A lot of the major US Stock Market indexes have been having a hard time making much progress this month.

That makes sense to me because there are simply fewer and fewer stocks that are going up in price.

It's a market of stocks, after all right?

The way I learned it was, "Don't fight Papa Dow".

As you can see below, Dow Futures are at the same levels they were on February 2nd. We start March this Friday.

Also, you can see momentum continue to roll over very aggressively, particularly as any new highs in the indexes failed to hold:

Remember when Apple was the most important company in the world?

Wasn't that like just a few months ago?

How convenient that it is no longer relevant, now that the stock goes down in price every day.

Apple closed yesterday at the lowest levels since early November...

Small-caps have had a really hard time this year.

Almost every Small-cap sector is down since the highs in late December. That was 2 months ago.

The day the US Dollar Index bottomed was the exact day that Small-caps stopped going up in price.

That was also the same day that the US 10yr Yield bottomed.

I don't believe that was a coincidence.

You're welcome to.

What I see is a group of stocks struggling to make any progress. It's hard to underperform the Small-cap indexes, but somehow Financials found a way.

Here are Small-cap Financials, which are loaded up with regional bank stocks, rolling over and making new 4-month lows relative to the Small-cap 600 Index.

A lot of people are making a ton of money right now in Crypto Markets.

Bitcoin hit new 52-week highs this week.

Ethereum made a new 52-week high TODAY.

And my CryptoPunk is up over 170% in just 4 months.

To be clear, this internet picture I own is up over $100,000 in just a few months.

Are you paying attention?

This market is not like the one we were in back in November.

Have you adapted to this environment?

Or are you still doing the same things you were doing 3 months ago?

Take a look at High Beta vs Low Volatility going out for the week at the lowest levels since mid-January:

You know the old saying that Bull Markets are more fun than Bear Markets?

It's true.

And not because you can't make money in a bear market. You can. In fact, you usually make money much faster in bear markets. That's just how the market behaves.

But the truth is that bull markets are definitely more fun.

I can tell you from first hand experience over the years. The parties in bull markets are more fun and they are more frequent, than in bear markets.

Last night was definitely a bull market party. Josh Brown turned 46 and I turned 42.

Strazza even flew up to New York for the festivities.

The volatility in stocks continues as 2024 progresses.

Have you noticed how different this market is vs the one we were in throughout November and December?

The swings are getting wider, and they're coming in both directions.

Just yesterday, the Nasdaq hit new lows not seen since January.

Meanwhile, there isn't a single small-cap sector that is above its December highs.

There's still a lot of work that stocks need to do to dig them out of this hole.

Back in the late 1800s, Charlie Dow was a journalist in Springfield Massachusetts.

His job was to write about the stock market. But when he would go knocking on doors asking companies questions, they would tell him, "Our business is none of your business".

So how could poor Charlie do his job then?

Well, he concluded that there was a better way to do this.

He recognized that there were a select group of stocks that, "Made the goods", and he called those the Industrials.

And then there was the group of companies that, "Delivered those goods". At the time, they were the Railroads.

If one of these groups of stocks were going up in price, and so was the other group, then things are moving in a positive direction together. Those were good signs for the market.

It was specifically when one of those groups were rising, but the other one wasn't, that something was likely wrong.

And boy was he right.

As usual, the market is giving investors a set of mixed signals.

That's par for the course, isn't it?

Let's get into it.

First up:

The Good

Volatility continues to pick up. We're seeing bigger prices swings for stocks, in BOTH directions.

But of all the things I'm seeing out there, this former darling, and market bellwether absolutely has my attention.

On Thursday, Apple went out a yet another new low relative to the rest of the market. Here's what Apple looks like vs QQQ:

This is a completed top and potentially disastrous break.

The next chart below is what Apple looks like vs the S&P500 and the absolute price laid over it.

$AAPL stock has been falling all year, despite what some of the indexes have done during this period.

It's not just the declining new highs list that we've seen the past 2 months, the next question is do we see an expansion in new lows?

We discussed that already yesterday.

One of the things we've been monitoring closely over the past month is the new lows list.

I see very often how people love to just subtract random numbers from each other, mostly for the sake of subtracting.

There's really no reason for it.

For example, lately I'm sure you've noticed some traders and analysts taking the new 52-week high list and then arbitrarily subtracting the number of new 52-week lows from it.

lol for what?

The only real safe haven out there continues to be the US Dollar.

That's it.

When money flows into the Dollar, stocks are under pressure. You may not always see it at the index level, but you can certainly see it when you count and go one by one across the stock market.

The US Dollar bottomed on December 27th. That was also the day that the Advance-Decline line on the NYSE put in its top. It was also the day that the Russell2000 Small-cap Index peaked.

Here's the Dollar now making new 3-month highs: