For us, the big question going into the weekend was whether or not the most recent leg higher in U.S. Stocks is the beginning of something bigger, a breakout of epic proportions, or just a major whipsaw that will lead to further selling into September and October, two of the most historically volatile months of the year.

We see various crowds. On one hand, you have the bearish cult who for many reasons have fought this uptrend the whole time. Whether they just missed the last couple of years in stocks or, worse in some cases, missed the entire decade, they've been very wrong. There's even a group who wishes harm on the United States and elsewhere around the world, just because they disagree with decisions being made in D.C. They certainly don't want stocks to rise. And then you have another group, who is indifferent and is just looking for a favorable risk vs reward shorting opportunity and they think this is finally it.

From time to time, a slowly developing opportunity presents itself and in doing so gives you multiple ways to profit -- while also incrementally reducing your risk as time goes along. This type of situation is presenting itself currently in Marathon Oil $MRO.

Continental Resources $CLR has been consolidating in a range just below 4-year highs, and recent price action has brought it to a level where I like our odds for an income trade.

This has been the big theme throughout this bull market: Money flowing into Consumer Discretionary stocks at a more rapid rate than towards Consumer Staples. By our work, this is characteristic of an uptrend in U.S. stocks and has been a great tell for a long time. You guys following along for the past few years know that well. We even nicknamed the Staples underperformance as, "The Most Bullish Chart On Earth" (See May 2017). 

Following up on our discussion from the September All Star Options conference call, we will lay out here the trade in $CME that we presented to subscribers. The stock move is underway, but there is still plenty of meat on the bone and I like the trade even more now.

From the desk of Tom Bruni @BruniCharting

For most of this year we've been writing about the overwhelming amount of bullish evidence for US Equities, however, as part of our "weight of the evidence" approach we're always questioning our thesis (i.e. here and here).

In today's post I want to share that exercise as I perform it, outlining some current concerns and what the market would potentially look like in an environment where stocks as in the US as an asset class are falling. We're going to stick with our top-down approach and start with International Equities and inter-market relationships, then drill down into specific examples that help illustrate what we're talking about.

Stocks are still near all-time highs, volatilities are once again compressed, earnings season is behind us, and some bullish runs in individual names are looking extended. Coming out of Labor Day Weekend, the game plan should be to keep it simple until things change.

The Nifty Financial Services Index accounts for roughly a third of the Nifty 500's weighting. With the next largest components Consumer Goods (13.40%), Energy (12%), and IT (10.90%) ripping to the upside, we know that they'll eventually need to rest, which is why the Nifty Financial Services Index is by far and away the most important chart in India right now.

From the desk of Tom Bruni @BruniCharting

Two weeks ago I wrote about the Canada's Energy markets, but today I want to do a deep dive into the US Energy Markets. In line with our top-down approach, we'll start with Commodities in general, get into Crude Oil and some inter-market relationships, individual sector ETFs, and finally equities with the best reward/risk scenarios.

I'm in Texas all week talking charts and watching college football. I will be presenting at the local chapters of the CMT Association, including Dallas, Austin and Houston. If you're in the area, I invite you to join us one of these evenings for a walk through what we're currently seeing in the market. I'll show you how I incorporate a top/down approach looking at global stock indexes and U.S. sectors & industry groups to ultimately find individual stocks to buy and sell.

Here are the details:

*Note the time for the Dallas meeting has been changed to 4PM ET

August's monthly charts are out for Premium Members, but in this post I want to highlight some of the key changes to, or continuation of, the structural trends that these long-term charts provide perspective on. This 30 minutes per month is some of the most valuable time each month.

This is easily the most valuable exercise I do each month. It takes me half an hour, just 12 times a year. It's the best 6 hours I'll spend in 2018. It helps eliminate the noise by forcing us to only look once a month. It brings us home, to the primary trend. It's easy to get lost in the daily rhetoric. This part of the process helps us completely ignore that garbage and focus on what matters.

Here's what we got this month:

We'll start with the Dow Jones Industrial Average as it tries to make a move above 27,000. There's been trouble just below that from the extension target of the 2007-2009 decline. This retest of former highs comes at a time where the Dow Jones Transportation Average is already in the process of clearing. First, here's is the Industrial Average:

Now here is the Transportation Average. Remember, that when they both make new highs, it is confirming that they are indeed, still in bull market uptrends. It's when one is making new highs and the other is diverging in a different direction that we want to be more cautious. This last happened in Q1 & Q2 of 2015 as the...