When the stock market is not going up, the blame game gets played. It's a combination of shareholders losing money and media types needing something to say. It's always someone or something's fault and rarely described as a normal occurrence. The truth, however, is that yes, stocks falling in price is part of the regular cycles that we've always seen. In fact, stock markets that don't have periods of falling prices are incredibly abnormal. 2017 for U.S. Stocks was the exception that proves the rule.

The reason I mention this is because we have not been in an environment where we want to be selling strength since early 2016. Many of you have been following my work for many years and remember my gloom & doom days of 2015 and even as far back as 2008. You guys already know that I'll be bullish stocks when appropriate and bearish when necessary as well.

It's...

From the desk of Tom Bruni @BruniCharting

When the weight of the evidence is pointing in one direction as it has been for most of the last two years, it makes sense to be aggressive and take advantage of the clear trends while they're intact. However, when conditions change and the evidence becomes more mixed, a more neutral approach is appropriate. But what does that look like from a practical sense?

When the weight of the evidence is pointing in one direction as it has been from early 2016 through mid-2018, it makes sense to be aggressive and take advantage of the clear trends while they're intact. However, when conditions change and the evidence becomes mixed, a more neutral approach is appropriate. So what does that look like from a practical sense?

From the desk of Tom Bruni @BruniCharting

The new 52-week high list has been pretty scarce as of late, but Verizon's earnings announcement propelled its stock above an important level of resistance to 17-year highs, signaling further upside may be be ahead.

We don't do a lot of "earnings" plays here at All Star Options. We don't scare away from entering smart trades with defined risk ahead of earnings reports, but only if we feel there's a larger play in the cards.

However, when all the stars align, we'll consider specific opportunities.

We've got one all lined up with Avis, $CAR.

The thing about the market is that there is no holy grail. No matter how hard you try, you're not going to find it. The holy grail does not exist. We have to weigh the evidence knowing full well that we're working with incomplete information. The idea is to accumulate all of the data and make a conclusion based on all of it, not just some of it.

Today, I want to go over a few of the divergences that have put the bulls in a precarious situation. There is a large crowd of permabull "passive" investors that are taught just to buy stocks and hope for the best. They are shown all of these sexy equity curves and told again and again how much they would have made had they invested in the S&P500 in 1950 or 1982 or whatever cherry-picked date is forced upon them.

It doesn't make these people good or bad. It's just what it is. I think it's important for market participants to understand the way things work. Based on the tiny tiny sample size of a 100 years or so, sure a lot of these theories could make some sense. We've had less than a handful of secular bear markets during...

This weekend we updated our chartbooks for Premium Members of Allstarcharts India, so I wanted to do a quick post outlining the changes to our universe of stocks since the end of the first quarter.

This weekend I was down in beautiful San Diego for the 3rd annual Trade Ideas Conference. For me, it's not just about the presentation that I give or the panel that I sit on, but the people that I get to meet or see again. That's the great part about our community: everyone's ability to share and learn and recognize that we're all in this together. As we approach the market with our own individual goals and objectives in mind, along the way we pick things up from others that help us adjust and fine tune our strategies regularly over time. My friends at Trade Ideas put on a good show, but it was the engaged audience and interactions with my fellow speakers that really made the weekend great.

Here is the video of my presentation. Shoot us an email to info@allstarcharts.com if you're interested in receiving the slides:

So far, this new corrective phase in U.S. stocks is playing out according to script: Deep down moves, interrupted by gravity-defying bounces that suddenly get saddled with lead weights which drag stocks back down with the fishes. Sorry for the horrible Godfather-inspired mixed metaphor.

In this type of environment, we want to be patient with our risk-defined positions when they go against us, yet aggressive when they go our way. This one simple mindshift will be what separates the winners in a bear market from the pretenders.

We laid out our first list of stocks we want to be short in a correction back on October 12. So far, this list is treating us well. The next name that we're ready to tackle is Cisco $CSCO.

Frank Cappelleri is one of my favorite guys to listen to. He brings a unique perspective because of a lot of his experience on Wall Street. Early in his career he spent time working at Smith Barney with legends Alan Shaw and Louise Yamada. He then experienced his first bear market after March 2000 working with former Lehman trader John Schlitz. Frank has been at Instinet, which is owned by Nomura, for a long time and is constantly in touch with some of the smartest guys in the business. I think he's as good a technician as anyone and in this episode he shows us just that. We discuss the market implications of a rising US Dollar and why he no longer has a target above 3050 for the S&P500. I was really looking forward to this conversation and we're lucky we get to pick his brain for a bit. I hope you enjoy this one!

A US stock market crash is a real possibility. 

We have not been in an environment where this was on the table for a long time. For those of you who know me, I think I've proven that I'm not one of these end of the world guys. We can probably all agree that I call it like I see it and have no directional bias. I walk around daily proud to not care whether the market doubles or gets cut in half. We just want to be on the right side of the trend.

The risk for most of the month has been skewed in favor of the bears. As breadth has gotten worse and momentum has confirmed downside pressure, I believe there is unlimited risk in the market right now. Nothing is out of the question.

In my opinion, we are in a stock market environment where a crash is entirely possible. Now, just because it is possible doesn’t mean it will come. I think of it like the city of Miami, where I grew up, during hurricane season. Just because it’s the season doesn’t guarantee that a storm will come, but it is absolutely...

For our subscribers I've discussed what we need to be seeing in terms of market breadth before stepping in and trading stocks in India on the long side (here, here, here, and here) and today's action suggests we may be on our way to getting that opportunity in the next week or two.

Notice anything different the last couple weeks?

Unless you've been on an African safari during the entire month of October, you've probably noticed the dramatic shift in market tone. What has been working for the majority of the year has stopped working. The low-volatility, bullish setups playbook has been rendered ineffective in just a couple short weeks. As many of us were recently reminded, and many of you might be learning now for the first time, when market regimes change -- the process is usually swift, messy, and confusing.

If you're a long-only swing trader in this market environment, good luck. You're probably in for a wild ride.

Chicago is one of my favorite cities in the country. November 7-9th I'll be out there with the team meeting with clients and giving presentations. You're invited to join us Thursday Nov 8th at the Chicago Board of Trade for a Free event hosted by the CMT Association.

Here are the details of the event:

The biggest rallies happen in corrective or bear markets. They are nice, but often temporary. Stay nimble, my Trader friends.

— Sean McLaughlin 📈 (@chicagosean) October 16, 2018

I posted this on twitter today as the latest round of dip buyers were tripping all over themselves to buy up any and all perceived bargains being offered by Mr. Market. While the cumulative bounce for the past three trading days has been impressive, I've traded through too many corrections and bear markets to be tricked this easily into thinking the storm has fully passed.

Instead, I'm welcoming bounces like this because it more easily reveals the weakest names that are struggling to rebound. The stocks that haven't bounced or are struggling in relative terms to rise with their brethren, these are the names we want to press into on the short side. They are the ones likely to lead the carnage on the next leg down.

Next up on our target list: Intel $INTC.

From the desk of Tom Bruni @BruniCharting

Marijuana stocks have never been that HIGH on our list of areas to look at given their smaller market-cap, average trading volume, and short price history often inhibits larger players from participating in them, however, the strong performance as of late has drum up interest in the space and increased the number of stocks that meet our criteria to analyze them. This post will be a quick update on what we're seeing from a price perspective.

This past weekend was the 5th annual Traders4ACause Conference in Las Vegas. It was a lot of fun and a bunch of us helped raise money for a list of great causes. On Saturday I gave a presentation about what I'm currently seeing in the markets, including Stocks, Bonds and Currencies. Sunday I sat on a panel with Joe Fahmy and Paul Singh and we just chatted about the markets, what we're seeing out there and shared some stories about the things we've learned over the years. We recorded the conversation so here it is in full. I encourage everyone to check out the Traders4ACause site and donate even if you could not attend. I...

From the desk of Tom Bruni @BruniCharting

This past weekend we wrote updates for our US and India subscribers, discussing stock market breadth around the globe. When I do these types of updates, we often get asked why we look at international markets both in their local currency terms AND as US-listed ETFs. Why not one or the other? In this quick post we'll walk through our thought process behind it.

From the desk of Tom Bruni @BruniCharting

We've written a lot of content on the blog about the current market environment over the last few weeks, but we want to use this post to quickly point to two broad-based breadth measures we're watching to identify when a tradeable bottom might be in.

In addition to the updates we've done about the broader market here, here, here, and here, a lot of you have been emailing us asking for more individual trade ideas. Given that we have to be a lot more selective in this environment, I'm going to use this post to outline a number of setups on the long side. The posts linked above explain why we have a long bias.

From the desk of Tom Bruni @BruniCharting

In July I looked at the trend and momentum readings of stock markets around the world and US Sectors and Sub-Sectors to identify the overall risk appetite for Equities. Today's update will perform the same exercise and compare the results to determine if breadth has improved, deteriorated, or stayed the same, as well as what the implications of these changes are.

In July I looked at the trend and momentum readings of stock markets around the world and India's Sectors to identify the overall risk appetite for Equities. Today's update will perform the same exercise and compare the results to determine if breadth has improved, deteriorated, or stayed the same, as well as what the implications of these changes are.