I could not be more thrilled that it's the end of the month for one reason alone: Monthly Candlestick Charts. They get me every time! It's easy to get lost in the every day noise surrounding the market. The chart review I do heading into the first of every month is one of the most important parts of my process. It brings me home. There's no better way I know to maintain composure and recognize trends than this monthly music and chart session!

Since June of 2017 when the S&P500 broke out above 2400, we've had a target of 3000. After close to a 4% rally in the S&P500 Index this month, we went out just 6 points from a new all-time high monthly close. This is not any evidence we think suggests anything has changed. To the contrary, higher prices are things we expect to see in an uptrend:

What is really interesting is what is currently happening with the Dow Jones Averages, both the Industrial & Transportation Indexes. First, let's start with the Transports because they just went out at a new all-time monthly closing high. Our target near...

51 days until expiration is the sweet spot for putting on delta neutral income trades. "Income Trades" are best established in underlyings experiencing elevated levels of volatility (resulting in higher options prices), but that are stuck within a price range. The thinking here is that volatility is likely to revert back to the mean and the underlying is likely to stay within it's current range. Inertia, ya dig?

In coming weeks, All Star Options will be unveiling an Income Trades Heat Map which will help direct you towards the best ETF candidates for putting on these trades whenever you're interested.

In the meantime, we've got a trade from the top of this list ready to go.

Based on the great feedback we receive every day, we know a lot of Allstarcharts India readers have an interest in the mid-cap and small-cap segments of the market. Typically we cover those areas in the Monthly Conference Call, followed by a deep dive (or two) on anything that we didn't have time to discuss. Additionally, we publish shorter posts throughout the month highlighting opportunities as they emerge.

While a good start, we wanted to create something to provide more regular coverage of the space, so we've added nearly 100 mid and small-cap stocks to the Chartbook feature of our site. To narrow this universe down to a manageable size, these lists include those stocks that are available to short via futures and/or options, so that we can provide consistent analysis on both sides of the trade as we do in the other Chartbooks.

We're growing over here at All Star Charts and it's really exciting! This year we launched All Star Options and All Star Charts India. We've added Technical Analyst Tom Bruni to our team as well as our new Chief Options Strategist Sean McLaughlin.

This comes after launching our Free Educational Lessons and the All Star Charts Podcast on Technical Analysis Radio. We're also ramping up our YouTube channel these days with short videos about what we're seeing in the market. It has become very clear that we need an intern to help us out with some of these projects.

Tom Bruni, our new Technical Analyst interned for us over 4 years...

The original inspiration for the monthly conference calls for members of All Star Charts came from the benefits of the Question & Answer sessions. We have really smart and experienced members and I think everyone can get value from this process, myself included.

Over the years, our conference calls have gotten much more in depth and to keep the videos under an hour, we simply have not had as much time for Q&A as was originally intended. Therefore, starting this month I will be hosting a video Q&A which will be archived for everyone to watch.

If you have any questions, you can fill out this form and I will be answering them in a video on the evening of August 1, 2018.

Please note that this form is not a pop-out window or link, just enter your name and question directly below in the spaces provided.

From the desk of Tom Bruni @BruniCharting

When I thought of the title for this post I was hoping to make a Nascar analogy, but quickly realized I don't know anything about Nascar or racing. With that aside, what's clear from our recent blog posts is that we remain bullish on US Equities but open-minded to the new data we're getting each day. As I was going through my sector chartbook this weekend I identified a few momentum divergences that have emerged, as well as some bullish data points that potentially offset them, so this post will quickly go through my findings and key takeaways.

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.

The last two trading days (Thursday-Friday July 26-27) have been somewhat challenging for the S&P 500 and Nasdaq. But there was some relative strength in the financials, in particular, American Express $AXP which last week printed a new all-time high.

This isn't entirely surprising to us as we've been watching the financials absorb cash flows as one of the next to step up in the ongoing sector rotations that continue to lead this bull market higher. And we've got a plan to capitalize.

From the desk of Tom Bruni @BruniCharting

The broad-based Financials ETF $XLF has gone basically sideways for the majority of the year, but under the surface there has been strength in individual names and sub-sectors like Broker-Dealers and Exchanges. We've spoken a lot about them in the past, so today I want to talk focus on several stocks showing relative strength that are setting up on the long side.

