One question that I get a lot comes from new investors, "Hey JC, I'm starting to get into the market for the first time, any advice?"

For me, I'm convinced you have to get kicked in the stomach, at least once, but likely even more than that, to finally understand the importance of Risk Management. But if you can somehow figure out a way to just take my word for it, and eliminate your emotionally driven decisions completely, I believe it puts you way ahead of 99% of market participants around the world.

From the desk of Tom Bruni @BruniCharting

Two weeks ago I was scheduled to film two segments for Real Vision and the experience brought up a good topic that I've been meaning to write about using my personal experience; Perfectionism.

The night before I was supposed to film the segments I didn't get much sleep, hadn't exercised in a few days, and just wasn't feeling 100%. Needless to say, these were not the conditions I'd prefer for important filming.*

Regardless, I'd agreed to do it and I needed to show up and do the work.

Now that I've had time to reflect, let's see what perfectionism, failure, and fear of "shipping" have got to do with that experience.

Monday was our Members-Only Conference Call for both India and the US (see JC's video here) and the most overwhelming theme was that Equities are not trending, so what does that mean for us as market participants?

From the desk of Tom Bruni @BruniCharting

Every few weeks I get a message from someone asking a question along the lines of "Should I enroll in the CMT Program?" As with most things, the answer is it depends on your individual situation.

While I can't offer personalized advice to everyone, I can discuss my experience and the key benefits now that I've completed the process.

This post is going to be split into two parts; one where I explain my answer to the question that prompted this post, and the other where I summarize my actual experience in the program.

About eight months ago Patrick Dunuwila from The Chart Report introduced me to a new data visualization platform called Koyfin. Two month's later I met Rob, one of the co-founders, at Stocktoberfest West. He walked me through the product and what they were doing and I was sold.

A few months later we had the opportunity to invest and we jumped at it. We loved the product and the team, so it seemed like a natural fit.

Today, Koyfin is an irreplaceable tool that I use alongside Optuma as my main tools for charting and analysis.

I get a lot of questions about how I use it, so I wanted to write a post answering just that.

Today we sit down with the newest (and likely youngest) Chartered Market Technician (CMT) Mr. Tom Bruni live from Washington Square Park in New York City. The CMT program is different today than what it was 12-13 years ago when I first went through it. I wanted to pick Tom's brain about his experience and what advice he has for others thinking about sitting for the exams.

From the desk of Tom Bruni @BruniCharting

I couldn't help but see many of the same folks who were happy about Trump's "Trade Deal" tweets when they drove the stock market higher complaining as his tweets sent Futures lower on Sunday night and again today after the bell.

I thought this might be a good time to remind ourselves of something.

From the desk of Tom Bruni @BruniCharting

One of the topics I spoke about during my Chart Summit presentation on breadth last month was the relative performance of Equally-Weighted versus Cap-Weighted Indexes.

I always hear that the market cannot go higher on an absolute basis if the Equally-Weighted S&P 500 is underperforming the Cap-Weighted.

So is that the case? Let's take a look.

From the desk of Tom Bruni @BruniCharting

If the US Dollar is falling, International Equities trading via US listed ETFs should outperform US Stocks. When the US Dollar is rising, International Equities should underperform US Stocks.

Sounds like a logical relationship, but as usual, it's not that simple.

From the desk of Tom Bruni @BruniCharting

Friday afternoons are my favorite time of the week, but not for the reason most people would think.

From the desk of Tom Bruni @BruniCharting

Today there is no shortage of information: Social Media, Blogs, Newspapers, Television, Water-Cooler Gossip, etc., but we still have the same amount of time in a day. We all have to make a decision what we're going to pay attention to and what we're not.

From the desk of Tom Bruni @BruniCharting

The Research and/or Trading business can be a very lonely endeavor for many, so I wanted to use this post to outline the role that collaboration plays in my process and why I feel it's so important.