This week on the show, Howard and I talk about a really cool new scan that we've been working on here internally. You see, we do a ton of top/down analysis at Allstarcharts. So we've developed a series of bottoms/up filters to help supplement all that top/down work that we already do. This way, it makes it really hard for us to miss anything.

We recorded this video a couple of weeks ago and have already made a lot of progress on this concept of "2 to 100". We're looking for stocks graduating from Small-cap and entering Mid-cap status ($2B+ Market Cap). We'll be putting out more information on this particular universe of stock ideas soon, but for now check out how a friendly conversation can turn into a new valuable tool in a matter of weeks!

Monday's downside action in India's stock market was a notable change from the slow grind higher we've experienced throughout August.

The news is this move was at least partially caused by some geopolitical risk and the SEBI margin requirement changes taking effect on September 1st.

Regardless of the reason for this selloff, we're going to take a look at prices and see how it's changed our short-term and long-term outlooks.

Before we get into yesterday's action, I want to address the title of this post. We are, in fact, in a Bull Market. One of the ways we measure that is by looking at the percentage of Nifty 500 stocks are above their 200-day moving average, which is around 70% after falling to nearly zero in March.

Click on chart to enlarge view. 

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

At the beginning of each week, we publish performance tables for a variety of different asset classes and categories along with commentary on each.

Looking at the past helps put the future into context. In this post, we review the relative strength trends at play and preview some of the things we're watching in order to profit in the current market environment.

Last week, we highlighted a number of critical Stock Market Indexes and Sectors, as well as assets in the FICC Markets that were approaching logical levels of overhead supply.

This week, we're going to follow up on this theme and see how some of these charts have reacted to the critical levels we pointed out last week.

This week we're looking at the Financials' sector, which is finally starting to pick up. As such, we've identified a new long setup with an attractive reward/risk.

From the desk of Tom Bruni @BruniCharting

Another post on Banks? Yeah, we get it Bruni, they're underperforming and can't get their act together.

Well, hold on a second. What if I told you this isn't another post about that?

That instead we're looking at a chart which suggests that a breakout in US and European Banks may be ahead?

Now that I've got your attention, let's jump into it.

Earlier this year we looked at the Nifty IT Sector and analyzed what it would take for it to finally break out to new all-time highs. Prices finally did and have since presented a lot of great opportunities on the long side for us.

In this post, we want to outline why there are similar conditions present in the Nifty FMCG Sector Index and how we're approaching it.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza.

Welcome to this week's edition of "Under The Hood."

What we do is analyze the most popular stocks over the trailing week and find opportunities to either join in and ride these momentum names higher, or fade the crowd and bet against them.

We are using a variety of new sources to generate the list of most popular names, which we'll explain more each week as we add new data sets. There are so many new data sources available that all we need to do is organize and curate them in a way that shows us exactly what we want: A list of stocks that are seeing an unusual increase in investor interest.

Last week, we added some stocks from a list of large institutional purchases we track, and this week we've added some names that experienced unusual options activity.

As we continue to include new sources, the number of potential trade opportunities we can choose from increases and gives us a larger universe of favorable setups to take advantage of.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

The Dow is one of the most important major averages in the world. We monitor it religiously as it has historically been an excellent gauge for the broader market.

This week three old-school Dow stocks- Exxon $XOM, Raytheon $RTX, and Pfizer $PFE, were replaced with some fresh blood from the likes of Salesforce $CRM, Honeywell $HON, and Amgen $AMGN. JC wrote about why the Dow is so important to our process and what these changes could mean earlier this week, which you can read here.

In this post, we'll take a deeper look at the impact of this restructuring by analyzing the relative strength trends of the new and old holdings. We'll also discuss the Apple stock split, as it will also have major implications on the Dow's future composition.

Long story short, we think the recent reconstruction of its constituents leaves the Index in a much stronger position for the future.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Thanks to everyone for the feedback on this week's Mystery Chart. We had a lot of good answers this week. Many respondents were cautious of the waning momentum but on balance, most of you were buyers. We are too.

It was a chart of the iShares MSCI Netherlands ETF $EWN which just broke out of a 13-year base to fresh all-time highs (shown below).

But it's not just the Netherlands making new record highs, the All-Country World Index $ACWI just made new all-time highs as well. There aren't many things more bullish than World Equity Indexes trading at their highest levels in history.

In this post, we'll highlight the positive breadth characteristics we're seeing within Global Equity Markets and outline trade setups in some of the strongest countries around the world- including the Netherlands, as a way to express our bullish thesis.

But first, here's why we're so bullish on International Equities in the first place. Check out these new highs for ACWI.

Sector rotation has been driving the major equity indices across the globe higher, but they've all got one sector that's holding them back.

Today we're looking at that sector, Financials, to outline why this week's action is important and how we're approaching this segment of the market.

First, let's start with the Nifty Financial Services Index in India, which comprises about a third of the overall market's weighting. Prices have been struggling with this resistance level near 11,300 and are now trying to break out above it to new recovery highs.

On a relative basis, the index is trying to hold above long-term support against the Nifty 100 and turn higher. Outperformance, or at least in-line performance from the market's largest sector would shift this from a major headwind to a major tailwind for stocks as an asset class.

Click on chart to enlarge view. 

Don't Fight Papa Dow

That's how I learned it. You'll hear my friend Ralph Acampora say that all the time!

"You Never Want To Fight Papa Dow"

My interpretation is that there is wisdom in the Dow Components. If you want to know which way the market is headed, focus on those 30 stocks.

I'm not going to get into the discussion about whether the Dow is the best index or not. I've made my case before and stand by it today more than ever. If you have a problem with Dow Jones or Standard & Poors, stop complaining about it and just go build a better index. It's not that hard. We do it every day.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average, however, is a perfectly good index and gauge of stock market strength or weakness. One of the best parts is that there are only 30 components!

Hellooo??? Do you want to go through 500 stocks? Or 3000 in the case of the Russell3000?

Or just 30?

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

At the beginning of each week, we publish performance tables for a variety of different asset classes and categories along with commentary on each.

Looking at the past helps put the future into context. In this post, we review the relative strength trends at play and preview some of the things we're watching in order to profit in the current market environment.

This week, we're going to highlight a number of critical Stock Market Indexes and Sectors, as well as assets in the FICC Markets that are approaching logical levels of overhead supply and pose the question... "Are risk assets due for some corrective action or consolidation?"