Stocks stopped going down a long time ago.

In bear markets stocks go down in price.

In bear markets you get more and more stocks making new lows.

In bear markets the indexes don't keep putting up major gains quarter after quarter.

And so what's been happening in the current market environment?

You're seeing the permabears pointing to the Equally-weighted S&P500 falling down towards new 52-week lows relative to the Market-cap weighted version.

You can see what's happening here:

The Nasdaq just went out last week at new 7-month highs.

Growth stocks are back.

But why?

Interest Rates are falling at a record pace.

And when you look at the intermarket relationships, it makes a lot of sense:

US interest rates have fallen to their lowest levels since Q3 last year.

And with falling rates has come a consistent bid into Technology and growth all year so far.

That has driven the Nasdaq100 to its highest weekly close in 7 months:

With Financials continuing to fall apart, we're focused on the assets that are making new highs - Bitcoin and Gold being 2 of them.

I was on Fox Business yesterday talking about the importance of the 2007 highs in the Financials Index.

Here's a fun behind the scenes look.

We don't have bull markets without Financials.

Go back and check for yourself.

So this one, by definition, has to be the chart that matters the most.

Look at the Financial Sector Index currently retesting its former highs from before the Great Financial Crisis:

The most impressive behavior the past few weeks has to be in Bitcoin.

You can also see the performance of things like RIOT, COIN and other Bitcoin related stocks.

The bullish action transcends the asset class.

Take a look at the recent bid in Bitcoin as it bounces off its prior cycles highs from 2017:

We saw a very respectable 1.4% rally in the S&P500 this week.

But the index is still stuck below overhead supply.

Nothing has changed.

This is specifically at the index level, of course.

You see, while many sectors were doing great throughout the back half of last year, Technology and other growth areas simply were not.

This held the S&P500 back.

In 2023 we've been seeing the opposite.

Ever since the 2-year yield bottomed in Q1 of 2021 Technology stocks have struggled. Growth became the worst place to be.

It was NOT a coincidence that once those rates started to rise in early 2021, the Nasdaq New Highs list peaked, the Nasdaq Advance-Decline line peaked, all the ARK Funds peaked, Chinese internet peaked, Biotech peaked and everyone piled had into SPACs before they all came crashing down.

Because the 2-year yield was rising so fast, and the longer end of the curve couldn't keep up, we got the mother of all yield curve inversions.

The media loves to scare people with it because I think an inverted yield curve has predicted something like 50 of the last 8 recessions.

But now it's bon voyage yield curve inversion. Good riddance!

We're seeing the largest 5-day rate of change in the yield curve since the early 1980s:

They say to buy when there's blood in the streets.

Does this count?

Hardly.

Many indexes around the world are just a few basis points from new highs. Most stocks in America have been rallying for 9 months.

But sure, there's a little blood, with some of these small regional banks disappearing. But depositors are keeping their money, so the only cost is a few people lost their jobs.

Good. Unemployment is way too low anyway.

Historically they’re all usually just making a big deal about things that are not a big deal.

It's their job to make noise. And in some cases, it's not even their job, humans just like to overreact and make a lot of noise.

As investors, it's our job to ignore.

We don't care about their fed policies. We're not interested in arguing about wars. I don't care who the president is. And a "bank crisis" is laughable these days, compared to what I had a front row seat to back in 2008.

They make noise. We ignore. It's that simple.

Late last week when people were panicking, I was right here telling you we wanted to buy stocks.

Why?

Because in bull markets, it pays well to own stocks.

Besides, the Dollar was falling apart. So if stocks were about to collapse and this was 1929 all over again (lol btw), then the Dollar would be ripping.

It was not.

That was the signal. It still is.

If the US Dollar index is below 105, we want to be buying stocks very aggressively.

In some market environments Technology, and other sectors full of growth stocks, tend to outperform.

Usually interest rates are falling in that type of market.

You got a good dose of that for about decade.

US Stocks were the global leaders while Europe and other parts of the world, without that exposure to growth, made little progress.

See here.

And now with interest rates rising, other sectors have emerged as leaders. Industrials, for example.

This is all perfectly normal for this type of environment. We've seen it before, and to expect anything else would be irresponsible.

There was a time where Tech stocks were the leadership group.

That time is behind us.

You could wish and pray and hope that it becomes that environment once again.

Or you can live in reality.

That's up to you.

Look at Materials, for example, holding above all that former support from the past couple years. If $XLB is above 80, this is sector we need to own: