It's not about a virus or any economic reports. It's about Credit.

We've said it before and we'll say it again.

Look at last year, for example. By the time the S&P500 finally put in its high in February, everything else had already been falling apart. Small-caps, Mid-caps, Micro-caps, Financials, Transportation, Emerging Markets, New Highs list, Advance-Decline Line, the Value Line Index and S&Ps relative to its alternatives had all been pointing to stocks falling.

There was more data early last year suggesting to be completely out of stocks, and in bonds instead, than before any other crash in stock market history. We discussed this last week.

But even if you ignored all of those factors. And you just looked credit, you would have seen Treasuries significantly outperforming the rest of the bond market. Credit told you:

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza.

Welcome back to our “latest Under The Hood” column for the week ending February 19, 2021. As a reminder, this column will be published bi-weekly moving forward, and rotated on-and-off with our new Minor Leaguers column.

In this column, we analyze the most popular stocks during the week and find opportunities to either join in and ride these momentum names higher, or fade the crowd and bet against them.

We use a variety of sources to generate the list of most popular names. There are so many new data sources available that all we need to do is organize and curate them in a way that shows us exactly what we want: A list of stocks that are seeing an unusual increase in investor interest.

Whether we’re measuring increasing interest based on large institutional purchases, unusual options activity, or simply our proprietary lists of trending tickers… there is a lot of overlap.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @sstrazza

At the beginning of each week, we publish performance tables for a variety of different asset classes and categories, along with commentary on each.

Looking at the past helps put the future into context. In this post, we review the absolute and relative trends at play and preview some of the things we’re watching to profit in the weeks and months ahead.

Every major asset class on Earth continues to illustrate risk-taking behavior on the part of market participants.

Yields, Oil, Equities, Base Metals, the Australian Dollar -- there's an overwhelming amount of new highs in offensive areas of the market right now. The weight of the evidence continues to suggest that we want to be buyers, not sellers, of stocks.

What does the market environment look like if stocks are under pressure, and loading up on stocks is probably a bad idea?

Well, I'd argue we'll probably stop seeing new highs in Aussie Dollar and US 10-yr Yields:

It's hard not to laugh a little when we say ridiculous things like,

Regional Bank Stocks continue to be the market leaders during this Global Pandemic...."

Especially in front of a group of investors who think they're smart.

This is like the "least smart" comment you can make, according to some circles...

From the desk of Steve Strazza @sstrazza and Louis Sykes @haumicharts

In a recent post discussing cyclicals, we posed the following question:

Are Energy and Financial stocks about to lead the market?

Cyclical groups are catching all the right tailwinds in this environment.

Crude Oil and Yields are pressing to new 52-week highs as investors continue to favor more economically-sensitive stocks and commodities in general. This is a bullish development and supports higher prices for some of the most beaten-down risk assets... even Financials and Energy.

As participation has expanded, we've been vocal about looking for the winners in each group without a sector bias based on relative strength.

When you really dive in and see what's going on, it becomes quite obvious that this will end in disaster for many investors.

Do you know why?

Because that's what always happens.

So what?

Why is that our problem?

What does that have to do with investing and helping my family?

If you take maybe just 30 seconds to study history, you’ll find that most uptrends were not bubbles. They were just uptrends.

There were things that happened this month and even last year that have never happened in the market before. There were even some events that only occurred a few times in history.

So what?

Every month and every year we see the market do things that it's never done before, or maybe has done very rarely.

If you really want to get into it, we see something happen every single day that rarely happens, if at all.

So what?

We can make a big to-do about it, if that's your modus operandi. Remember it's a lot of people's job to sensationalize everything. Way more people than you think. And in many cases, the ones with the loudest mics. 

Big day everyone! We are debuting a new feature for Premium Members of All Star Charts India! There are a lot of exciting things lined up, but it's time to reveal a little something now.

Introducing the new kid on the block- The Outperformers!

The Outperformers is our newest scan that pinpoints the very best stocks in the market. It’s the fastest, easiest way to find quality names that are primed for major moves.

The market as a whole does not move together. Regardless of the market direction, there are always certain stocks and sectors that act as leaders and laggards. As the name suggests, the Leaders are the first to respond to a particular trend, whereas the Laggards join in later.

There is a big advantage in identifying these leaders in any given market environment. These are the names that generate greater returns compared to market indices as well as other stocks.

For example, in a market environment where mid-caps are outperforming the large-caps, it would make sense to be invested in mid-caps rather than large-caps.

You'd have to be a part of the market for quite some time to be able to claim that you witnessed a bull run in the PSU Banks sector. This sector is notorious for perpetual underperformance regardless of the market sentiment.

Well, maybe that's changing. Over the past two weeks, these hibernating stocks decided to wake up and join the party. Looks like they finally received the invite for the ongoing rally!

A move above 1,900 in the PSU Banks Index is crucial and here's why. This level has played the role of strong support for close to seven years. With the breach of this level in early 2020, the principle of polarity would mean that 1,900 would turn into stubborn resistance. The fact that PSU Banks has broken out of this resistance rather quickly, hints at the strength that's building in this index.

We are bullish above 1,900, for targets near 2,645 & 3,445.

Click on chart to enlarge view.

Here we go with another round of our Top-Down Take post. At All Star Charts we like to keep things simple and look at the bigger picture. We let the charts speak to us and then decide what to do. Always remember, the Trend is our Friend.

Today we’re taking a look at the sector that seems to be rallying with a vengeance! The PSU Banks are out and about, finally enjoying their moment in the sun.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza.

We recently held February’s Monthly Conference Call which our Premium Members can access and rewatch here.

In this post, we’ll provide a summary of the call by highlighting 5 of the most important charts/topics we covered along with commentary on each.

Let’s dive into it.

The need to be right vs wanting to make money. Every trader has to solve this problem and it's not easy.

On this week's podcast I sit down with Dr. Andrew Menaker to talk about what he refers to as "Your Inner Market".

You guys already know how much I love a good chat about investor psychology, so this was really fun for me.

I hope you enjoy!