US Treasuries are off to their worst start in more than a decade as rates rise across the curve. 

The US Aggregate Bond ETF $AGG is down more than 4% year to date. Treasuries can’t manage to catch a bid. And High-Yield Bonds $HYG have fallen off a cliff.

But this could all change quickly. Especially if stocks continue to sell off. 

Money has to go somewhere as it flows out of equities. And with many bonds testing critical levels, it would make sense to see prices mean revert, at least in the near term.

Let’s take a trip around the bond market and discuss some of the key levels on our radar.

First up is the long duration Treasury Bond ETF $TLT:

After dropping 5.4% in the last three months, TLT has paused at a logical area of former support around 135. This the same level price rebounded from late 2019 and early 2021.

Wild market conditions persist!  Yesterday, stocks had a huge gap down opening, but then spent all day ripping higher and closed convincingly in the green. Today, the rally picked up right where it left off.

Talk about whiplash!

This makes it incredibly challenging to find directional bets with any degree of confidence. So, with implied volatilies elevated across the board, today we're hunting for another delta-neutral premium selling candidate.

And this time, we're doing it on an individual stock.

This is the video recording of our February 25, 2022, All Star Charts Crypto Weekly Strategy Session.

On today's episode I sit down with Financial Advisor Stephen Weitzel. Stephen and I have known each other for many years. We're both big fans of Technical Analysis, good food and college football. So this was a lot of fun!

Stephen walks us through his journey of first becoming a Financial Advisor, how helpful Technical Analysis has been for his practice and the journey towards $1 Billion in assets.

I've had a front row seat to Stephen's growth, both as a business owner and as a Technician. It's been really cool to see and I'm going to keep rooting for him and his team.

I always like to get different perspectives on the podcast, and I think this conversation is a great compliment to a lot of the other episodes we've done over the years.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

How about that volatility!?

I don't know about the rest of you, but days like these make me grateful that I get to do this for a living.

The Nasdaq 100 $QQQ opened the day down over 3% and closed up over 3%. The last time that happened was November of 2008.

How's that for excitement?

Intraday reversals and wide ranges are normal during periods when volatility grips the market the way it has so far this year.

But today was different than the other tumultuous sessions we've encountered in recent months. We're finally seeing some strong evidence of a bottom.

Let's talk about it.

From the desk of Willie Delwiche.

With equity market trends in the US deteriorating, we have reduced domestic equity exposure in our Cyclical and Tactical Portfolios. We are adding equity exposure where we are seeing strength overseas and remembering that asset allocation decisions don't just come down to stocks vs bonds, but include commodities and cash as well.

This is the video recording of the February 24th Weekly Town Hall w/ Willie Delwiche

02/24/22 2:00 PM ET

Today, Russia began its invasion of Ukraine. Markets, unsurprisingly, have reacted negatively, with Bitcoin no exception.

Particularly in times of geopolitical uncertainty that can induce this type of volatility, it's vital to be clear on your strategy.

Managing risk, having invalidation levels, and understanding your risk tolerance are considerable advantages.

As for how we've been approaching the market, it's been a mess.

Monday's note captured our approach.

When Bitcoin lost 41,000 last weekend, all bets were off, and we moved to cash.

There's been no edge in pushing crypto longs, even before the geopolitical volatility we've seen over the last 24 hours.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

When investing in the stock market, we always want to approach it as a market of stocks.

Regardless of the environment, there are always stocks showing leadership and trending higher.

We may have to look harder to identify them depending on current market conditions… but there are always stocks that are going up.

The same can be said for weak stocks. Regardless of the environment, there are always stocks that are going down, too. 

We already have multiple scans focusing on stocks making all-time highs, such as Hall of Famers, Minor Leaguers, and the 2 to 100 Club.

We filter these universes for stocks that are exhibiting the best momentum and relative strength characteristics. 

Clearly, we spend a lot of time identifying and writing about leading stocks every week, via multiple reports.

Now, we're also highlighting lagging stocks on a recurring basis.

Welcome to the Short Report.

This month marks the one year anniversary of the top in stocks.

And more specifically, I mean the top in the internals of the U.S. Stock Market. Remember, that's the best things were, and it's been a painful deterioration ever since, particularly for most U.S. Index Fund investors, growth investors and most individual U.S. stock pickers.

The new highs list these days is loaded up with ADRs, Metals stocks, Staples and Energy. Most of the other stocks have been struggling. Not all of them are down, but many are sideways at best.

This chart really tells the story of what's been going on. We discussed it on Tuesday night's call:

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

We held our February Mid-Month Conference Call on Tuesday. ASC Premium Members can click here to review the recording and the slide deck.

In this post, we’ll summarize the call by highlighting five of the most important charts and/or themes we covered, along with commentary on each.

Let’s get right into it!