You see, just because you and your crazy friends have way too much U.S. Large-cap Growth exposure, doesn't mean the stock market is in a correction.

Stocks can do very well while Tech and Growth severely underperform.

May I remind you that Tech was the leader early in the recovery back in 2002-2003. And then handed over the baton to everyone else:

It was John Roque who taught me this so many years ago. At least a decade if I had to guess.

We're NOT in a reversion to the mean business. This is a reversion BEYOND the mean business.

In other words, assets don't just get back to what is "average". They tend to overshoot. And that's the norm, not the exception.

This mean reversion we've seen in energy could be just that, a reversion back to the average. But if I've learned anything over the years, these things tend to overshoot.

We've been very vocal about this Value rotation, of course. But coming into the weekend, the big question I pose to myself, my team, and the market for that matter, is this:

...

There's nothing like a good bubble popping to throw a wrench in everyone's plans.

The passive investor bubble popped. They're getting smoked and I think it only gets exponentially worse for them moving forward.

The U.S. home country bias is a bad one too. That one looks like it popped and about to get a whole lot worse for people who think the United States and The World are the same thing.

Bonds going up for 40 years? That's normal right? It's too early to call a generational turn. We can't make that call until 10s are holding above 3%. But it sure looks like that was it.

Meanwhile, the "Lack of Commodity Exposure" bubble is very apparent. I got in this business back in the day and was taught that there were 3 asset classes:...

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza and Ian Culley @IanCulley

When reviewing our chartbook this week, one major theme that stood out is the relentless bid we continue to see in Crude Oil.

Most risk-on commodities have consolidated or pulled back recently as the dollar has rebounded back to its highest level in over three months.

But, not oil...

Crude has completely ignored this action from the US Dollar and tacked on an additional 12% gain since DXY bottomed about two weeks ago.

Ever since trading at negative prices last spring, Crude has been on an absolute tear.

Price just broke above its key prior highs and closed the week at its highest level since 2018. As long as Crude is above this key former resistance around 65 the bias is higher and we're targeting the 2018 highs just above 75 over the near-term.

If and when price takes this level out, we think Crude Oil heads back toward 100.

That's right. The next stop after 75 would be the 2011-2014 highs in the low...

From the desk of Willie Delwiche.

The monthly jobs report always gets a lot of attention. Headlines usually focus on the number of jobs added (or lost) in the month and the unemployment rate. Occasionally, the hourly earnings number will be quoted and even more rarely there will be a mention of average weekly hours worked. While the noise focuses on the payroll number (+379,000 in February), more important news is that this accompanied a contraction in the average weekly hours number. The combination of these is the aggregate weekly hours index, which fell in February to its lowest level since September and remains more than 6% below its peak. If the US economy is on a sustainable road to recovery, this index should start to move meaningfully higher in the months ahead. It’s something I’ll continue to be watching.

This morning I popped on to Yahoo Finance to chat with Jared Blikre about this rotation out of Growth stocks and into Value. It's going to be hard for people to wrap their heads around buying old dirty energy companies and the banks that they hate so much.

You can't save the world through your portfolio. It was fun watching people try.

That's over, but still hilarious when looking back on it.

Anyway, here's what we're watching:

ASC Analyst Steve Strazza recently published a bullish piece on the Gold Miners $GDX ETF. I liked the idea so much that I'm going to jump into an options trade that will capture the meat from the move if it plays out as expected.

In our latest post, we highlighted the outperformance of Small-caps over large caps and shared a few ideas that we thought could perform well going forward.

Here is part 2 of the Small-cap actionable ideas. Let's see take a  look at the names that have made the cut!

Nifty Small-cap 100 has been moving past crucial resistances. As can be seen from the chart below, we're tracking 7,850 as the risk management level with 9,650 acting as the next target.

In no market can prices rally without minor corrections, so as long as this index is trading above 7,850, our bullish view remains intact.

Click on chart to enlarge view.

Now let’s take a look at some actionable ideas at current levels that look attractive on the long side for the next few weeks and months.

APL Apollo Tubes has been the leader of the pack in the metals segment. Take a look at the indicator pane, RSI hasn't moved into negative territory since...

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza and Ian Culley @IanCulley.

The US Dollar is one of the most important pieces of the intermarket puzzle.

It affects all the major asset classes, and a rising dollar could impact the current market environment by creating a headwind for stocks and suppressing commodity-centric and cyclical areas of the market.

