The best lessons are learned the hard way.

That's just the way life goes.

One of the most important things I've come to understand about markets, and life, is that you have to worry about yourself first, you have to take care of your family first, and then you can go out and help others.

If your own house isn't in order, not only are you not able to help other people, but you may actually do more harm to them than good.

Depending on where you are in your life, that perspective may change. But in the market, as an investor, there are no exceptions!

You're only in it for numero uno.

Just to be clear, if you're in the market for ANY other reason other than to make a profit for yourself, then you are unbelievably confused.

Last Friday I had a nice little chat with the boys over at Benzinga.

It's funny because I've been doing this pretty regularly with these guys for almost a decade, which is kind of unbelievable to think about.

Shout out to Joel, Dennis and Spencer. Keep up the good work fellas!

During our chat we talked about relative strength and which individual stocks stand out in the current environment.

Check it out:

This week we’re looking at a long setup in the Realty sector. Nifty Realty broke out of an 11-year base and has picked up momentum. At this time we're looking for an interesting idea in this space.

Let's take a look at this stock.

We retired our "Five Bull Market Barometers" in mid-July last year 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

Check out this week's Momentum Report, our weekly summation of all the major indexes at a Macro, International, Sector, and Industry Group level.

By analyzing the short-term data in these reports, we get a more tactical view of the current state of markets. This information then helps us put near-term developments into the context of the big picture and provides insights regarding the structural trends at play.

Let's jump right into it with some of the major takeaways from this week's report:

* ASC Plus Members can access the Momentum Report by clicking the link at the bottom of this post.

Macro Universe:

• Risk assets just bounced back strong following the weakness they've experienced so far in September
  • Because there are also defensive assets like precious metals and bonds in our universe, we only saw 51% of our list close higher with a median return of 0.02%. These stats aren't a great representation of what really took place this week though.
• The biggest development of all was the US 10-Year Yield $...

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Our Top 10 report was just published. In this weekly note, we highlight 10 of the most important charts or themes we're currently seeing in asset classes around the world.

This could be the single most important chart in the world right now. We cannot understate this development.

We finally got a major resolution in the US 10-year yield, reclaiming that critical 1.40% level this week. And this begs the question as to what a rising rate environment might mean for investor portfolios. The first thing we know for sure is that we want to stay away from bonds, unless we’re shorting them of course. The second, and perhaps most important implication, is the renewed tailwind for cyclicals. When rates are rising, sectors like financials, industrials, materials, and energy are all typically outperforming, which is exactly what we’ve started to see in the last week.

As for the broader market, perhaps this fresh breakout in yields is what was needed to kick off a new run-up for risk assets. What we’re watching for now is whether or not we finally start seeing similar resolutions...

This is what happens when you ignore price just because you're too weak to overcome your ego:

Since every commodity on earth has been going up in price EXCEPT for gold and silver, perhaps that's just further information that gold and silver are NOT commodities after all, but actually just a couple of shitty currencies.

It's Saturday Morning Chartoons time. 

This is the weekly post that aggregates all the charts we put together throughout the week and organizes them all into one, easy to flip through deck.

You can find the whole list of trades here.

Below you'll find the full PDF of this week's charts:

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:

• We filtered out any stocks that were below their May 10th high as this is when new 52-week highs peaked for the S&P 500
• Then we sorted the...

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

Whether we’re talking about stocks, commodities, currencies, or even the bond market, things have been a total mess. It’s no secret, and you’re probably tired of hearing it by now.

Trust me, we’re just as tired of seeing it.

So, as these choppy conditions test our patience and discipline, why not use this opportunity to take a step back and examine where we’ve come from, where we are now, and where we’re likely headed.

In today’s post, we’re going to do just that by revisiting and analyzing some of our favorite breadth indicators and discussing what some of them are suggesting for commodities over the long run.

Let’s dig into it!

First, we need to understand that a breadth thrust isn’t a singular event. It’s a process that builds upon itself as a new bull cycle unfolds.

These thrusts in participation don’t all just happen overnight. Instead, they develop over shorter time frames at first and eventually culminate with a broad expansion in new longer-term highs.

Using the stock market as an example, we saw our...

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

I was talking to the team earlier this week and mentioned that I was having a hard time writing. Grant and Ian were quick to remind me that it's probably because "nothing new is happening!"

They were right. Until now...

We finally got a major resolution in what we consider one of the most important charts in the world these days.

I'm talking about the US 10-year yield reclaiming that critical 1.40% level this week. And this begs the question as to what a rising rate environment might mean for investor portfolios.

Well, one thing we know for sure is we want to stay away from bonds... unless we're shorting them.

But how do we want to position ourselves in the stock market if yields are breaking out?

It's simple really. Some stocks do better with rising/higher rates, while others thrive in markets characterized by low growth and low yields. If this is the beginning of a fresh move higher for yields, then we want to be focused on buying the stocks that are likely to benefit the most.

It all goes back to the global growth, reflation, and reopening trade...

This is the video recording of September 24th 2021 Weekly Jam Session with Sean McLaughlin.