They did a really nice job.

Larry McDonald is not only one of my favorite authors and analysts, but also one of my favorite people. His perspective on markets, sentiment and investor behavior is like no other. Larry is the author of A Colossal Failure of Common Sense: The Inside Story of the Collapse of Lehman Brothers. It is a must read for any investor. While he tends to focus more on the Bond Market and Interest Rates, he incorporates an intermarket approach that includes currencies, equities and commodities. While this is a podcast specifically about Technical Analysis, I think Larry brings in a political and economic point-of-view to the behavior of markets, but ties it all together with the study of price. This conversation was a real treat for me personally. I think you'll get a lot from this one!

We don't have to complicate things. It's very simple. If there is actual risk appetite for precious metals, then Silver would be outperforming Gold, not the other way around. The Gold Bugs have little to say at this point, so some of them irresponsibly cherry-pick year-to-date returns to pretend Gold is in an uptrend. Some of them do it out ignorance while others need help selling whatever product preys on the poor souls who believe their conspiracy theories and end of world stories. There's a huge market for that kind of stuff. But for the rest of us who are humbly just trying to turn a profit in the market by managing risk responsibly, we need to look at things objectively.

Today we are taking a look at one of my favorite gauges of risk appetite vs risk aversion for one of the most important asset classes in the world: Gold. We're in a current market environment where stocks are making all-time highs. We're not just talking about U.S. Stocks, but all over the world. Meanwhile, Gold would need to rally 50% from current levels just to get back to where it was in 2011. Silver would need to rally 190% just to get back to those former highs. And these clowns have the...

I'm not sure if you guys noticed what's been going on in Small-caps over the past couple of weeks, but I think it's worth pointing out. First of all, remember this has been a tremendous leading indicator for a long time. I was pounding the table in November about that historic breakout when the Russell2000 Futures engulfed the prior 18 weeks. That was nuts. I said then that we would likely be talking about that event for decades to come. More recently I pointed out the fresh breakout after a period of consolidation. Each of these came along with stocks as an asset class in a healthy environment. They're in an uptrend and they're all in one together. Small-caps have been a great tell for the trend of the markets. If you've been bearish or not as long as you should have been, it's probably because you haven't taken the Russell2000 seriously enough.

What we're seeing right now appears to be a healthy consolidation within an ongoing uptrend. Chart observers might call these "Bull...

Every month I host a conference call for All Star Charts Premium Members where we discuss ongoing themes throughout the global marketplace as well as changes in trends where new positions would be most appropriate. This includes U.S. Stocks & Sectors, International Stock Indexes, Commodities, Currencies and Interest Rate Markets.

We've been bullish towards US and Global Stocks as they remain in strong uptrends on any sort of intermediate-term time horizon. I still think this is an environment where we need to be buying weakness in stocks, not selling strength. The weight of the evidence is still pointing to an increased amount of risk appetite, not risk aversion. We will go over a multi-timeframe approach on this conference call where we will start with the longer-term and then work our way down to more short-term to intermediate-term investing ideas. This will also include other assets like Gold, Silver, Crude Oil and Interest Rates.

I'll do my best to lay out my weight of the evidence conclusions and walk you step by step with how I got there! This month's Conference...

Consumer Discretionary has to be one of the most important sectors in the U.S. With Consumer Staples taking a nose dive recently, especially relative to the S&P500, the approach has certainly been "risk on". Severe underperformance out of the Staples historically comes within an environment of rising stock prices. Consumer Discretionaries are typically a beneficiary of this appetite for risk towards equities.

Today we are taking a deep dive look at Consumer Discretionary Stocks pointing out the good, the bad and the ugly. This is a great area to focus on right now because are monster stocks in very clean uptrends as well as disasters that can still be shorted.

We've been on the right side of the trend for stocks. A big reason for that was because of our focus on the Banking sector. Financials are one of the most important sectors on earth and it's hard for stocks as an asset class to fall if Bank stocks are healthy and breaking out to new highs. It's that simple. Pull up a 100 year old chart of J.P. Morgan $JPM and overlay the S&P500 chart. They look exactly the same. We want to always keep that in mind for future reference.

After such a nice run in stocks, and in Financials specifically, I think it's time to take a closer look at what is going on. Have we come too far? Or should we be expecting another leg higher? Rather than focusing on the sector ETFs or sector indexes, let's turn our attention to the actual components of this space. This weight-of-the-evidence approach is much more reliable and efficient than simply looking at an index representing that group. 

You guys know how I feel about equities. We've been on the right of the trade while all the gloom-and-doomers and noisemakers are pulling their hair our of their heads trying to figure out why stocks won't fall. To me, it's been fairly clear: Stocks are in uptrends and that's what stocks in uptrends do, they go up. This has been the trend globally, domestically, large-caps, small-caps, you name it. Talk about breadth expansion, I couldn't tell you the last time I saw this much broad participation out of equities. I encourage you to go through the Chartbook and look through all of the International Stock Indexes, U.S. Averages, Sectors, Dow Components, Transportation Components and additional...

Sentiment is one of the most important tools we have as Technicians. There is a lot of data out there and I think Jason Goepfert at SentimenTrader.com does the best job of compiling it all and making it available for both professional and retail investors. I particularly like how Jason is self-aware of the pros and cons when it comes to analyzing sentiment. I think our discussion clears up some of the misconceptions and we go into detail about how to use it and when to take advantage of certain extremes. This was a real treat for me as I have personally been a subscriber for almost a decade.

A lot of people seem to be bearish of stocks. Some think they can go higher. But I think they can still go a lot higher. This was the point that I was making on our Conference Call 3 weeks ago. The information coming in since then continues to confirm all of the things we wanted to see. While I was pounding the table to be buying I also pointed to a group of things we wanted to see happen to make sure we were in the right direction. This included US Bank Stocks rallying with US Interest Rates, and Gold and Bonds falling. We wanted to see Europe break out along with U.K., rather than rolling over creating a big mess out there. Nikkei needed to recover and stay in a bullish range in momentum. Every single one of these things happened. So yes, I absolutely think we can still go a lot higher in stocks.

From an asset allocation standpoint, one chart that has been an important one in my eyes is how US Stocks are doing against competing asset classes, bonds and Gold in particular. If stocks are in the bull market that we keep claiming they're in, then there...

I can't tell you guys how important it is to stop whatever you're doing and take a step back. It's so easy for us to get caught up in the day to day noise and forget about the underlying trends in the market. We're human. We're built to be this way. But recognizing this flaw is an important step in correcting it and trying to benefit from the fact that others are unaware. One of my favorite ways to do this is to look through a series of Monthly Candlestick Charts at the end of every month. Remember, we don't want to look at these mid-month as candles are incomplete. It is the final results that we are most concerned with.

We want to use this bigger picture strategy to identify the directions of the underlying trends in the market. This goes for all markets: Stocks, both U.S. and Globally, Interest Rates, Precious Metals, Energy, Currencies, etc. This is how we know what the trends are so we can then go to our weekly and daily charts to look for more tactical opportunities within those ongoing trends. This is a very important element to our top/down approach.