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

One major theme that we’re watching closely right now are the growing number of risk assets at or near critical levels or key former highs.

We continue to see a variety of world stock market indexes approach crucial inflection points. As the list keeps getting longer, our cautionary view of the potential for further choppiness in many markets gets stronger.  

Where prices resolve from here in major indexes like the MSCI Emerging Markets, EAFE -- and even some major domestic indexes such as the Russell 2000, are about to provide us with some big-time information into the health of global equities and risk-assets in general.

Today, we’re going to look at one of these diversified international indexes that finds itself in this same boat as it approaches its pre-financial crisis record highs.  

This week on the podcast I sit down with Meb Faber, Co-Founder, CEO and CIO of Cambia Investments. In addition to his "Day job", as he puts it, Meb has authored 5 investment books, a countless amount of white papers, and is also a very popular follow on Twitter @MebFaber.

This was really fun for me because Meb is an expert at a lot of things that I am just not, like what happens behind the scenes at ETFs, angel investing and academic studies. He brings up some great points about providing strategies that work, but that people also want/need.

He has some strong opinions about share buy backs instead of distributing dividends, learning through acting and participating, and how lucky him and I are that we took the CMT decades ago when it was a lot easier than it is today!

This was a lot of fun. Meb is a chill dude, but don't let him fool you, he's one of the smartest guys in the room!

Enjoy!

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

Are Softs finally showing signs of life?

Base Metals, Grains, and even Energy have posted strong rallies over the last year. Yet the Softs -- Cocoa, Coffee, Cotton, and Sugar -- have continued to struggle below overhead supply.

But we’re seeing all the traditional signs of a structural trend reversal from this lagging group right now.

Let’s take a closer look at Coffee futures to pinpoint why we believe this bear-to-bull trend change is underway… 

Here’s a weekly chart of Coffee: 

Coffee futures have been in a nasty downtrend for almost a decade. But that no longer appears to be the case as they recently broke above a decade-long downtrend line in early February, signaling a potential...

These are the registration details for our Live Monthly Candlestick Strategy Session for Premium Members of All Star Charts.

This month’s Video Conference Call will be held on Monday May 3rd @ 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 Monday evening:

From the desk of Willie Delwiche.

The new high list on any given day has been unremarkable of late. So far in 2021, the most S&P 500 stocks making new highs on any given day has been 135 (27% of the index). The average for 2021 is closer to 50. Despite these lackluster daily readings more than half of the stocks in the S&P 500 have made new highs at some point in the past two weeks. Continued expansion in the number of stocks that have been making new highs reflects healthy broad market support.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

We've covered the Growth vs Value relationship ad nauseam since late last year.

We continue to believe that a structural trend reversal in favor of Value is underway.

We laid out our thesis and the key level we're watching to potentially prove it wrong... That is and has been 1.70 in the Russell Large Cap Growth vs Value ratio.

Once again this month, I’m going to share info on positions that were closed or managed in the month of April. As a reminder, our exit plans are always laid out ahead of time in each trade idea we publish. In every case, the exits mentioned below were all exited in accordance with the plan as laid out.

As we head towards May expiration, we only have one position remaining with May options.

It's been well documented that Gold is the biggest loser of the Commodity space. Every single commodity is doing well in this environment except for Gold.

Perhaps this proves what many people have been telling me my whole career, "Gold is a currency JC, not a commodity!"

And maybe that's true. Who am I to judge?

But if you do consider it a currency, it's still one of the ones no wants this year:

I have a confession to make.

You always hear me talking about how we shouldn't look at Monthly Candlesticks (or any candlestick) until it's completed.

In other words, don't draw conclusions about Weekly candlesticks on Tuesday. Don't make decisions based on Daily candlesticks at 10:30AM. And most certainly do not dissect a monthly candlestick early in the month.

BUT, I have a wedding to go to tomorrow and leaving the house around 2 o'clock, a couple hours before markets close for the month of April.

You no there's no way I can wait until I get back on Sunday to take a peek. Let's be serious. It's like Christmas for me every month when I get to unwrap all the new monthly charts.

I had to look!

I broke my own rule. I couldn't help myself.

But since I did, you know what I noticed?

This is the video recording of the April 29th Town Hall Meeting w/ Willie Delwiche & JC Parets

04/29/21 2PM ET

From the desk of Willie Delwiche.

My grandfather always wanted to drive the length of the Alaska Highway. 

One summer, when he and my grandmother were approaching 70, Paul & Doris bought a Ford diesel pick-up truck, installed a camper in the bed, and headed West from their suburban Washington, DC home in pursuit of adventure.

They made the journey in one piece. It was, by all accounts, the trip of a lifetime. I have a photo from that trip that I just love. It's the two of them sitting on a log with a lake in the background, surrounded by the Alaskan summer in all its glory. They are vibrant, robust and full of life.

One of the most anticipated moves that market participants have been waiting for, is a rally in the Commodities space. We had seen some signs of this in December '20-January '21, but those moves didn't sustain. On the contrary, the base metals moved below their resistances and consolidated for two months.

Aluminum was the lone star in this group that continued to power through, despite the overall weakness that was prevalent in this sector.

This was a major reason why we continued to hold out for a rally in the base metals- Relative Strength. Aluminum was displaying relative strength against the rest of the metals. Had it been a scenario of overall weakness, Aluminum would be moving south as well.

We've noticed a pick-up in activity in the same names that were correcting/consolidating and thought this is as good a time as ever, for an update!

Anyone looking at this chart could tell that Aluminum has been on a tear. The price broke out of a three-year...