This could put pressure on our current market thesis as US Dollar strength has the potential to put a damper on the recent rally in risk assets.

In this post, we'll take a look at what's going on underneath the surface in the US Dollar Index by running through some of it's largest components.

We'll then weigh the evidence in front of us in an effort to determine a directional bias for King Dollar.

If there is one chart that stands out the most this year, it has to be the Growth vs Value relationship. We've been pounding the table about it for a reason.

We know what's happened over the past couple of weeks. But when you zoom out and see just where it's happening, that's the WOW!

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

I want to elaborate on a big theme of late that's been on my mind. We've written about it, discussed it internally - as well as on Clubhouse, and just this morning JC and Willie were both tweeting about it.

One major implication of the impending trend reversal in growth vs value is its potential effect on passive investment vehicles.

Considering what a mega-trend passive investing has become with the ETF boom over the past decade-plus, this is likely to impact investors far and wide... If they don't reposition themselves appropriately.

The reason for this is nuanced but in my opinion, it boils down to the argument that passive is really just active and there have been significant changes in market structure since the financial crisis that have resulted in the major averages being dominated by just a small handful of...

Hey everyone --

JC and I recorded a review session where we went over select options trades that were exited last month as well as some thoughts on the current market and some lessons within.

This is the video recording of the March 4th Town Hall Meeting w/ Willie Delwiche & JC Parets.

03/04/21 2PM ET

Small-Caps are now the flavour of the season, or at least of the current market setup. With these stocks outperforming the broader market, we took a look at some stocks that could be actionable trades with good risk-reward ratios.

We've broken down this post into two parts to do justice to the number of ideas we're observing right now.

As the Small caps continue to outperform the market, the constituents belonging to this segment are expected to generate greater returns than the large-caps.

For now, it looks like this index is moving about in a market of its own. The next target that we're tracking is 9,650 and the risk management level is 7,850.

Click on chart to enlarge view.

Now let’s take a look at some actionable ideas at current levels that look attractive on the long side for the next few weeks and months.

The first thing that stands out from this chart is the giant base that the stock is breaking out of! Just look at that, this is a 15-year breakout. 15 years! Balrampur Chini seems like...

From the desk of Steve Strazza.

Our Top 10 report was just published; our weekly report highlighting the best 10 ideas and respective charts we are seeing across the markets this week.

1. No More Divergences For The Dow

There had been a classic “Dow Theory” divergence in place for several years, dating back to when the Dow Transportation Average peaked in 2018. This cleared itself up late last year when Transports actually beat Dow Industrials back to new all-time highs. They’ve continued to lead in the time since. What really matters though is that both continue to grind higher, confirming one anothers new highs along the way. We often talk about Modern or 21st Century “Dow Theory,” which uses the Semiconductor Index in place of Transports. This is because a strong argument can be made that semis are the new drivers of what is now a mainly services-based economy in the US (and abroad). While Transports continue to trade more or less at record highs, Semiconductors haven’t made a new high in over two...

Every month we get a fresh batch of Monthly Candlesticks. It only happens 12 times a year.

I promise you guys from the bottom of my heart that there is no other part of my entire process that provides as much value and information as my monthly chart review. Premium Members can access the Chartbook here.

In the meantime, my friend Josh Brown and I have been doing these short monthly videos since last summer.

On the latest episode we talk about the historic breakout in Financials, the rotation into Value and out of Growth, what this means for interest rates and how that affects the global intermarket landscape.

This is always a fun chat.

Hope you enjoy it!

From the desk of Steve Strazza @sstrazza

Check out our latest Mystery Chart!

What we do here is take a chart that's captured our attention, and remove the x and y-axes as well as any other labels that could help identify it.

This chart can be of any security, in any asset class, on any timeframe. Sometimes it's an absolute price chart, other times it's on a relative basis.

It might be a ratio, a custom index, or maybe the price is inverted. It could be all three!

The point is, when we aren't able to recognize what's in front of us, we put aside any biases we may have and scrutinize it objectively.

While you can try to guess the chart, the point is to make a decision...

So let us know what it is… Buy, Sell, or Do Nothing?

This month, I'm going to start presenting these monthly reviews in a different way. I think what would be far more useful to all of you would be a review of all trades we exited in the previous month, as well as updates on any positions approaching expiration in the current month.

While we had a bunch of exits in February, we don't have any positions remaining on the books with March expirations. Let's get to it...