This week the Global Industry Classification Standard (GICS) expanded the Telecom Services sector to include Consumer Discretionary and Information Technology components, with it being renamed the Communications Services sector next Friday, September 28th.

In this post I want to highlight the major changes to the sector classifications, chart the new sector (using the back-filled IXCPR Index), and then finish up with some of the components that are the most actionable. State Street, which runs the popular Sector SPDR ETFs, has created a comprehensive document on these changes that I'd encourage you to read in full to understand all the nuances surrounding these changes.

With markets having a big breakout on Thursday, our bullish US equities case continues to be confirmed. And with new all-time highs usually comes lower and lower volatility being priced into options.

For the past month, we've been keeping it pretty simple here at All Star Options. We like simple, so it comes naturally to us. But more importantly, the market is telling us to keep it simple. When volatilities are low and charts are pointing higher, it pays to be a buyer of your friendly neighborhood call option. Options Trading 101. Being buyers of calls in this environment puts us on the other side of the trade from the pikers who fill up ballrooms and banquet halls at Turnpike Hiltons and Marriotts to learn about the latest and greatest Covered Calls Road to Riches.

You're better than this. You're willing to take smart risks and reap the upside rewards.

There is a time and a place for more exotic ratio spreads, iron butterflies, strangles, and straddles, but this isn't the environment for that. And until it is, we don't see any reason to force the issue. We're not looking for style points, we're looking for gains. We're simply...

In this episode I asked my friend Ryan Detrick to come talk about the quantitative work he does as part of the technical analysis he provides for advisors at LPL Financial. I have been following his work for years and have gotten to know Ryan well during that time. I was really looking forward to this conversation and it exceeded all of my expectations. Ryan does an excellent job of using basic mathematics to debunk popular myths told to investors about the market. We discuss the impact of a rising rate environment on U.S. stocks, the Yield Curve, Stock Market Seasonality and some of the things he is currently seeing in the market. This is a can't-miss episode!

Casual readers of All Star Charts will notice we've been warming up to the idea of being bullish Precious Metals and Miners for a turn. Check these recent posts to get up-to-date on our thoughts:

Defining Our Risk in Precious Metals  (Sept 13)

Is the Market Ready for a US Dollar Collapse? (Sept 18)

If you're a believer that a short-term bottom is in for Gold Miners, I think a nice short-term, high-probability trade with a clearly defined risk level has presented itself in the Junior Gold Miners ETF $GDXJ. This isn't a sexy play, but it helps diversify our portfolio a little bit by getting us short premium in a high probability (not a guarantee) set up with a good chance of turning us a profit.

We're always focused on positioning. Stocks don't go up because of some article written by a 26 year old journalist who has never made a trade in her life. Stocks move based on positioning from institutions. When the market is caught leaning the wrong way, the unwind can create spectacular moves. This is the key to the market: positioning, not the noisy media.

As many of you know, every single day I look for risk vs reward opportunities that are skewed in our favor. We're not here to be right, we're only here to make money. There is a big difference between the two. In other words, we don't care if we get it wrong. We just want to make sure that when we are right, that we're really really right. Isolating asymmetric risk vs reward opportunities is how we do that, and I believe we do it very well.

I really don't think this market is ready for the US Dollar to collapse. We've had a monster rally in the Greenback all year and emerging markets and precious metals have felt the pain. I believe that's about to change dramatically.

Continuing with a theme I discussed coming out of Labor Day Weekend, volatilities continue to remain low across major stock indices, within the majority of sectors, and by extension many key stocks. Until that changes, there's no need to deviate from my current plan of keeping things simple. When bullish opportunities present themselves, it is pretty simple -- I want to be long calls. There's no need to overthink things here.

Not surprising, there is a stock on our radar that it is breaking out to all-time highs with options pricing in volatility near the lowest levels seen in the past year. A perfect candidate for straight naked calls.

The Island Reversal is a rare but important pattern that has shown up across many of India's Major Indexes this month. As a result, I want to use this post as an educational opportunity to highlight what this pattern is, as well as explain how we're interpreting it in today's market.

There are tiny little irrelevant markets everywhere like Pot stocks and Crypto Currency. These could disappear tomorrow and it won't matter. The sovereign wealth funds, hedge funds and other monster institutions that make markets move have to be in the bond market. They're too big not to. So if you want an inside look at the money flow from one place to another, an intermarket approach really helps.

I've been a lonely stock market bull for most of this year. It feels like every time I've told people that I think we're closer to the beginning of a bull market than the end, they think I'm crazy. That reaction has gotten me even more bullish. Not only does price continue to suggest we're heading much higher, but sentiment and positioning points towards the same.

I've made the argument that Technology is going to take us much higher, as it is just now finally breaking out above the March 2000 highs. It took 17 years to digest those 1990s gains. We're now just moving on. All that market cap getting going is one obvious catalyst that I've been talking about since last year.

Another big one has to be the bond market. If interest rates get going, selling in...

I started taking wine a little more seriously over the past couple of years. It's been fun to learn about different varietals and the countries that grow them best. The geography is really interesting and it's fun to go visit places like Tuscany and Bordeaux. The whole process has been rewarding in a lot of ways. When you're at a nice restaurant, for example, you want to make sure you choose the best wine that's going to work best with your meal for your specific palate at your individual price point. Being able to explain your preferences and have an intelligent conversation with the Sommelier helps you do that.

