It's important to not only have a broader perspective on the market, but to look underneath the surface to see what is actually taking place. Precious Metals haven't exactly been my favorite asset class lately. It's for good reason too. There have been so many better places to be. It's not even close.

So today we ask the question: Is it time to be buying precious metals? 

My Gold workbook has 100 charts in it. You can find the entire thing regularly updated here.

Have you heard that story yet about how Amazon is destroying traditional retailers?

Let me ask you: Is this actually the case? Is this it for retailers? It's over?

Fortunately we have actual data that can help us answer this question. We're not making guesses based on estimates that will be revised 20 times over the next few quarters. As Technicians we know what is actually taking place between the buyers and sellers for these stocks. It's up to us to make the correct interpretations, of course, but that price data is the only reliable data in existence when it comes to retail stocks.

This is the infamous chart of the S&P Retail Index, which is equally weighted. So in this chart, Amazon does not represent a large percentage of the index. Each retail stock, about 94 of them, are weighted approximately the same across the board.

S&P Retail Index Fund $XRT

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 once again since May. 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. What we're seeing in the bond market, however, is suggesting interest rates are still heading higher. The implications here for assets like Gold, Silver, Crude Oil and the US Dollar is also important to recognize.

I'll do my best to lay out my weight of the evidence conclusions and walk you step by step with how I got there! This month's Conference Call will be held on Wednesday July 19th at 7PM ET. Here are the Registration Details:

With Chemical Stocks breaking out to all-time highs, I can't think of a better time than now to do a deep dive analysis on what is going on in the space. You guys know how much I've liked the Chemicals for a while now. This has been a monster since early last year and then picked up again after last summer.

When we talk about the Materials Sector, Chemicals aren't exactly the first thing that might come to mind. But if you dig deep into the Materials space, it is clear that the Chemicals are the leadership sub-group within the broader sector.  Today we're going to dive in and see what is really going on here.

Today we're going to focus on what is taking place specifically in the Consumer Discretionary space. This is one of the largest sectors in the S&P500 with respects to the number of components, but the differences between all of the stocks in the group really stand out. While we are seeing some strength in Online Retail and some of the Homebuilders, the Apparel and Traditional Retailer space look terrible. So we don't just want to be buying this sector blindly. I think we need to pick and choose our spots.

In this report I wanted to do a deeper dive into Consumer Discretionary to try and determine the direction of the next major moves and how to best take advantage of it:

This is JC's Playbook to Profit In Q3:

The Bond Market is a very misunderstood place. Usually all we hear are complaints. Fed this, Yellen that, something about her books being beige. I don't know. I can't keep up anymore. To me the Bond Market is place to find information that we can't get anywhere else. Even if you don't trade bonds, you must care about the direction of interest rates. But more importantly it's the intermarket implications of movements in rates that we're most concerned about. How is the next 3-6 month direction of interest rates and credit spreads going to affect stocks and commodities? WAs investors we're obviously interested in all of these things.

Let's get right into it:

It's the end of the month so you know what that means: Brand new freshly completed monthly candlesticks for us to review. While I normally use weekly charts to get structural perspective on markets and then daily charts for tactical purposes, the monthly chart review is done at the end of each month to help identify the primary trends around the market. This is for us who want to avoid the day to day noise surrounding politics or the Fed or whatever news story is being sensationalized this week.

This is a global market environment. The S&P500 goes up and down based on the collective money flow from investors all over the world, not just within the borders of the United States. There are some people still fighting the civil war who simply don't understand this concept. US Stocks don't move up and down based on what is happening in America. What happens in the United States politically, economically, tax-wise, etc is just a tiny tiny piece of a humongous puzzle. This is a global market environment and the sooner you recognize that the bigger the advantage you will have over others who have not yet accepted this concept.

Even if you only trade US Stocks, or stocks local to where you live, understanding what is happening globally is essential to recognizing the direction of the underlying trend for the asset. And this trend identification is step 1 to market analysis. Today I went through every stock market index in the world to see if there is more good or more bad out there. Here are a few stand outs:

(click charts to zoom in)