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.

This could be a major top in the US Stock Market. It could be a historic top like 2007 or 1929, maybe even 1987. This is certainly a possible outcome.

Something else to consider is that betting on these outcomes is rarely a profitable endeavor. They make movies about the heroes who bet heavily on the financial collapse of 2008 and made fortunes. We talk about these fund managers like legends. What they don't make movies about are the infinite number of investors over the years who have bet on such outcomes, and were wrong instead. I guess Hollywood doesn't think those stories will sell.

I understand the bearish thesis for US Stocks. In fact, we always take the other side of our opinions and try to poke wholes in a given theme. We've been in the camp that since most stocks have gone down to sideways over the past 19 months, this is a classic cyclical bear market. It has gone on through both price and time, not just one of the two. I don't care how you slice it, this was a bear market, and possibly still is.

Now, whenever in doubt, zoom out right? I think we can agree that the rallies of 2016 and 2017 deserved a rest. So the question is whether this "rest...

Continuing a theme that we started the week with, we're still on the hunt for attractive long opportunities in the strongest sectors. When markets get choppy and uncertainty about market regime change looms, I seek relative safety in the corners of the market that have continued to hold up well. And since the beginning of August, one of those sectors has been the Medical Devices sector.

And here's one of the names showing signs of a developing breakout.

From the desk of Tom Bruni @BruniCharting

New Mystery Chart!

For those new to the exercise, we take a chart of interest and remove the x/y-axes and any other labels that would help identify it. The chart can be any security in any asset class on any timeframe on an absolute or relative basis. Maybe it's a custom index or inverted, who knows!

We do all this to put aside the biases we have associated with this specific security/the market and come to a conclusion based solely on price.

You can guess what it is if you must, but the real value comes from sharing what you would do right now. Buy, Sell, or Do Nothing?

Yesterday we discussed the major indices in India and how the weight of the evidence is beginning to suggest we're close to a tradeable low.

In today's post, I want to outline two "trash to treasure" trade setups that are low probability in nature but offer a ridiculously skewed reward/risk at current levels.

If you haven't read our past posts on identifying counter-trend trades and managing them, we'd highly recommend doing so before continuing.

New Mystery Chart!

For those new to the exercise, we take a chart of interest and remove the x/y-axes and any other labels that would help identify it. The chart can be any security in any asset class on any timeframe on an absolute or relative basis. Maybe it's a custom index or inverted, who knows!

We do all this to put aside the biases we have associated with this specific security/the market and come to a conclusion based solely on price.

You can guess what it is if you must, but the real value comes from sharing what you would do right now. Buy, Sell, or Do Nothing?

In this Episode of Allstarcharts Weekly, Steve and I talk the relative performance of stocks. When assets are in strong uptrends, they not only perform on an absolute basis, but they tend to outperform their alternatives. With new highs in the S&P500 last month, we've seen nothing but lower highs relative to both Gold and US Treasury Bonds. In fact, on a relative basis, the S&P500 is actually down to its late December 2018 lows. Will they hold or confirm a massive distributive top? I think the resolution will tell us a lot about the strength of the current stock market.

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:

When I speak to traders at buy side shops, I've noticed that when it's time to allocate more money into the market, they tend to add to things that have made them feel good and shy away from those that have brought them pain. This is one area where I believe traders will be adding, and not diversifying away from.

Here is a list of stocks we want to be buying or looking to buy on a pullback:

When in doubt, seek safety in the leaders.

With markets jittery all over the place, the one area investors still seem to be pretty confident in is the Home Builders. And why not? In a declining interest rates environment, home buyers can finance purchases at historically low interest rates -- why wouldn't they be buying and building new homes?

Of course, even in the strongest names, this is no time to be a hero. Prudent risk management is still job #1 and we are not looking to be too aggressive here. Therefore, we've got a bullish play on tap, but we're approaching it in such a way so as to put ourselves in position to participate in upside as cheaply as possible.

The major indices in India are stuck in "no man's land" right now, making it a tough trading environment for many.

In this post, we're going to take a quick look at what that means and how we're approaching it.

This week we have a special treat on the podcast. Denise Shull is a Performance Coach and founder of The ReThink Group.  She is widely believed to be the inspiration for the character Wendy Rhoades on the Showtime series Billions. We have a lot of different perspectives on the podcast all revolving around the behavior of the market and its participants. In this episode we focus more on the behavior of the participants themselves and why traders do the things they do. Denise shares stories about different clients she has and the ways they overcome things like loss aversion, being too aggressive and not being aggressive enough. We discuss the differences between male and female traders, the advantages women have in this field and reasons why there are so few women on Wall Street. I really enjoyed this conversation because I think it's important to understand that there are real humans on the other side of our trades. Even if they are algos built by humans, the people are still there and it's important to understand their side. One...

Back in April, we attempted to get long Texas Instruments $TXN, but the stock gapped higher at the open on our entry day and it didn't come back for a month. So we missed it. And that was a bummer. But sometimes, life (and markets) gives us a second chance. And here we are.

Let's not waste any more time. We're getting to work!