From the desk of Tom Bruni @BruniCharting

Given our expectation of a choppy market environment over the coming weeks and months, we're focusing on areas of relative strength/weakness.

Canadian Telecom stocks are hitting new all-time highs on an absolute basis, presenting some new trading opportunities on the long side.

Ok so if you're not caught up with our approach to the market right now, I encourage you to read both "We're Buying Bonds" and "Selling Emerging Markets" from this weekend.

Today I want to talk about the non-randomness of markets. I think the Russell2000 Small-cap Index is a great example to walk through. For one, it helps you understand the way we look at markets, but selfishly it's also great because it reiterates a lot of principles that I want to continue to focus on moving forward. Writing helps. Everyone wins. 

In case you missed it yesterday, we're selling stocks up here and buying bonds.

I tried to outline the levels as best as I could. Let me know if you have any questions!

Quickly today, I just wanted to point out one chart of Emerging Markets that really stands out. Remember this Index is broken down as follows: China 32.40%, South Korea 11.84%, Taiwan 11.71%, India 8.13%, Brazil 6.78%, South Africa 4.25% & Russia 3.84%. 

It's basically 72% Asia and 10% Latin America.

Here's what it looks like:

I like to keep an open mind. When the data suggests getting more aggressive towards stocks, that's what we're going to do. When the data points a more defensive approach, then that's what we'll do too.

We've had a heck of a run in stocks since the summer, and now I think it's time for a break, at least at the index level. Remember, regardless of overall market conditions there will still always be some stocks going up and some going down. In fact, I think Utilities see some outperformance here and I listed which stocks we want to own. So far they're working.

Anyway, so why the new defensive position? Well, the things we said needed to happen for us to pull back are starting to happen. It's really as simple as that.

Let's get into it:

In this quick post, we're looking at two widely-followed stocks that we want to be avoiding, each for their own, but similar reasons.

Let's get into it.

From the desk of Tom Bruni @BruniCharting

Thank you to everyone who responded to this week's mystery chart.

No mixed opinions this week, almost everyone saw the pullback into support as a successful breakout retest and was a buyer.

With that as our backdrop, let's take a look at this week's chart. 

We've gotten a few questions about the stock, Spencer's Retail Ltd., since it rallied more than 50% over the last few weeks on news of a large shareholder building a position.

The question now is, can this run continue and how do we define our risk if involved in the stock?

Let's take a look.

In this Episode of Allstarcharts Weekly, Steve and I talk about the newest Sector in America: Communications. Back in 2018, the Index makers took out some of our favorite Technology stocks and put them along with some telecom into this new Index called Communications. With Google and Facebook now representing 40% of this $XLC index, the fact that we're just now breaking out to all-time highs says a lot about the space.

This long weekend we had more time to take a step back and think about the things that are currently going on in the market. A big theme that stuck with us was the strength in stocks in the Utilities sector. The question was/is whether this strength in higher dividend paying stocks is evidence that rates are about to fall? Or is there such an overwhelming amount of strength in the stock market, that Utilities are just included in the rally?

Both are acceptable answers and theories, I'd argue. You can find more on that conversation here.

But sometimes I think we just need to pay attention to what's right in front of us, which in this case is Utilities stocks going higher. So why don't we just buy utility stocks and not worry about the bond market for a hot minute? The most bullish thing a stock can do is go up. And that's exactly what's happening here.

From the desk of Tom Bruni @BruniCharting

My big question coming into this weekend was what should we make of the action in Utilities lately and what does it mean for Bonds?

Utilities are making new all-time highs on an absolute basis, posing this question on Twitter: "So is the breakout in Utilities to new all-time highs a signal that a Bond breakout is coming, or is it simply a bi-product of overwhelming demand for Equities?

This got a lot of attention and responses, so I thought it'd be worthwhile to quickly outline what I'm watching in Utilities and the Bond market over the next few weeks.

Yesterday's candle in most of the major indices was a "Bearish Engulfing" candle, which is a short-term reversal signal when it comes in an uptrend.

In today's post, I want to bring that development to your attention and explain what it means within its longer-term context.

Roughly 2 months ago we outlined why there was potential for strength and outperformance from the Nifty Pharma sector and its components.

We've gotten some nice moves since then and given the rotation we're seeing in other areas of the market like Consumer Goods and Technology, the charts are suggesting Pharma stocks are getting ready to accelerate to the upside.

Here's the Nifty Pharma Index, which confirmed a failed breakdown and bullish momentum divergence by closing back above support near 8,000. That defined our risk on the long side and skewed the reward/risk very much in our favor. It's worked well so far and we're now seeing prices accelerate off support and towards our 10,300 target.

Click on chart to enlarge view.