When I first started studying wine I quickly realized how many similarities there were between the wine world and trading. It's crazy. The Court of Master Sommeliers developed what they call the Deductive Method. What you're essentially doing is taking into account all of the characteristics being displayed and eliminating possibilities along the way. So for example, if the wine is white, you know it's not a Cabernet Sauvignon or Pinot Noir. Then you smell it and taste it to...

This is the monthly conference call for Premium Members of All Star Charts. In this call we will discuss the global market environment and how to profit from it. As always, this will include Stocks, Interest Rates, Commodities and Currencies. The video of the call will be archived in the members section to re-watch any time and the PDF of the charts will be made available as well.

This month’s Conference Call will be held on Wednesday September 19th at 7PM ET. Here are the details for the call:

If you've been paying attention, we've been bullish and long Nike $NKE for a little while now. Here's our trade from July 2 where we got long calls (still holding), and here's our more recent trade where we are fading the hysteria and elevated vol from September 11th. Well, sometimes we're a sucker for what works and often go back to the well. With that in mind, we've identified some similar action in Pfizer $PFE that has us interested and is pretty compelling.

It feels good to be back in California. I just spent the past week in Texas, and before that I was in Toronto and Philly. I won't be leaving the west coast for a few months and I couldn't be more thrilled about it. I like it here.

When you force yourself to leave to computer screen as much as I do, you'll quickly learn the value in getting away and then coming back to reevaluate everything you previously thought before you left. There is a lot of data waiting for you once you're back at the desk. Is there enough data to change your mind or does it just confirm what you felt previously?

I spent last weekend, both Saturday and Sunday, looking through charts and enjoying the start of Football Season. At this point, College and Pro Football have each begun. Back when I lived in New York, this was my favorite time of the year: September and October. The weather is the best and everyone is back from their weekends in the Hamptons, Jersey Shore, Cape Cod or various other northeast vacation spots. The city gets going again. But so do the markets.

There are few people in this world who spend as much time with active traders as Mike Bellafiore, who has been a Managing Partner at SMB Capital since 2005. I think his unique perspective on trading and traders themselves is the perfect compliment to a lot of the other guests that we've had on the podcast. In this episode, Mike talks about some of the qualities that he's seen in the more successful traders as well as common mistakes he sees being made on the desk. Throughout the conversation, Mike gives us an inside look into the trading floor, how they separate traders into teams and the way the more experienced, proven traders help the younger up and comers. I really enjoyed this one!

A few weeks ago I took a look at the Precious Metals space from the top-down for Premium Members of Allstarcharts, concluding that despite stretched sentiment there's very little evidence that suggests being long this space over the intermediate or long-term. With that said, today I want to discuss the developments in this space since then that have shifted the short-term reward/risk in favor of the bulls.

Consumer Staples have been going up. Stocks like Costco, McCormick and Clorox have been ripping to new all-time highs. The Sysco in the Staples sector has even embarrassed Cisco in Technology. It's been a nice run. The question here, however, is whether or not the strength in Staples is evidence of a flight to safety and whether we should be concerned about the overall market? This is a very important question and I want to walk you through my thought process.

Fine. I get it. Businesses making political stances -- whether you agree with the stance or not -- rubs you the wrong way. And sure, aligning with a professional athlete at the center of a hot-button controversy only makes it more cringe-worthy for you. You're entitled to that opinion and I support your right to voice your displeasure. But for the love of all that is sacred in the world of trading, do.not.let.your.politics.or.emotions.get.in.the.way.of.making.profitable.economic.decisions.

Just don't do it.

After a more than 40% year-to-date and 60% 2-year decline, we've been eyeing Tata Motors on the long side for some mean reversion. For the last two months the stock has been range-bound, but the recent breakout has shifted the reward/risk in favor of the bulls over the short-term.

This week's "Chart of The Week" is exploring the potential 20% upside in Tata Motors, however, I want to use this post to explore the rest of the Automobile Sector for potential opportunities.

I think the overwhelming theme here is that there are a lot more stocks I want to buy than stocks I want to sell. Why do we need to over complicate this?

Another thing I'm seeing is the January highs as a reference point. The question is whether or not the market will be able to surpass that former resistance, proving there is more demand than supply there, or if it's the other way around? Are there, in fact, more sellers up here than buyers? We can see this key January pivot point in most of the major indexes: S&P500, Dow Jones Industrial Average, Dow Jones Transportation Average and Russell3000. Can we get through those highs like the Small-caps, Mid-caps and Nasdaq already have?

I believe the answer is in the components. How are individual stocks reacting to those former highs? Are they breaking through resistance or running into sellers and rolling over?

For us, the big question going into the weekend was whether or not the most recent leg higher in U.S. Stocks is the beginning of something bigger, a breakout of epic proportions, or just a major whipsaw that will lead to further selling into September and October, two of the most historically volatile months of the year.

We see various crowds. On one hand, you have the bearish cult who for many reasons have fought this uptrend the whole time. Whether they just missed the last couple of years in stocks or, worse in some cases, missed the entire decade, they've been very wrong. There's even a group who wishes harm on the United States and elsewhere around the world, just because they disagree with decisions being made in D.C. They certainly don't want stocks to rise. And then you have another group, who is indifferent and is just looking for a favorable risk vs reward shorting opportunity and they think this is finally it.

From time to time, a slowly developing opportunity presents itself and in doing so gives you multiple ways to profit -- while also incrementally reducing your risk as time goes along. This type of situation is presenting itself currently in Marathon Oil $MRO.

Continental Resources $CLR has been consolidating in a range just below 4-year highs, and recent price action has brought it to a level where I like our odds for an income trade.