Monday afternoon I was down in San Francisco, so I went by the Bloomberg West studios to do a quick hit with Catherine Murray. She asked me about the S&P500, Technology, Financials and the underperformance of Consumer Staples. We also discussed sector rotation and Crude Oil during the segment.

Here is the interview in full:

From the desk of Tom Bruni @BruniCharting

Despite the higher highs and higher lows in the major indices, all-time highs in riskier assets such as micro and small-cap stocks, and fresh breakouts in leading sectors like Technology and Consumer Discretionary, there continues to be a subset of market participants who fight this rally.

It's hard for me to make a bearish case for stocks with the Consumer Discretionary sector breaking out on both an absolute and relative basis. In other words, the Consumer Discretionary sector index fund is not only coming out of a 5-month base to new all-time highs, but relative to the S&P500, Discretionaries are coming out of a 30-month base to make new all-time relative highs. This is tough to ignore.

In early May, I pointed out that the Consumer Discretionary vs Consumer Staples ratio making new all-time highs was sector rotation suggesting higher stock prices in general. Since then the S&P500 is up 5.5%, the Small-cap Russell2000 is up 7.6% and the Nasdaq100 is up 7.8%. This sort of behavior is consistent with an environment where the riskier, more speculative, much higher beta Discretionary stocks are outperforming the safer, less risky and much lower beta Staples. 

The broader market has resolved its range to the upside led by several groups, among them Consumer Discretionary, which is hitting all-time highs on an absolute basis and also relative to the Consumer Staples sector. Within that group, the Restaurant industry continues to deliver strong returns. An example is Texas Roadhouse up 20% YTD on top of an already massive ~ 1300% gain from its 2008 lows.

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To show how broad-based this rally's been, I want to highlight two stocks on the opposite ends of the spectrum, Denny's, the breakfast chain, and RCI Hospitality Holdings, the owner/operator of nightclubs.

I don't think many people are prepared for a 60% rip in shares of Tesla. I see the headlines coming through written by people who have never traded a stock in their lives. I see the pessimism and skepticism. Most importantly, I also see that a third of the float is short the stock. So forget what people are saying, look at what people are doing!

Those of you who know me or have been reading the blog for a while understand the power of the failed move, or the "whipsaw" as we like to call it. The old saying is that from failed moves, come fast moves in the opposite direction. I believe this scenario is precisely what we have on our hands today in shares of Tesla. In my opinion, the risk here is much higher and the higher probability outcome is that these shorts get squeezed very hard.

From the desk of Tom Bruni @BruniCharting

Today's mystery chart reveal post highlighted the potential opportunity in the Homebuilder ETF ($XHB) as it sits at an important inflection point within a longer-term uptrend. In the post I highlighted that although there is mixed performance among the components, the reward/risk is still skewed in favor of the bulls at current levels. As a follow-on to that, this post will be highlighting some of the best and worst stocks in the sector along with our risk management levels and targets for each.

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From the desk of Tom Bruni @BruniCharting

Last week I posted the mystery chart pictured below to see what people were thinking once they removed the biases of knowing the security name, timeframe, or etc. and had only price to rely on.

Well, the *rough* results are in and

• 50% said do nothing because of the opportunity cost;
• 25% said buy; and
• 25% said sell

From the desk of Tom Bruni @BruniCharting

The news broke last night that Twitter will be replacing Monsanto in the S&P 500 on June 7th. This announcement comes at a time where Twitter is hitting 3-year highs and is trending higher with the rest of the social media stocks and tech sector. The stock is still down 49% from its all-time highs hit in 2013 and was the butt of Wall Street’s jokes not too long ago, but its recent run presents a great opportunity to study what characteristics to look for when trying to pick a bottom in a stock, the responsible way.

When the biggest sector in the S&P500 representing 25% of the entire index makes an all-time daily, weekly and monthly closing high, it's probably worth paying attention. I also hear the lazy people talk about how Technology is being led by just a few names. This is simply not true as the Technology Equal-weight index is also breaking out to new highs. We're seeing a broad based rally in Tech, and it's not something new.

I've been pounding the table on Technology because it's been outperforming on an absolute basis, but also on a relative basis. Tech is not just going up, it's beating all the other sectors. Here is the Equally-weighted Tech Index Fund $RYT breaking out of a 4-month base to new all-time highs. New highs are a characteristic of uptrends, not downtrends:

Remember that Bearish Island Reversal in the Nasdaq in March? I wrote a whole note about it pointing out that it was now going to be a problem. The fact that the Nasdaq broke out to new all-time highs, and then failed hard, was evidence of an overwhelming amount of supply for stocks relative to demand.

I mentioned at the time that it was most likely going to resolve through time, rather than through a severe downside correction in price. The reason was that this was just a brief 2-month breakout and not a massive top or reversal. I said that the sooner we can get through that 7000 level, the stronger the market we're in from an intermediate-term perspective. Not only was this a risk management tool, but also as a source of information: strength or weakness in this case.

Fast forward just 10 weeks later and we're now breaking out above key resistance once again.

It's very easy to get caught up in the day to day noise of the market, especially if you're allowing toxic media content into your life. It's virtually impossible for us to completely ignore it all, although I do try my best. So, at the very least, we want to be aware of what type of content we're consuming and the conflicts of interest that are driving it. But another, and much easier way to avoid getting lost is simply by taking a step back. Monthly charts allow us to see the forest through the trees and is one of the most valuable parts of my entire process.

Even if you're a day trader or short-term swing trader, I think it's a huge advantage to understand the direction of the underlying trends. For me, who specifically looks out weeks and months, trying to make money this quarter, my monthly candlestick chart review is essential. I can't begin to tell you how much this has helped me avoid blindly calling tops or bottom fishing in never ending downtrends. It most certainly helps us err in the direction of the underlying trends which, of course, increases our probabilities of success.

From the desk of Tom Bruni @BruniCharting

The US Dollar Index is up roughly 7.5% since it's February lows, a move that has hit many of the global stock market ETFs we follow due to their local currency exposure. The Frontier Markets ETF $FM is among those hit hardest, down roughly 16% since late January. With that in mind, we like to focus on strength and there are three global ETFs that continue to hold up well and should lead if/when strength in the US Dollar subsides.

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