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Multiple Timeframes vs Planets & Stars

October 10, 2021

One of the first things you learn in Technical Analysis is that markets are fractal.

That means that you'll find the same human behaviors (i.e. price patterns) whether you're looking at daily timeframes, weekly time frames or even intraday (e.g. 10-min or 30-min candles).

This is a concept that Brian Shannon has done an amazing job of highlighting throughout his career. Brian has been an inspiration to me since about 2005, which is pretty unbelievable to think about. Since then we've become friends and go skiing together and all that. It's pretty cool how life works sometimes.

Anyway, the idea behind "Multiple Timeframes", which is literally part of the title of Brian's book (go buy it), is to use this reality of "markets being fractal" to our advantage.

That can mean a lot of different things to different people.

For us, in what we do here at All Star Charts is, we start with Weekly and Monthly time horizons. That's where it all begins.

The Bulls Are Scoring More Points

October 9, 2021

One thing unique about the market is that the game is never over. There aren't four 15-min quarters or two 20-min halves like in sports.

In those endeavors there is a beginning and an end.

You know who won (or who tied in some cases). But the match is over, and there will be another one in a few days or a few months, depending on the sport.

In the market, it never ends. This can cause issues psychologically, so it's something we should all be aware of and keep in mind.

But if you ask me, currently the bulls are scoring a lot more points. This is the first time we've seen that since Q1 this year, when the bears started running up the score.

Look at the S&P500 break out to new all-time highs relative to US Treasury Bonds.

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The Hall of Famers (10-8-2021)

October 8, 2021

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Our Hall of Famers list is composed of the 100 largest US-based stocks.

These stocks range from the mega-cap growth behemoths like Apple and Microsoft -- with market caps in excess of $2T -- to some of the new-age large-cap disruptors such as Moderna, Square, and Snap.

It’s got all the big names and more.

It doesn’t include ADRs or any stock not domiciled in the US. But don’t worry; we’re developing a separate universe for that, and we’ll be sharing it with you soon.

So, The Hall of Famers is easy.

We simply take our list of 100 names and then apply our technical filters in a way that the strongest stocks with the most momentum rise to the top.

Let’s dive right in and check out what these big boys are up to.

Here's this week's list:

And here’s how we arrived at it:

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Commodities Coiling Up Energy

October 8, 2021

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

Commodities have been on an absolute tear, with our Equal-Weight Commodity Index up almost 40% over the trailing year. 

But ever since Q2, the vast majority of the space has been chopping sideways along with most cyclical assets. 

Sounds a lot like stocks, doesn’t it? And while we’re still yet to see any major resolutions from equities, we have seen some bullish developments in the commodities market of late.

Energy asserted itself as the new leadership group with a series of major breakouts. Both crude and heating oil broke to new six-year highs, while gasoline futures completed a seven-year base. 

Then there’s natural gas, which gained more than 25% during the trailing month and tested its 2014 highs just above 6.

The emerging leadership from energy comes as no surprise, as we noticed signs of relative strength last month.  

Now that it’s here, what are the implications for the rest of the commodity space and global risk assets?

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Where's the Alpha At?

October 7, 2021

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

Back in August, we presented two opposing views of the relationship between stocks and bonds.

The question was, after running into resistance at a key extension level, in which direction would the $SPY/$TLT ratio resolve?

Would stocks break higher relative to bonds, in the direction of the underlying trend?

Or would the ratio roll over in favor of bonds? It would certainly be a logical level for a trend reversal...

Fast forward two months, and we finally have our answer.

Turns out it was the former -- stocks are breaking higher relative to bonds. Here's a look:

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Are Stocks in a Bear Market?

October 7, 2021

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza and Grant Hawkridge @granthawkridge

Using the S&P 500 as your investment proxy, you’re probably happy with your returns so far this year.

That's even with the 5% pullback we finally saw last week -- the first 5% pullback for the S&P 500 in 2021, and it took 229 trading days.

But the averages aren’t telling the whole story. Some stocks are going up, but most are not. We've been pounding the table about this for months already, and it's been the main theme during the first three quarters of the year.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you already know the current environment is an absolute mess, as the weight of the evidence continues to hang in the balance.

In this post, we’ll show you why the S&P 500 is not the stock market and the stock market is not the S&P 500. 

When we analyze equities as a “market of stocks” rather than “a stock market,” it becomes clear that we're in the thick of a correction that started as early as Q1.  

Here at All Star Charts, we like to call this a stealth correction!

[Options] Wow, that was fast.

October 7, 2021

The short puts we entered on $SPY on Monday hit our profit target today and we are out. Profit target hit in under 4 trading days. We’ll take it!

Meanwhile, the $FCX Bullish Risk Reversal we entered yesterday has quickly moved in our direction.

I’m not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, so I’m going to take this opportunity to remove the risk from the trade.

For details on the trade, you can review it here. In short, we sold naked short puts to pay for the cost of our long calls. Thanks to today’s move, we’re able to sell some of our calls to pay for closing our entire naked short puts position. And we did that today… 

[Options] Looking for a Freeport in the Storm

October 6, 2021

During today's internal Analyst Call, JC asked me what I was looking at for a trade today.

I mentioned I hadn't fully fleshed it out yet, but whatever I did would likely involve selling premium. With the $VIX hovering around 24 at the time, it felt like the edge was on the side of the premium sellers.

At this point, Steve Strazza piped in that he liked Freeport McMoran $FCX as a likely candidate for a bounce here. And then JC got excited about the idea of a bullish Risk Reversal spread to express this idea.

Selling elevated puts premium to offset the cost of a long call position? Yes... I liked the sound of that.

[PLUS] Weekly Sentiment Report

October 6, 2021

From the desk of Willie Delwiche.

Key Takeaway: The risks associated with excessive optimism are no longer present as bulls are in full retreat. Recent spikes in volatility and downside pressure on price have ushered in an atmosphere of caution.Though we haven’t reached levels of fear or pessimism indicative of a complete unwind, active equity managers reducing their exposure to 55% and the II bull-bear spread at its lowest level since May 2020 speaks to a healthy reset. Relentless equity ETF inflows, elevated valuations, and slowing earnings growth all point to increased risks over longer timeframes. However, we are seeing early signs of opportunity re-entering the market from a tactical and cyclical perspective.

Sentiment Report Chart of the Week: Fade the flows

[Podcast] The Evolution Of Becoming A Technician w/ Brian G @alphacharts

October 6, 2021

On this episode of the podcast, Steve Strazza and I sit down with Brian G, who many of you will recognize as @AlphaCharts on Twitter.

I've been following Brian for many years and love a lot of the work he puts out. It was really fun hearing his story about how he became a technician.

It isn't something that happens overnight, that's for sure. It's a process.

First we get into the evolution of become a Technical Analyst, and then we dive into what we're doing about it in the current environment.

Hope you enjoy!