This week's Chart of The Week revisits a topic we've written about many times over the last few years, Small-Caps vs Large-Caps.

From the desk of Tom Bruni @BruniCharting

Global breadth continues to improve as US stocks press up against all-time highs and many individual countries make multi-year/all-time highs.

Today I want to look at a breakout happening in a market that doesn't get much attention, Israel.

About ten days ago we outlined why it appeared Indian Equities were due for a pause from a tactical perspective and that's what we're getting.

With no movement in the major averages, there's nothing to do, right?

Wrong!

In this post, I outline a few of the stocks we're watching and why they're important.

From the desk of Tom Bruni @BruniCharting

Marijuana stocks have been an absolute disaster for longs in 2019, but one chart suggests that after a nearly 60% decline, the Horizons Medical Marijuana ETF and its components are set up for a counter-trend rally.

Here's the daily chart we've been using to guide us since the Horizons Medical Marijuana Life Sciences ETF (HMMJ) came public in April 2017. Following a quick double, prices settled into a 21-month range between 15 and 26 that was broken to the downside in late September after a failed breakdown and bullish momentum divergence were left unconfirmed.

After falling 35% from that failure and 60% from its 2019 high, the ETF is now showing signs of waning downside momentum as prices quickly recover from new marginal lows. It's also curious to note that this development is occurring at its IPO price around 10.

Click on chart to enlarge view.

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I was in Las Vegas this past week for a bunch of meetings and conferences. There was a lot going on in that city. There were traders and analysts at every hotel on the strip. It was really cool to see old friends and, of course, meet new ones. I personally found myself in a half dozen hotels arguing about markets and seeing a bunch of live music. Check out this video I shot at the Santana show at Mandalay Bay.

On Thursday afternoon I was hanging out at Bally's with David Keller talking about Stocks, Bonds, Gold, Copper, Sector Rotation, Market Breadth, Sentiment and the current market conditions. This one was short and sweet but we covered a lot:

From the desk of Tom Bruni @BruniCharting

Stabilization in European Financials has been a big part of our bull case as they're one of the largest sectors of the Stoxx Europe 600, our broad measure of European stocks, and many individual European countries.

The other aspect of it is risk appetite. If the worst of the worst sectors is catching a bid, then market participants are not likely pricing in the end of the world.

With that in mind, let's take a look at what we're seeing in the space right now and what it means for risk appetite.

Here are European Financials (EUFN) on an absolute basis. After confirming a failed breakdown and bullish momentum divergence by closing back above their December lows, prices rallied nearly 20%, but are now experiencing waning upside momentum.

After running 18% in 10 weeks, a pause would be constructive. The question now is whether prices can digest these gains through price, time, or both. Being bullish Equities we'd prefer the latter, but the market...

When stocks are in strong uptrends, they tend to not only do well on an absolute basis, but they outperform their alternatives as well. Two obvious ones are Gold and Bonds.

So if stocks are going to fall hard, like so many people keep telling me, we are likely to see a bid in Precious Metals and US Treasury Bonds. As it turns out, however, we've only seen the exact opposite - bonds and metals struggling below overhead supply.

Back in August I made the case that if stocks were going much higher, as we thought they would, then the S&P500 will hold support at the late December lows relative to both Gold and Bonds. You can watch that short video here. This is what that chart looks like now:

Thursday we looked at two lagging sectors that have been developing signs of a potential bottom like we saw in Energy, Autos, and others several months ago.

Today I want to follow up on that post by diving into the Nifty PSU Bank Index components to see if what we're seeing there supports the action that's occurring in the equally-weighted index.

In September we saw a massive spike in the number of new 63-day highs in the Nifty 500's components.

Today I want to take a look at look at the data and answer the questions how rare is this signal? and what are the forward returns?

The Nifty Public Sector Bank and Media sectors of the market have been laggards for a while, but we're now beginning to see signs that rotation into these areas is ahead.

From the desk of Tom Bruni @BruniCharting

Tuesday's Mystery Chart had a lot of people talking and guessing (incorrectly, as usual), so thank you all for your feedback and participation.

Opinions were mixed on how to approach it, but I'd say the majority are looking to position themselves for further upside.

With that as our backdrop, let's get into it.

You can now add the Financial Sector Index to your list of new 52-week highs. This is further evidence of expansion in upside participation, not contraction. Breadth improvements like this keep adding up, there's no denying that. It's hard to make the argument that Financials are underperforming when they're hitting new 10-month highs relative to the S&P500, which is the exact opposite of underperforming.

Rotation rotation rotation. It's the lifeblood of a bull market.

Remember when the bears were arguing that it was defensive rotation and the market was being driven by Utilities and Staples? Well both of those sectors are actually down YTD relative to the S&P500 and still making new relative lows.

So yes, positive rotation is what we're seeing.

Today we're looking at Financials pushing up against their historic 2007 highs for the 3rd time: