Over the last few weeks, we've been in the camp that Bitcoin and most other primary crypto assets will resolve higher into the remainder of the year.

The macro accumulation pointing to a bull run over longer time frames remains intact. But things have certainly been messy in recent weeks, with Bitcoin losing a key level of interest this weekend.

The thesis was that if Bitcoin was below 58,000, the downside risks become elevated for long positions, and elevated cash levels are prudent.

Bitcoin continues to flirt with this level, and the price action in most cryptos looks messy in the near term.

This week we’re looking at a long setup in the Consumption sector space. Seeing as IT and Consumption were the sectors that were displaying most strength, we decided to identify a stock from one of these two sectors.

Let's take a look at what we have!

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

Our Top 10 Charts 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.

Mixed Action From Major Averages

The biggest theme from this week was failed breakouts. We saw a lot of major averages and sector indexes in the US violate their former highs and fall back into their prior ranges. The weakness was felt mostly by cyclicals. Large-cap indexes such as the Nasdaq and S&P 500 were largely unaffected and are still at highs. But on balance, the bears scored some points this week by pushing prices back below key levels. The chart below is an excellent depiction of the current state of markets. Some stocks, such as mid-caps, are still above their year-to-date highs and their breakouts are intact. Meanwhile, other stocks and indexes -- like the Small-Cap Russell 2000 (upper pane), just printed failed breakouts and are now trapped beneath significant former resistance.

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 big picture context 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:

It's still not all that pretty out there underneath the surface.

But new all-time highs in the S&P500 is probably not something we should ignore.

History has taught us that when we see that, there are usually more new all-time highs coming shortly after that. And then after that again....

On this episode of Pardon The Price Action, we talk about whether these are all retests or failed breakouts.

That's the big question.

Full video below or Listen to the podcast version.

With Oil testing 76, Financials and Industrials retesting former highs, small-caps and even Bitcoin near critical levels, we want to know if this is just a pause, or the beginning of the end.

All this and so much more on the latest episode Pardon the Price Action!

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 has all the big names and more.

It doesn’t include ADRs or any stock not domiciled in the US. But don’t worry; we developed a separate universe for that which you can check out here.

The Hall of Famers is simple.

We take our list of 100 names and then apply our technical filters so 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:

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

We’ve pounded the table on the weakness in energy these past few days, so why stop now? When we find ourselves hammering the same topic time and again, there’s usually a very good reason.

As far as energy goes, there’s been a lot of damage done to the space this week.

Breadth fell off a cliff and was not supporting the new highs for energy stocks.

The relative trends have gotten clobbered, as energy has been among the worst-performing sectors over the near term.

And, just today, we’re seeing failed breakouts in energy sector ETFs across the board.

Since we’ve already written about these themes, let’s dive in and see what energy futures themselves have to say about the situation.

Are futures resilient despite these bearish developments? 

Or are there cautionary signs in the commodities market that are confirming the weakness in the stock market?

Let’s find out.

First up is crude oil:

From the desk of Willie Delwiche.

It’s no secret that we’ve been looking for evidence of improving breadth that would support last month’s breakouts in the small-cap and mid-cap indexes and provide fuel for a rally into the first quarter of next year. Instead we are finding evidence of the opposite - that rally participation is struggling to robustly expand. That’s the message when we look beneath the surface of the NASDAQ. The NASDAQ composite closed at a new high on the same day that the new low list rose to its highest level since March. March 2020. Another way to look at it (shown on the chart below) is that never in my career have I witnessed more NASDAQ stocks making new 52-week lows on the same day that the NASDAQ Composite made a new 52-week high. I don’t know if it will be the case this time, but when the market is heading for trouble,  new low lists crescendo in size. This is not unlike tremors before an earthquake.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Energy has been by far the best-performing sector over the trailing 12-month period.

In October, we witnessed a handful of energy stocks and industry ETFs break higher from bases and reclaim their summer highs.

Without a doubt, these are bullish developments for the space. 

But over the trailing month, energy has lost that leadership position and has actually been the worst-performing sector in the market. 

Today, we’re seeing a lot of the upside resolutions from last month undercut their former highs and turn into failed breakouts.

So, where do we go from here?

When we look at the relative trends in the energy sector, we get a much different picture than what we’re seeing on absolute terms. Most of them never resolved higher like their absolute trends and simply remain messy, with prices stalling at the upper bounds of their basing patterns.

If we’re going to see sustained outperformance from energy stocks, we need to see them resolve higher relative to the broader market.