It's sure been messy out there.

There just hasn't been too much to discuss in recent weeks - volatility's contracted, and any signs of momentum have just fizzled out.

But that's not to say that there are NO opportunities; it just simply means they're harder to come by, and the probabilities of success have lowered significantly.

Despite all this messy action, we've still had a handful of trades really go our way on both the long and short sides. Buying the leaders, and selling the laggards - despite how oversimplified it may sound - is as prudent of a strategy in this environment as any other.

This chart does a great job of boiling down how we're approaching this market:

These are the registration details for our live monthly conference call for Premium Members of All Star Charts.

This month’s Conference Call will be held on Tuesday June 22nd at 6PM ET. As always, if you cannot make the call live, the video and slides will be archived and published here along with every other live call since 2015.

Here are the details for Tuesday night:

From the desk of Willie Delwiche.

Key Takeaways:

• Breadth thrust regime from last year has expired
• Higher inflation and unbalanced asset allocations can weigh on stocks
• Global earnings revisions trends remain healthy 

2020 was a remarkable year in many ways. The rally that emerged off of the early year lows was broad-based and historically strong. It was fueled by numerous momentum surges, overwhelming amounts of fiscal and monetary liquidity, an unprecedented string of better than expected economic data, and a persistent trend in earnings estimates being revised higher. While 2021 began with some of those tailwinds intact, as we move toward the second half of the year, we want to avoid the assumption that nothing has changed as we have entered year two of the cyclical rally. 

Breadth thrusts can signal strong and sustainable upward momentum for stocks that can last for up to a year. Our two favorite indicators are having 90% of stocks above their 50-day...

We're going to start taking full advantage of the data coming out of our weekly Follow the Flow report and put on at least one actionable trade from this list every week. If you're not already familiar with this report, Steve Strazza puts it together each week and it highlights stocks with both unusual options flow plus interesting chart setups. Combined, these two factors offer traders a pretty unique edge to exploit.

Today's idea is in a recent IPO which might offer us some additional oomph if it gets moving in our direction.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @sstrazza

Welcome to our latest RPP Report, where we publish return tables for a variety of different asset classes and categories along with commentary on each.

Looking at the past helps put the future into context. In this post, we review the absolute and relative trends at play and preview some of the things we’re watching to profit in the weeks and months ahead.

We consider this our weekly state of the union address as we break down and reiterate both our tactical and structural outlook on various asset classes and discuss the most important themes and developments currently playing out in markets all around the world.

And at present, markets are a total mess and full of mixed messages as most major stock market indexes continue to churn sideways in consolidation patterns, while many risk-on commodities are in corrective phases.

While the weight of the evidence still remains in the bullish camp, bears seem to add to their list of talking points with every passing week. We believe the highest probability outcome over the coming weeks to...

Humans are hardwired to find patterns where they don't exist.

Back in the day, it was beneficial for our ancestors to picture predators hiding among the leaves, even when they really weren't there. This Pareidolia kept them safe. Thousands of years on, it makes us terribly susceptible to chart crimes.

One such crime plaguing the Crypto landscape is this idea that "Bitcoin is correlated."

People argue that these digital assets are having a real consequence on the macro environment.

But the reality is that Bitcoin is far too small a market to have any intermarket relationships at all.

We debuted a new scan recently which goes by the name- All Star Momentum.

All Star Momentum is a brand new scan that pinpoints the very best stocks in the market. This time around, we have incorporated our stock universe of Nifty 500 as the base. Among the 500 stocks that we follow, this scan will pump out names that are most likely to generate great returns.

While we go through our lists of sectors and stocks on a weekly basis, we thought of launching a product that would highlight the names that are the strongest performers in our universe and those that are primed for an explosive move.

Just like The Outperformers scan, this is a list of stocks belonging to the sectors that display relative strength in the market at any given point in time. Since sector rotation is the lifeblood of a bull market, we will be ahead of the curve before the gears keep shifting.

From the desk of Willie Delwiche.

Key takeaway: From a breadth perspective, the market is challenged right now by a scarcity of new highs. From a sentiment perspective, it has to contend with a scarcity of bears. Options data shows complacency even as risk appetites remain diminished. Bears on both the II and AAII surveys are near their lowest levels since 2018 and ETF inflows remain elevated. The household equity allocation tilt (versus bonds) is its most extreme since 1972. Stocks are loved, bonds are hated. All of this is very well summarized by our chart of the week from the Bank of America Fund Manager Survey which shows virtually no one is expecting (or prepared for) market volatility in the months ahead.

Sentiment Report Chart of the Week: Missing Bears 

It takes bulls to make a bull market, but it takes bears to help sustain it. The Bank of America Fund Managers Survey found only 2% expect a correction >20% in the next six months, emphasizing...

From the desk of Steven Strazza @Sstrazza 

Check out our latest Mystery Chart!

What we do here is take a chart that’s captured our attention, and remove the x and y-axes as well as any other labels that could help identify it.

This chart can be of any security, in any asset class, on any timeframe. Sometimes it’s an absolute price chart, other times it’s on a relative basis.

It might be a ratio, a custom index, or maybe the price is inverted. It could be all three!

The point is, when we aren’t able to recognize what’s in front of us, we put aside any biases we may have and scrutinize the price behavior objectively.

While you can try to guess the chart, the point is to make a decision…

So, let us know what it is… Buy, Sell, or Do Nothing?

From the desk of Steve Strazza @sstrazza

This is one of our favorite bottoms-up scans: Follow The Flow. In this note, we simply create a universe of stocks that experienced the most unusual options activity -- either bullish or bearish... but NOT both.

We utilize options experts, both internally and through our partnership with The TradeXchange. Then, we dig through the level 2 details and do all the work upfront for our clients. Our goal is to isolate only those options market splashes that represent levered and high-conviction, directional bets.

We also weed out hedging activity and ensure there are no offsetting trades that either neutralize or cap the risk on these unusual options trades. What remains is a list of stocks that large financial institutions are putting big money behind... and they're doing so for one reason only: Because they think the stock is about to move in...

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza and Ian Culley @Ianculley

The US Dollar trading at key levels against a significant amount of Developed and Emerging Market currencies is the major theme in Currency Markets right now. 

The GBP/USD is challenging an area of resistance that acted as support for over two decades but has been a barrier for prices since the Brexit vote almost 5 years ago.

The USD/CHF is on the verge of completing a massive 9-year top.

The USD/ZAR just violated critical support at a decade-long trend line.

And USD/CAD is currently attempting to complete a 5-year double top... with a pattern that looks strikingly similar to that of the DXY Index itself.

These crazy Bitcoin "HODL'ers" and "Laser Eyes" people must be going nuts right now.

Apart from a few exceptions in shorter time frames, there's been a painful lack of real opportunities floating around in this space recently, both on the long and short sides.

Breakouts are failing, and breakdowns aren't doing much either.

Legendary trader Paul Tudor Jones once said that "Markets only trend about 15% of the time, the rest of the time they move sideways."

As aggressive as trends can be in Crypto, we need to respect that markets simply need to repair their damages and reload for the next move.

In the context of Bitcoin's 200-day moving average, once price slips below it, it tends to stay below for some time - especially after prolonged periods of it remaining above.