As a group, the semi-conductors sector has been underperforming this year, but signs are pointing to an upward trend declaration soon. This isn't a wildly bullish announcement, but neither do we need to be wildly bullish to make money on a mildly bullish opportunity.

With earnings coming up on July 30 and some significant recent support levels to lean against, we're going to take advantage of the 'earnings premium' being priced in to $KLAC options today.

Here is the latest video on our Youtube Channel: Update on the USA "Next 50" Index and its Construction

From the desk of Tom Bruni @BruniCharting

The Nasdaq Composite closed at another all-time high yesterday, but some are questioning this rally's sustainability due to the under-performance of the Semiconductor Index. Given we're open-minded about our bullish Technology thesis, we want to use this post to take explore the sector's recent performance and its possible implications.

From the desk of Tom Bruni @BruniCharting

This post is part two of the semiconductor discussion that began here, with us outlining the current trend in Semiconductors from the top-down. If you've not read that yet, I suggest you do as this post will focus on the specific stocks we want to be involved in to capitalize on the eventual continuation of this sector's uptrend.

This week I was in New York meeting with partners and old friends. On Tuesday I was down at the Bloomberg Headquarters chatting with Catherine Murray about what we're seeing from a technical perspective. We discuss Technology, Medical Equipment stocks and where we are within this secular bull market. Here's the video of the interview:

Texas Instruments $TXN appears to have authored no surprises in their quarterly earnings call on Tuesday afternoon, announcing well telegraphed results (following a recent CEO shakeup) that had basically no effect on share prices in the after-hours session.

That's good news, because now traders can get to work on completing its now 27 week base and not have to worry too much about any headline risk to get in the way in the near future. With all-time highs within range, we've got a plan to participate.

Over the last week or so we've seen an upside reversal in many of the Public Sector Bank stocks across the large, mid, and small-cap segments of the market. This has many wondering whether or not this is "the bottom" in this sector or if it's simply "a bottom" within the context of many structural downtrends. In this post we'll take a look into the sector to see what the weight of evidence suggests might be the answer to this question.

Here is the latest video on our Youtube Channel: Railroad Stocks and what it could mean for the overall market!

In the latest monthly conference call for All Star Charts subscribers, JC lays out a compelling case for being long leaders in the transportation space -- notably trucking and railroads.

We're not one to step in front of trends, especially those riding on rails, and with a well received earnings report released last week pushing $CSX to new highs, we see nothing but green lights ahead to our price target. And when momentum is coupled with collapsing volatility, it sets up pretty compelling opportunities to participate in some highly leveraged upside.

During our July Members Only Conference Call we discussed a lot of the big-picture trends from around the world and in India, but we wanted to do a long post discussing what we're seeing in the small-cap space. In this post I'll cover what we're seeing in the index itself, as well as get into some of its most actionable components. Also check out our mid-cap post here.

During our July Members Only Conference Call we discussed a lot of the big-picture trends from around the world and in India, but we wanted to do a long post discussing what we're seeing in the mid-cap space. In this post I'll cover what we're seeing in the index itself, as well as get into some of its most actionable components.

JC is fond of trades that offer asymmetric return opportunities (who isn't, really?). And we've got a potential beauty setting up in Abbott Labs $ABT.

With earnings out of the way and a direction loudly declared, we've got a screaming opportunity setting up and we're ready to strike.

This is the recording from the live July Conference Call for Members of the New Allstarcharts India! Before getting into individual stock ideas in India, we're going to first start with the global macro perspective. Once we identify the direction of the underlying trends from a structural and broader view, then we'll dive into the NIFTY and SENSEX Indexes on both longer-term and short-term timeframe. We want to look at Large-caps, Small-caps and everything in between before getting into the Sector and Industries themselves like Energy, Banks and Pharma.

This is when we finally break things down to the individual stock scenario with identified risk vs reward opportunities. That is what this is all about - aligning ourselves in the direction of the underlying trend while at the same time identifying where the risk is to make sure the potential reward is skewed exponentially in our favor. You will find that throughout this process we discuss Momentum, Fibonacci and Relative Strength. I encourage you to check out the Education Section so you know exactly where I'm...