From the desk of Tom Bruni @BruniCharting

Tuesday's Mystery Chart is one of the most interesting charts right now, so thank you all for your feedback and participation.

Most people were on the same page in saying they wanted to short the breakdown, while others wanted to avoid the mess entirely until there's a decisive break.

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

As I do at the end of every month, I scan across my portfolio of open positions and observe any positions which hold options nearing expiration in the upcoming month. Today being October 31, I'm setting my sights on November expiry.

I think it's fair to say we options traders -- and really all traders -- see and think about the world around us differently. I mean, who has conversations like this?

This is a lesson I had to learn the hard way for sure. Early in my career I used to always want to be trading the Russell 2000 or the Nasdaq and sometimes even S&P futures. Some people can do this successfully. Most cannot.

A wise Egyptian man once taught me that, If you trade the Averages, You'll Get Average Returns. This made a lot of sense to me when he first said it, because I didn't have great experiences with that strategy up until that point.

The reason I bring this up today is NOT to convince you not to trade the index ETFs or Futures. You do what you have to do! The point of this post is as a reminder that we use Technical Analysis to identify trends. These trends are in all asset classes - Stocks, Bonds, Commodities, Currencies, Interemarket relationships, Crypto and others. Once we identify the trend, then we can figure out the best way to try to profit from its theme of rising or falling prices.

We've been in the camp that US Stocks have been in a sideways range since January of 2018, over 21 months. You can call this a cyclical bear market. You can call it a sideways range. Pick your preferred nomenclature and let's move on. 

I've been noticing some mostly sideways action in the oil & gas space in recent months. And with premiums somewhat elevated in options, delta neutral income strategies become extremely appealing.

Selling premium when options volatility is relatively high is a repeatable edge that plays out in my favor over time. So I like to put myself in position to take advantage of these situations as often as I can -- ideally when the underlying is caught in a range and my analysis indicates the range is likely to continue.

From the desk of Tom Bruni @BruniCharting

New Mystery Chart!

For those new to the exercise, we take a chart of interest and remove the x/y-axes and any other labels that would help identify it. The chart can be any security in any asset class on any timeframe on an absolute or relative basis. Maybe it's a custom index or inverted, who knows!

We do all this to put aside the biases we have associated with this specific security/the market and come to a conclusion based solely on price.

You can guess what it is if you must, but the real value comes from sharing what you would do right now. Buy, Sell, or Do Nothing?

I found a stock where earnings have come and gone with little impact upon the overall trend, volatility collapsed (predictably), and now the only question left to ask is: when does the Santa Rally begin?

From the desk of Tom Bruni @BruniCharting

Saturday I spoke at the Trade Ideas Summit in San Diego, outlining our bullish case for US Equities. It was a lot of fun and you can register here to receive the presentation replay when it becomes available.

Today, JC followed up on our recent posts by confirming that new all-time highs are indeed not a characteristic of a downtrend.

In honor of the new all-time closing highs in the Russell 3000, S&P 500, and Nasdaq 100, I want to outline several stocks we want to be buying to take advantage of our bullish Equities thesis.

For those who didn't check the market today, here's the Russell 3000 making a new all-time closing high, just shy of its former intra-day high of 178. New highs are not a characteristic of a downtrend, so as long as prices are pressing above 178 our upside target is 196 in the coming months.

Click on chart to enlarge view.

...

We've done the homework. New All-time highs are NOT a characteristic of a downtrend. Go back and check for yourself. I was just listening to the great Brooklyn poet Shawn Carter who inspired the headline. It's true. This is not a bear market, by definition. So should we be looking for stocks to sell or should we be looking for stocks to buy?

Oh boy. I love when my boy JC gets fired up on an idea.

In a recent piece on copper and emerging markets, here's JC:

Have you noticed that with Tech and Software and other areas grinding sideways or lower, we’ve seen a consistent bid in Emerging Markets? ...I really think the squeeze is on.

He was a little bit more, um, verbose in an email header sending this piece to his subscribers that read:

LOL.

Well, I'm game. Let's do this.

Have you noticed that with Tech and Software and other areas grinding sideways or lower, we've seen a consistent bid in Emerging Markets? Have you looked at Brazil lately? The last thing stock market bears want to see is rotation into these serial underperformers.

I don't think this is a tiny story either. I think there is a much bigger theme going on here that would be irresponsible to ignore. First of all, let's make something clear. Copper prices and Emerging Market stocks move together. You can't argue with me on this one.

Copper doesn't move with the "economy". Copper doesn't move with the S&P500. Copper is not a "Dr." of any kind. Copper moves with Emerging Markets. Period: