From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

I think it could be a decision day for the indices, and we're either setting up for a ripper or a decent drop.

The $SPX needs to get above 3,972. If it does, we can see 4,000-plus.

Otherwise, we can see 3,922, then 3,860.

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza 

While there have been some real winners during the recent rally, the run off the lows from this fall has also left many stocks behind.

Value stocks, cyclicals, and blue-chip names have prospered for the past two months, as groups like financials and industrials have been the latest beneficiaries of sector rotation. 

At the same time, mega-cap technology and the most-speculative growth areas of the market have continued to show relative weakness.

To be clear, it’s not like these stocks have been crashing lower while the rest of the market rallies. Of course, many have participated in the upside action.

But, on balance, the performance from growth stocks has been lackluster.

The disparity between the growth-heavy Nasdaq 100 and the value-heavy Dow Jones Industrial Average perfectly illustrates what’s taken place:

The Dow has rallied almost 20% off its October low, retracing more than 62% of its year-to-date drawdown. Notice how it briefly reclaimed the August highs...

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

The 2020 V-shaped recovery has warped investors’ brains. 

But this is nothing more than recency bias. In reality, bottoms are a process, not an event. 

Don’t fall victim to what’s easy or comfortable. Instead, let’s focus on the facts.

Markets continue to send mixed signals, testing the resolve of even the most disciplined investor. Rather than fight the trend or trendless nature of the markets, I prefer to identify evidence that supports the next directional move.

And there’s one insightful chart atop my deck regarding the direction of the US dollar.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

Overall, the market acted weak today.

The $SPX remained below its eight-day moving average, which is at 3,972. This index came close to touching support at 3,933.

From the desk of Willie Delwiche.

The trend for the S&P 500 has now fallen for 34 weeks in a row. That is the longest sustained decline in the trend since the Financial Crisis ended over a decade ago.       

Why It Matters: Since 1950, the trend for the S&P 500 has been rising nearly 70% of the time. In the process the index has climbed from below 20 to above 4000. During a majority of this time (from the 50s through the 80s) extended periods in which the trend was rising were followed by extended periods in which the trend was falling. Downtrends started to get shorter & shorter in the 90s and outside of the bursting of the internet bubble  (2000-2002) and the Financial Crisis (2007-2009) that has remained the case. Even the COVID crash came and went so quickly that a down-trend hardly had time to emerge. Outside of the two episodes in the 00s, the current downtrend is proving to be the most persistent since the late 1980s. Investors that have been conditioned to quick downside...

From the desk of Willie Delwiche.

Portfolio Update: As mentioned in yesterday's Market Notes, our tactical models are arguing for patience rather than aggressiveness with respect to equity exposure. That being said we want to stay in harmony with relative opportunities as they emerge. While not putting new money to work, we have tweaked the holdings in our Dynamic Tactical Opportunity Portfolio.

The co-founder and executive chairman of Energy Transfer $ET, Kelcy Warren, reappears on our list today.

Warren reported an additional buy of roughly $16 million.

We like to keep things simple and remove unnecessary complexity.

As far as we've been concerned, over the last few years -- and particularly since the November high -- Bitcoin has merely followed legacy markets.

For the longest time, it's been all about correlations. Has this made our job slightly boring? Sure, there's no doubt.

As technicians, we love having multiple uncorrelated asset classes at our fingertips. The more assets with their own idiosyncratic drivers away from systemic risk factors, the better.

But we need to see the market for what it is and profit from what ultimately pays, and that's price.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

Futures are up this morning.

What we want to see if this market is going to head higher is that we get above $SPX 3,977.

Support is at SPX 3,956, then 3,933.

This week, We're looking at a value stock from Healthcare Sector.

We retired our "Five Bull Market Barometers" in 2020 to make room for a new weekly post that's focused on the three most important charts for the week ahead.

This is that post, so let's jump into this week's edition.

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @sstrazza and Alfonso Depablos @Alfcharts

This is one of our favorite bottom-up scans: Follow the Flow.

In this note, we simply create a universe of stocks that experienced the most unusual options activity — either bullish or bearish, but not both.

We utilize options experts, both internally and through our partnership with The TradeXchange. Then, we dig through the level 2 details and do all the work upfront for our clients.

Our goal is to isolate only those options market splashes that represent levered and high-conviction, directional bets.

We also weed out hedging activity and ensure there are no offsetting trades that either neutralize or cap the risk on these unusual options trades.

What remains is a list of stocks that large financial institutions are putting big money behind.

And they’re doing so for one reason only: because they think...