I'm back from a 2-week trip to Asia and it's almost like nothing has changed. Stocks are hitting all-time highs, so many people are trying to be cute calling for a top and the gold bugs are angry. The difference is that now the Small-caps have finally broken out of a 10-month base to new all-time highs. This goes for the Small-cap Russell2000 Index, S&P Small-cap 600 Index and the Russell Micro-cap Index. These indexes have done nothing in almost a year. Can you imagine the nerve of some people to call the US Stock Market "Stretched" or "Too far too soon" (whatever that means), when some of the most important indexes are just now breaking out of 10-month bases? Too far too soon? They've gone no where for 10 months? Are you kidding me?

It's like I'm talking to a wall sometimes. Too Stretched? Are we looking at the same market?

We talk about a lot of different markets here and we use a lot of different information to come up with a thesis. We look at International Stock Markets, Interest Rates, Sector Rotation, Individual Stocks, Breadth Measurements, Currencies, Commodities and an endless supply of Intermarket Ratios. But today I want to talk about a breakout that we've been waiting for now for some time.

I've been using Investopedia.com for as long as I can remember. Especially early in my career, whenever I had a question about the market or didn't know what something meant, Investopedia was always there to help. Whether it was a simple definition or I just needed an explanation on something more complicated, this website been a reliable source of educational material throughout my many years in this business.

Today, I am excited to announce that I have partnered up with the amazing people at Investopedia to launch their first ever Technical Analysis Course! It is such an honor for me to be a part of this incredible company. It's like my career has come full circle. This is so cool! You can go through all of the videos and supplemental information at your own pace. That's the best part!

You guys have spoken. It is clear how little value you're getting from the data miners.

I'm really lucky that I get to speak with investors all over the world on a daily basis. Some are Technicians just like me, but most are not. You guys are Financial Advisors, Traders at Hedge Funds & Mutual Funds, Portfolio Managers and Family Offices. You're in the business of making money in the market. A lot of you aren't even professionals but still fall in that same category of trying to profit in the market.

Are stocks in the 9th year of a bull market? No. Not even close. I would argue we might even be in the first year. You can see some of my list of reasons outlined here in Modern Trader Magazine earlier this year. Another major component of what I consider to be a structural bull market is a relative outperformance compared with other assets. When we're looking at U.S. stocks, I think the obvious comparison is vs U.S. Treasury Bonds.

Today we're taking a look at the S&P500 ETF $SPY vs the U.S. Treasury Bonds ETF $TLT. The comparison is very simple: Stocks or Bonds? One argument I can make why we're not even through the first year of this structural bull market is because we have gone absolutely no where since 2007 relative to Treasuries. This has been a dead money trade for a decade. Late last year the ratio did break out to new highs, signaling to us that this was the beginning of a new move higher after 10 years of consolidation since that historic top in 2007, not the end:

There are no short cuts guys. There is no magic indicator that will tell you when to buy and sell stocks, or any other security out there, yes even Bitcoin. The best way to see what's happening in the market and weigh all the evidence, is to actually weigh all of the evidence! It's not a secret formula. You just have to put in the work, or trust someone that does that work for you consistently and thoroughly.

Jonathan Krinsky is a great compliment to the guests we have already had on Technical Analysis Radio. His Intermarket and top/down approach is very well rounded and consistent. In this podcast episode, Jonathan explains how his mentor Phil Roth helped point him in the right direction earlier in his career, particularly during the 2008 Financial crisis. In this discussion we talk about US and Global Stocks, Interest Rates, Gold, Silver and Crude Oil. Sectors mentioned include Financials, Technology, Biotechnology and Energy. I really enjoyed this conversation!

One of the best ways to get a gauge of the strength or weakness in the U.S. Stock Market is to go through all of the stocks in the indexes. Every week I rip through all 500 stocks in the S&P500 on both weekly and daily timeframes. This works well for 2 reasons: 1) it gives me a great idea of how the entire market looks collectively, but it also allows me to find individual risk vs reward opportunities throughout the market. It works great for both.

For people who simply don't have the time, or interest, to get that deep into market analysis, I find the Dow 30 review to be really helpful. If you take a look at a chart of the Dow Jones Industrial Average going back 100 years and overlay it with the S&P500, they look pretty much the same. So if their correlations are that high, then going through the Dow 30 components on both weekly and daily timeframes is a much more efficient use of time.

Peter Brandt has successfully traded in 5 different decades using classic Technical Analysis principles that date back to the 1930s and 40s. In this conversation Peter goes over his selection process and strict risk management procedures. With a primary goal of capital preservation, Peter uses the leverage available in the futures and forex markets to position himself into low risk opportunities that also offer a high reward. We talk about the current environment for Stocks, Interest Rates and Commodities. Within the futures and forex space, Peter discusses his current outlook on Gold, Silver, Crude Oil, Canadian Dollar and Agriculture-related assets like Soybean Meal, Wheat and Sugar. In this podcast episode, Peter shares with us how he uses the Commitment of Traders report to supplement what he is seeing in the behavior of price. We are lucky to have almost a full hour with one of  the best traders I know!

You will find that Gold is a sensitive subject for many people. They behave differently than they normally do around this topic. My friend Dr. Phil has me reading Beck's work on Cognitive Behavior Therapy so I can continue learning about how we behave as humans and why. It's amazing how I see it specifically in the market but also in the rest of the world every day. The Gold Market is no different. There's definitely something there. If you've been in this business long enough, you've noticed how people act differently about this one specific investment. Even investors who don't have positions in this rock still have an opinion on it and one that steers away from their traditional approach.

Every month I host a conference call for All Star Charts Premium Members where we discuss ongoing themes throughout the global marketplace as well as changes in trends where new positions would be most appropriate. This includes U.S. Stocks & Sectors, International Stock Indexes, Commodities, Currencies and Interest Rate Markets.

We've been bullish towards US and Global Stocks as they remain in strong uptrends on any sort of intermediate-term time horizon. I still think this is an environment where we need to be buying weakness in stocks, not selling strength. The weight of the evidence is still pointing to an increased amount of risk appetite, not risk aversion. We will go over a multi-timeframe approach on this conference call where we will start with the longer-term and then work our way down to more short-term to intermediate-term investing ideas. This will also include other assets like Gold, Silver, Crude Oil and Interest Rates.