From the desk of Tom Bruni @BruniCharting

The TSX Composite is peaking its head out above resistance and into the fresh air of all-time highs, but can the recent strength continue?

Today we're looking for answers in two sectors that matter, Financials and Energy, which account for roughly 50% of the index's weighting.

First off, here's the TSX Composite Index breaking to new all-time highs, slightly exceeding its former highs of 16,650. Momentum has yet to get overbought, but if prices are above that level then we need to be erring on the long side with an upside objective of 18,300 over the next 6-12 months.

Click on chart to enlarge view.

One of my favorite parts of living in Sonoma, CA is going to the local market. I'm right in the heart of wine country so anything protein or produce is going to be off the charts. On the way out of the store on weekends and/or early in the week, it gives me a chance to glance at the papers and magazines. This happens much less frequently these days vs when I lived in New York City and could catch a peek at some of the cover stories every day and usually multiple times on every block.

So this weekend I'm walking out of the store double fisting sea bass (on my way to make Greek Carpaccio), and caught a quick glance at the Barron's cover story which suggested selling Railroad stocks! I'm certainly not going to take the time to read what it says, but I saw enough to turn it into a blog post explaining why I want to take the other side. To be clear, I don't mean to pick on Barron's. They're a legendary publication and quote me regularly. But that doesn't mean we have to agree all the time.

Here is this weekend's cover, for those who haven't seen it:

When was the last time Small-caps were not a mess? At least a year now right?

The bearish argument has been that small-caps (and others) are underperforming the large-cap stocks and therefore, the divergence is a warning signal that the market is about to fall apart. Along the way, I've asked the question,

What if we get rotation into small-caps rather than the rotation out of large-caps that you keep promising me?"

In other words, instead of the last ones finally falling, what if the stocks down in the dumps get their act together and start playing catch-up?

What does the market look like in that scenario?

Well, I'm still in the camp that we see the latter, rotation into small-caps, not the former where the S&P500 crashes and we go into recession. Here are small-caps relative to large-caps. If we are going to start to see outperformance from the little guys, this would certainly be a logical place for it to start:

From the desk of Tom Bruni @BruniCharting

This morning JC did a review of the S&P 600 sectors to identify the structural trends of the major small-cap indices.

This post is a follow-up to outline a few names that have gotten our attention on the long side.

From the desk of Tom Bruni @BruniCharting

Thursday was an important near-term inflection point for several major asset classes.

This post is going to cover what's moving, why we're taking notice, and what it could mean going forward.

It's my favorite exercise each month. There is nothing else I do throughout my entire process that provides as much value as my Monthly Chart Review. Here's what stood out to me this month:

Let's start with Papa Dow. The Dow Jones Industrial Average has gone nowhere for 20 months. Flat for over a year and a half:

Click on Charts To Zoom In

From the desk of Tom Bruni @BruniCharting

Retail ETF XRT is at an interesting level, so in this post we're gonna take a look at its chart and what the internals are suggesting for the sector in the weeks/months ahead.

When I go through my charts, I see all kinds of different trends, patterns and consolidations around the world. It really depends on what I'm looking at. However, one area that has been a consistent outperformer is in Medical Device stocks. The way I see it, these are just Tech stocks stuck in the bodies of Healthcare names. So our theme of "bullish tech" makes sense, even though on paper they're Healthcare stocks. 

Here is a chart of the Medical Device & Equipment Index $IHI relative to the S&P500. This one goes from the lower left to the upper right. We call those Uptrends:

From the desk of Tom Bruni @BruniCharting

In early July we were looking at some divergences that were signaling a potential short-term bottom in US Interest Rates.

That thesis was quickly proven wrong as global yields pulled the US down with them, and last week in our Conference Call we discussed our current outlook for Bonds and their many intermarket relationships.

Earlier this week JC discussed the fact that Bonds are at an interesting level relative to the S&P 500 as well.

Yesterday I discussed some of the pitfalls to avoid when using Bond ETFs as a proxy for the underlying assets.

Needless to say, we've been talking a lot about Bonds.

In this post, I'm going to take a simplified look at price action and momentum of the 2, 5, 10, and 30-Year Treasuries to assess the reward/risk and if there's a short-term trading opportunity at current levels.

We saw some late week strength in US Stocks for two consecutive weeks. When buyers have had the opportunity to buy stocks on weakness, have they shown up to do so? I would argue yes.

That doesn't mean that we're not below overhead supply in most sectors and indexes. There are a few exceptions but let's get right into it and see what's going on.