Chart Summit was a "Ski during the day and Chart at night" event held on February 22-23, 2019 in Breckenridge, CO. I co-hosted it with Brian Shannon and this is the video of my presentation:
The Top/Down Approach to Financial Markets using Technical Analysis
Every month I host a conference call for Premium Members of Allstarcharts. By now I think you've noticed that we're really increasing the content on our YouTube Channel, so I thought it would add some value to include some of the highlights from this month's call.
It's an hour long video call and about 150 charts, but here are a few things that stood out this month:
A weakening US Dollar has been a positive catalyst for Stocks
Freeport McMoRan is a good example of the types of stocks benefiting from Dollar Weakness, on both a relative and absolute basis
London FTSE100 breaking out of a multi-decade base makes it hard to be bearish stocks from any sort of intermediate-term perspective
Our "Dow Fab 5" is breaking out to All-time highs
Crude Oil is beginning its next leg higher, which makes sense with stock prices rising as well
When it comes to strategies, I've noticed that some investors try to force their approach on to the market, even if we're not in the type of environment where that strategy works. The first thing we want to do is identify what type of environment we're in, so that we can then create strategies to try and profit from it. To think we can build a system for a future environment that doesn't exist yet is foolish.
We've all heard about Japanese Candlesticks, but how can they help us? While line charts and bar charts each have their roles in our process, Candlesticks really tell the best story of them all. I've seen many different ways in which these tools are used, so in this short video I explain how we incorporate candlesticks in our every day analysis.
I was down in San Francisco Friday afternoon shopping for a tuxedo for my wedding in a few months. Whenever I'm in the city I like to get Chinese food and swing by the tv networks and say hi. Friday I got to do both.
At Allstarcharts we incorporate what we call a, "Top/Down Approach". To us, this means we start with the broader picture and analyze all of the Indexes around the world. Only then do we dive into our own country or the country in question. This is where we try and identify the trends in the S&P500, Dow Jones Industrial Average and many others. Next we break it down to the sector and industry level like Healthcare, Banks or Technology. Finally when the relative strength and momentum line up in a particular group of stocks, that's when we try and find the best risk vs reward opportunities available to express a given theme.
For me, price is the most important technical indicator. Everything after that is just a supplement to actual price behavior. In that group of supplements is Momentum. My oscillator of choice is the RSI, or the "Relative Strength Index". I use this indicator in a variety of ways, but today I wanted to show you an easy trick to quickly identify whether momentum is in a bullish range or a bearish range:
There's something fishy going on in Interest Rates and the U.S. Bond market right now. We've been bearish bonds and constructive about higher interest rates for as long as I can remember. This has worked out well. It was a big part of the bullish stocks thesis and it's played out. Bonds are at lows and rates are at highs. I just don't think it will be as easy for this to continue, particularly with what we're seeing from both a sentiment and intermarket perspective.