From the desk of Willie Delwiche.

Key takeaway: Optimism remains widespread from a cyclical perspective but history shows that it can (and in the past, has) remain elevated for extended periods of time. Options data show  the record surge in call activity over the past year has stalled. If the speculative fever that has helped fuel recent gains is breaking, resiliency beneath the surface and the continued tailwind provided by better than expected earnings and economic data will be increasingly important. After an unprecedented period of positive surprises, we just don’t know how investors would respond to disappointment at this point. We do know that stocks are most vulnerable when optimism is being unwound.

Sentiment Report Chart of the Week: Speculative Fever Breaking? 

Equity options activity hints that investors are regaining their senses after a feverish bout of speculation. After an incredible surge, call activity may be rolling over....

On this week's episode of Bearish or Bullish, we talk about Year 2 of Bull Market cycles for stocks. Is this one those? Like 1976, like 1983, like 2004, like 2010?

What about Ethereum continuing to hold its breakout? Why is Ether doing so much better than Bitcoin?

Financials and European stocks breaking out of historic bases?

European Super Leagues? The Knicks don't suck?....what the heck is going on around here?

Let's discuss:

The messy market for stocks continues. Sure, a few stock indexes in the United States have made new highs, but how many stocks in those indexes are doing that?

Not as many, that's for sure, especially in small-caps and the Nasdaq, where we're only seeing a fraction of stocks still making new highs.

Divergences persist....

This environment continues to remind me of a lot of the "Year 2" of market cycles that we've seen before. Take the initial thrust off the 2009 lows for example. Notice the sideways chop in Year 2 of that cycle:

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

A growing number of domestic and international markets are running into key levels of interest. 

This is a theme we’ve discussed at length over the past six weeks. We've also discussed how we see similar developments in the Commodities and Fixed Income markets.

With this as our backdrop, are you surprised that we're also seeing similar action in the Forex markets right now? 

We aren’t! 

In this post, we'll highlight two traditional risk-on currency pairs, both of which are trading at critical inflection points. 

Let's dive right in.

First up is the AUD/JPY cross. This FX cross is the classic risk-on/risk-off gauge within the currency markets -- and since last November, it has been sending a clear message of “risk-on!”

...

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.

The weight of the evidence still suggests it's prudent to be a buyer, not a seller, of risk assets for more meaningful time horizons.

Shorter-term, the market looks increasingly messy. For the first time in over a year, defensive assets are beginning to stabilize at logical levels of support, while stocks and major risk groups achieve our upside targets. Even a handful of some key Intermarket ratios are potentially diverging from the broader averages.

The macro backdrop definitely leans that this is just a sideways consolidation in an ongoing uptrend.

Let's not forget that the S&P 500 has just recorded its greatest 52-week gain since the late 1940s, so some...

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

Check out our latest Mystery Chart!

What we do here is take a chart that’s captured our attention, and remove the x and y-axes as well as any other labels that could help identify it.

This chart can be of any security, in any asset class, on any timeframe. Sometimes it’s an absolute price chart, other times it’s on a relative basis.

It might be a ratio, a custom index, or maybe the price is inverted. It could be all three!

The point is, when we aren’t able to recognize what’s in front of us, we put aside any biases we may have and scrutinize the price behavior objectively.

While you can try to guess the chart, the point is to make a decision…

So let us know what it is… Buy, Sell, or Do Nothing?

From the desk of Willie Delwiche.

Key Takeaway: Stocks have benefitted from an historic stretch of good news. Commodities suggest higher inflation may not be transitory. Global breadth trends turning higher.

With both Energy and Communication Services faltering in recent weeks, the sector leadership group has narrowed to Materials, Industrials, and Financials. Materials, which took over the top spot in the rankings this week, is the rare sector right now that has been a leader on both a short-term and long-term basis. Health Care and Real Estate (both of which made new highs last week) are climbing in the rankings and if recent strength persists could soon join the leadership group.  Our industry group heat map shows continued leadership from mid-caps overall.

The relative strength this year has been in Ethereum. You can see the 2021 performance in this Koyfin chart below.

It's been the opposite of Gold. Ethereum actually goes up in price....

I've been following a name All Star Charts has been long from the Young Aristocrats column since late last year. Strazza and the team recently reiterated the bullish setup in this stock in a report on the Space Exploration industry.

I've been waiting for a pullback to get involved, and today feels like the pullback I've been waiting for.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

In our continued effort to identify individual equities that fit within our larger Macro thesis, we recently rolled out our latest bottoms-up scan: "The Minor Leaguers."

We write a post every other week where we outline some of our favorite setups from this universe of stocks.

We've already had some great trades come out of this column and couldn't be happier about the early feedback.

Moving forward, we'll be rotating this column with "Under The Hood" each week.

Ultimately, to make the cut for our Minor Leagues list, you must have a market cap between $1 and $2B. There are also price and liquidity filters.

Then, we simply sort the stocks by their percentage from new highs. Easy done.

The idea is to catch the strongest names while they're still small and have serious upside potential. If any of these stocks ever climb up...

After some recent events over the weekend, I thought this would be as good of a time as any to remind everyone, once again, what Technical Analysis actually is....

Technical Analysis is the study of the behavior of the market, and therefore its participants, as opposed to the goods and the services in which a particular market deals. 

If you are recognizing that the trend for stocks is up, or maybe down, you are a Technician.

If you acknowledge, in any way, that the fed purchasing bonds impacts market prices, you are a Technician.

If you think volatility for stocks is low, or high, or that the Volatility Index $VIX is even a thing, you are analyzing a price derivative of the S&P500, and therefore, performing classic technical analysis.

Are you analyzing the behavior of the market and its...

As we progress into Q1 of Fiscal Year 2021-2022, this playbook outlines our thoughts on every asset class and our plan to profit.

This playbook will cover our macro view, touching on Equities, Commodities, Currencies, and Rates, as well as outline our views on the major nifty indices and the sector/thematic indices.

We also cover individual stocks we want to be buying to take advantage of the themes discussed in the playbook.