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.

Over the past 10 days I have been traveling throughout southeast Asia learning new strategies and perspectives from local traders and investors. I'm lucky that I truly love what I do and the evolution of my process is far from complete. Every day the world is getting smaller and more interconnected than ever. Although cultures my be very different, the human psyche is universal. Our emotions controlled by fear and greed can be seen everywhere from New York City, to St. Louis, MO to London, to Kuala Lumpur. The difference is simply the perspective from which each investor sees the world, and therefore the marketplace. Trying to get inside the mind of these investors has been a fascinating process and I firmly believe that it gives me a leg up over everyone else.

This month...

Today I wanted to talk about something that I've never really written about here before but I think is a really important point that I want to make sure I get across. I'm lucky that I get to chat with investors all over the world on a daily basis. Whether you are a professional investor with 30 years of experience, or a student in Hong Kong who just made his/her first trade, I am always willing to chat. Not only does this help me learn about different strategies, objectives and cultures, but also helps give me perspective from all sorts of different angles.

A common theme that I get a lot is regarding chart patterns and pattern recognition: "JC how did you know that consolidation would resolve higher?". Other times I get, "JC how did you know that was a failed breakout and how come this example $XYZ is one you don't consider to be a failed breakout?" The explanations you guys give me make plenty of sense, "But momentum is diverging with prices making new highs!" And in most cases you're probably right. But to me, it's bigger than that. The analysis is not just about one pattern or one divergence or even just one chart. It's about taking these...

These are the recorded video presentations from Chart Summit, the first ever Virtual Technical Analysis Conference. Premium Members of Allstarcharts get private access to these videos to view at your own pace. I hope you get as much value out of these as I did.

The first ever Chart Summit was a huge success. I can't believe how awesome that was. Considering this was 100% virtual and presenters and audience members were logging in remotely from every part of the world, we managed to get through it without many hiccups. Most of the videos have been published correctly and audience members are able to go back and get through about 95% of all the content. Not bad. I think we'll take it.

The feedback has been amazing so thank you to everyone who helped make this possible, including our presenters, our sponsors and, most importantly, to our audience who showed up with enthusiasm to learn! I love to see so much excitement towards the discipline of Technical Analysis. I did everything I could with the hope that my predecessors who first broke barriers for us Technicians back in the 1960s and 70s would be proud of what we were able to accomplish last week.

Here is the video of my presentation where I go over my top/down approach to markets, including examples of what we're seeing in today's environment. In order to bring some additional value, I also discuss my approach...

This weekend was one of the most amazing professional experiences of my life. I'm fortunate that I have friends who are really smart and willing to give up some of their time on a Saturday to share their knowledge and wisdom with investors all over the world. The turn out for Chart Summit exceeded all expectations and the feedback has been tremendous. This week, videos of all the presentations will be sent out to anyone and everyone who registered for the event www.chartsummit.com

As an added bonus to this amazing event, I wanted to walk everyone through my top/down approach to markets. From my perspective, unless you include global stock markets, commodities, forex and interest rates into your analysis, you're really selling yourself short. It's 2017. Even if you just trade or invest in U.S. stocks, taking a global intermarket approach to the marketplace is extremely beneficial. This is with respect to both idea generation and risk management. In addition, we first want to take a long-term view to get structural perspective and then look at daily charts showing just the past year for more short-term tactical...

While so many people seem to be focused on the major US Indexes like the S&P500 or the Dow Jones Industrial Average reaching the irrelevant 20,000 level, I prefer to focus on individual stocks and sectors. There are areas of strength, like Technology obviously, and areas of weakness like Healthcare and Consumer Staples. Stocks are like investors, there are winners and losers. I prefer to be a winning investor focused on winning stocks, wouldn't you? Today we're taking a look at Technology as it quietly breaks out again to new highs.

When you talk about sectors that have been out of favor for a long time, it is hard not to think about the Shippers. Although as a group they bottomed out in February last year along with the S&P500 and a lot of other major indexes and sectors, they haven't really done much ever since. It's been more of a sideways, frustrating grind for anyone involved, both longs and shorts.

This week I dug a little deeper into this space and I wanted to share some of my findings. Also note that some of these stocks are not exactly mega-caps. They're poor little shippers. So before doing anything, make sure you check for enough liquidity to fit your parameters. Some are also much smaller market-caps than we're used to talking about here, so just a heads up.

When we look at stocks that continuously sell off when they hit a specific area, we call that “resistance”. But all that really means is that the market is suggesting there are more sellers than buyers near a given price. There is overhead supply of shares, for whatever the reason. We’re not interested in knowing why, we just want to know if there is resistance or not. In some cases, stocks will “break out” above that overhead resistance, proving to us mathematically that the overwhelming amount of sellers at that given area has now been absorbed by an overwhelming amount of buyers for the stock.

As I mentioned recently, I've been working with some new technology and it's allowing me to easily share analysis in a much more detailed way from a sub-sector perspective. In the first top/down review last week we looked at the Media stocks. Today I want to take a deep dive into the precious metals market and really drill down how we want to approach this market. There is more sensitivity when it comes to participants in this market so knowing that is advantageous. We want to 1) recognize this added sensitivity and 2) try to take advantage of that for profit.

There is something fishy happening in the bond market these days. Sentiment is hitting historic bearish extremes as US Interest Rates have fallen over the past month. This to me seems like a "too little too late" sort of thing from those who missed the bond sell-off that began last summer. If you recall, we had been ultra-bearish bonds (bullish rates) since the middle of the summer (see: August 3, 2016). That worked great and all of our targets were hit in the 4th quarter. Since December, we've been approaching the bond market from the long side and sentiment these days is reiterating why we would still rather err on the bullish side moving forward.

One of the things I've been working on behind the scenes is building the technology necessary to deliver my sub-sector analysis. Until now, you guys only see the end results. Through the Chartbook, I've been able give you access to my analysis on many things, including the sector and sub-sector ETFs. Once I've concluded that I like a particular sector, long or short, I'll then break down the components of that sector to find stocks that can participate in direction of my overall thesis. I share those with you on the weekly letters, monthly conference calls and quarterly playbooks. Moving forward, I'm going to be sending you individual deep dives into different US sub-sectors when I see something that stands out.

Today's deep dive analysis is on Media Stocks. This is a sub-sector of the overall Consumer Discretionary space:

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.

This year has started off how we wanted it to and I will be following up on many of the big ideas we discussed in the Q1 Playbook that I published in late December. I've spent most of this week doing a deep dive into a lot of the sub-sectors to find where some of the strength lies underneath the surface. A good example has been the strength Medical Devices within the underperforming Healthcare space. But there are several more out there that we'll talk about.

This month's Conference Call will be held on Wednesday January 18, 2016 at 7PM ET. Here are the Registration Details:

I'm extremely fortunate to have a front row seat to the most incredible display of human emotions in the history of mankind. Every day I get to watch markets move up and down based on fear and greed competing with one another at all times. One of the things I find most interesting is how humans tend to behave at the beginning of a perceived cycle. For you guys who think these psychological events don't impact the stock market, you're crazy. Seasonality is something I study very closely, particularly when markets ignore seasonal tendencies.

US Treasury Bonds have been a market that we've been watching very closely over the past couple of months. Remember this had been a favorite short of mine since the Summer, but all of our downside targets were hit in the 4th quarter. Since then, it has no longer been a short, and we've been waiting for it to set up to be a long for a mean reversion. Here is what is now going on this week:

Here is a list of trade ideas organized by date, ticker symbol and directional bias. Please make sure you have clicked on the link and read the details surrounding the trade before acting upon any of them. Also, make sure you have checked with your financial advisor and tax accountants to make sure you are suitable to be executing what is discussed on this website. The risk management procedures and targets are detailed for each idea. Please read and review the terms and conditions page before making any trades of your own.

The year 2016 is now in the books. As market participants, it is our job to prepare for the coming quarter. We don't care much for year end targets. Those are just a marketing gimmick for wall street sell side firms. The media irresponsibly parades these historically wrong sell side analysts around on the tv and radio and have all sorts of gimmicky specials. We don't have time for that. We're here to make money in the market. So rather than making a list of the "Top 10" this or that, or blatantly making up a number to put as an S&P500 target for a year from now, I thought it would add value to walk you through my entire process as I prepare for the first quarter of 2017.

We're going to go step by step on how I analyze markets. First we'll start with the major US Indexes, both long-term and short-term. Then we'll move on to the US Sectors relative to the rest of the market followed by the US Sectors and sub-sectors on an absolute basis. Next we'll look at the globally to see if international markets are confirming what we're seeing in the US or if they are diverging. In order to finish up our macro analysis, we'll then take a deep dive into commodities, currencies...

What do you guys think? Is it over for Facebook?

I think we're about to find out.

Here's how's I see it:

I like buying stocks that are going up. If there is anything that the market has taught us over the past hundred years is that market prices trend. The major averages, individual sectors, stocks, commodities, currencies, interest rates, they all trend. Sometimes these are uptrends that last years or even decades, sometimes they're downtrends, and sometimes there is no trend and it's just a sideways mess. Remember, recognizing a lack of trend is just as important as the first two. What I like even more is while a stock is going up the sell side likes it less and less. It's completely counter intuitive to us who specifically look for trends to follow. They don't think like us as market participants because they have different motivations.

I've been a full time technician for well over a decade. During this time, I've been lucky enough to meet and become close friends with some of the best and brightest technicians in the world. I regularly discuss the markets with them over email as well as the various conferences and speaking engagements that we all attend. We have spirited debates over what the market is going to do next, who has the better process for identifying opportunities and who nailed or missed the most recent big move. Without fail, I learn something new every time I have these types of discussions. So it got me thinking, and I realized that other traders and investors around the world would love to be a fly on the wall for these conversations and learn some new things too. It's been my goal for the past year to make this a reality, and that day has finally come.

I love technical analysis. I really do. There's no question that finding a nice chart brings a great amount of joy to my life. Today I want to share with you what I think is one of the most important developments to occur over the past couple of months. Interest rates have been ripping higher, yes we know this. But to me it's what is happening in Banks and Real Estate Investment Trusts that continues to grab my attention. These groups of stocks are doing the exact opposite today that they were doing at the beginning of 2016, when I was pounding the table about rates going a lot lower.

Interest rates have exploded higher into year-end from a low near 1.37% on the 10-year yield up to over 2.6%. But one of the big reasons that had me so bullish rates since July was that while the 10-year was making lower lows into the summer, the ratio between Regional Banks and REITs held the early 2015 low and started to rally: