From the desk of Tom Bruni

Since the market's volatility picked up in late January, one key piece of the bear thesis has been weakness in Technology, yet we've not seen a crack and flush lower. I don't know about you, but I was promised a "Tech Wreck" and will not leave until we get one or Mr. Market provides me a refund.

Okay I'm being facetious, but in this post I want to outline what I'm watching and explore what the implications are if the potential bearish patterns in this sector don't pan out.

From the desk of Tom Bruni

Many have fixated their attention on the "triangle pattern" that's formed the NYSE Composite Index and other major US indices.  This pattern is a visual representation of the indecision between buyers and sellers in the market, and its resolution typically leads to a significant move in the direction of its breakout.  In times like this where the index itself has little directional conviction, a study of the components may offer some insight into which way the market resolves.

It's hard for a mechanic to tell you what's wrong with your car without lifting the hood to see what's inside. In the stock market it's no different. We often hear people giving a diagnoses of the market's health simply by using the S&P500 or some other popular index. To me, that's irresponsible. This is not a stock market, it's a "market of stocks". There are 500 stocks in the S&P500. The market is not a thing, it's a lot of things.

Sector rotation is the lifeblood of any bull market. Some sectors are indicators of risk appetite while others point to risk aversion. Consumer Discretionary stocks include companies where we spend our discretionary income: retailers, homebuilders and autos for example. Consumer Staples, on the other hand, consist of companies that consumers would use regardless of whether times are good or bad. No matter how the economy is doing, we're still going to drink beer, smoke cigarettes, brush our teeth, wash our dishes and clean our clothes. These types of companies are the Staples.

If you're a buy side long only manager, you can't short stocks and you can't go to cash. The mandates of these mutual funds require managers...

From the Desk of Tom Bruni

This past Wednesday I had the privilege of joining 7 world-class Market Technicians in the Stocktoberfest East Chart Battle Competition. It was a lot of fun to share my work with the 450+ conference attendees and surreal to share the stage with people I've learned from since day one of learning Technical Analysis. With that being said, I was knocked out in the second round by Charlie Bilello so I'm writing this post to show all three of my ideas in their entirety.

This is the most valuable analysis I do every month. When you sit there with some music on and just rip through monthly charts, it really gives you perspective. We're taking a step back and reanalyzing the trends. It's easy to get caught in the day-to-day noise. This exercise helps avoid getting whipped around. I encourage everyone to make their own list of Monthly Candles.

As homo sapiens we're hard wired to feel the need to gossip. This goes back hundreds of thousands of years throughout evolution. We still see it today and through the speed of communication technology, that gossip gets amplified. While some would argue the issues of today's society are unique, anyone who studies history knows that none of what we're seeing today is new.

It's our job as investors to be aware of this cognitive behavior flaw and work on avoiding the potentially disastrous implications of allowing our evolutionary gossip habits to enter into our portfolio decision making process. I've seen some amazing technicians and traders let their political opinions get in the way of their "process" and watched their horrible downfall. It's been heart wrenching to watch, but the lessons learned by witnessing their collapse is something that will stay with me forever.

The current political and economic environment is unique in it's own way, but they always are. Rather than focusing on the noise, I've found it extremely valuable to pay attention to the only thing that actually pays us: price.

I rip through 5000 charts a week, and most of the time even...

I look at facts. There are many people who choose a variety of other factors that aren't necessarily true. Market participants all over the world look at economic data (which are estimates), statements from CEOs of companies (do you trust them all? if not, which ones and why?), analysts ratings (are opinions) and an infinite of other metrics that have no history of being fact. Price, on the other hand, is the only truth we can be confident in believing. I'm selfish, if I can't trust that my data is correct, how could I possibly trust the outcome?

The way I look at markets is very simple: we want to see relative strength and positive momentum. Today, we're going to stick with momentum itself and what has happened the past few months. To be clear, I explain my entire process of analyzing momentum on this page. The get to the point of this post, we all need to understand that when momentum is in a bullish range, it is confirming that prices are in, or still in, an uptrend. It's when momentum falls into a bearish range that the evidence points to a downtrend...

When I get asked about what I think the most important technical indicators are, I have to start with price. This is where it all begins and ends. Everything else is just a derivative of price. Let's not forget that. We can use all sorts of other things to help supplement that price analysis, but only if we understand that is all they are, supplements.

After price, for me it's momentum and relative strength that we're looking for. We want to be in stocks outperforming other stocks and showing positive momentum. Why mess around with stocks showing weakness and not showing bullish momentum? That makes little sense. Today we are going to focus on the areas showing the most relative strength and momentum, how to profit from it, and what that means for the overall market.

It's funny, some friends of mine a few weeks ago were asking me about Island Reversals. Apparently they were arguing about whether a breakout in some stock was sparked by an island reversal or not. I came to the conclusion that they were both wrong, but I appreciated their interest in this rare pattern. The point I tried to make to them was that it wasn't so much about what it's called, but more about its implications. And they had the implications right, which is all that mattered.

I don't see too many of these things, but this week we got a classic example of the ever so elusive "Island Reversal".

Here at Allstarcharts, none of us know what is going to happen in the market next week or next month or even next year. But the good news is that no one else does either. So it's an even playing field among all of us, whether you're Warren Buffett, Joey Home Gamer or anything in between. All we can do is take the data as it comes in, consistently reevaluate, and position ourselves in the direction with the highest probabilities.

Today we are taking a look at just the U.S. Stock Market Indexes to see where the risk lies and what we want to see to position ourselves aggressively on the long side. 

It's hard to ignore the strength we're seeing in some of these emerging markets. When stocks are selling off, I like to look around and see who is still holding up well. We call that "relative strength". Every day I get to speak with traders at the largest financial institutions in the world. They laugh because when everyone is selling, they get to sit there pressing buy buttons and fill their humongous orders that need to get done while they are accumulating a position.

Remember that institutions who manage $10, $20 - $50 Billion have to buy millions of shares of a stock just to have a small position relative to the overall size of their giant portfolios. It takes time to fill an order: days, weeks or even months. Retail investors can just press one button and get an entire fill whenever they want. Since institutions can't, we get to see it happening if we look close enough. When stocks are selling off, those still staying green and holding up is evidence of buy side accumulation.

Today I want to talk about some of the emerging markets out there where we're seeing relative strength. It's impossible for me as responsible market participant to ignore what is...

Jay Woods has been a designated market maker on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange for over 25 years. This being Technical Analysis Radio, I think it's important to understand what goes on down there and how it's changed over time. In this episode Jay shares old war stories from one of the most important and symbolic buildings in America. This conversation is the perfect compliment to some of the other perspectives we've heard throughout season one of the podcast. Jay Woods is a Chartered Market Technician who focuses on price behavior and sentiment. We discuss the current U.S. Stock Market environment including sector rotation, particularly in Financials and Technology. With volatility coming back in 2018, I think this is a great time to hear from Jay and find out what he's seeing from the floor of the NYSE.