It's hard for me to have a conversation about the stock market without bringing up what's happening in bonds.

Think about it like this, the market cap of all US Stocks is somewhere around $40 Trillion. For the bond market it's over $120 Trillion.

Volatility in bonds tends to trickle down to other asset classes, especially stocks.

US Stocks really got going in the 4th quarter last year, once the US 10-year Note stopped falling in price.

I don't believe that was a coincidence.

But at this point, Large Speculators have on their most aggressive short position in bonds ever.

So in other words, what is historically the "dumb money", particularly at turning points, are betting more aggressively than ever that bond prices are going to fall and rates will now continue higher:

While many investors have been focused on arbitrary lagging indicators like the economy, we rather keep our attention on reality.

We're grown adults. We don't need bedtime stories to go to sleep at night. So fairytales about recessions, or inflations, or bidens are just not anything we're interested in.

We get paid to sell things at higher prices than where we buy them.

And the bet we've been making for a long time is that the negative correlation between the US Dollar and stocks will remain in place.

That bet has paid off handsomely for us and anyone listening.

So as investors we all have a choice. Do we bet that the correlation is all of a sudden going to change tomorrow? Or do we bet that things just remain the same?

Here is the US Dollar Index consolidating in what appears to be a classic continuation pattern, within an ongoing downtrend:

This is the video recording of our July 5th Monthly Charts Live Strategy Session

This is the video recording of the June 2023 Mid-month Conference Call.

This is the video recording of our June 5th Monthly Charts Live Strategy Session

Some things are changing.

Have you noticed?

Let's keep something in mind. During healthy market environments, you historically see correlations falling.

It's when volatility spikes in bear markets that correlations all go to 1.

So are these recent divergences just further evidence that this is a strong market for stocks?

The breadth expansion and sector rotation we keep seeing certainly points to that.

So let's take a look.

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

We held our May Monthly Strategy Session last Monday night. Premium Members can access and rewatch it here.

Non-members can get a quick recap of the call simply by reading this post each month.

By focusing on long-term, monthly charts, the idea is to take a step back and put things into the context of their structural trends. This is easily one of our most valuable exercises as it forces us to put aside the day-to-day noise and simply examine markets from a “big-picture” point of view.

With that as our backdrop, let’s dive right in and discuss three of the most important charts and/or themes from this month’s call.

These tiny banks have been in trouble for quite some time.

That we know.

The question has been more about whether or not the selling spills into other parts of the market.

So far it has not.

The spikes in volatility in the bond market, for example, have only resulted in volatility in these little banks.

We have not seen it spill into other asset classes, and certainly not in the majority of stocks.

Remember, the S&P500 and Nasdaq100 just closed the month of April at the highest levels in a year.

Where's the volatility?

The VIX just closed at new 52-week lows last week.

So here's the deal.

This is what Regional Banks and Community Banks look like right now: Major tops, completing and collapsing.

These are classic bullish to bearish reversal patterns:

This is the video recording of our May 1st Monthly Charts Live Strategy Session

This is the video recording of the April 2023 Mid-month Conference Call.

As it turns out, markets can remain solvent longer than you can remain irrational.

Stocks continue to catch a bid. This is despite any so-called "banking crisis" or even the "upcoming recession" that I've been hearing about for so long.

Markets remain solvent as the major US Large-cap Indexes keep pushing up against new highs.

For many years, we had to hear those miserable gold bugs telling us how inflation was coming and Gold would be our savior.

Well, inflation came in harder than at any point in over 40 years and Gold prices fell.

So the same people who owned the only asset not making any money for an entire decade, got it wrong again.

I can't believe it.

So here we are, Gold prices are pressing up against all-time highs again, now that inflation expectations have been falling off a cliff.