From the desk of Tom Bruni @BruniCharting

One of the hardest things to do in life and in markets is admitting you don't know. But when you're only in the market to make money, and not to be right, saying I don't know can often be the best answer.

That's why I put out a post titled "Relatively...Confused" just two days ago because when I go through my chartbooks I see extended themes that are not offering great reward/risk opportunities right now.

Elections, as with other major world events, introduce a lot of new information that market participants need to digest. This often causes increased volatility as expectations are adjusted and buyers and sellers battle to establish a trend.

So far this week we've seen an expansion in the intraday trading ranges, but not much resolution in terms of overall trend direction.

Here's what we're keeping an eye on.

We've spoken about the lack of trend in the Major Indexes for a while now, but another theme that's becoming more and more pervasive is the weakness in Tech stocks.

Let's see how we're going to approach it.

From the desk of Tom Bruni @BruniCharting

There are trends people tend to pick up on indirectly, usually by looking at individual stock charts or ETFs on an absolute basis, seeing the relative strength/weakness, and connecting the dots.

See something in one chart; it may not be all that special. See it in a lot of charts from the same area of the market...you're usually onto something.

That's the indirect way, but if we look at a trend directly, we can get a better feel for the exact strength of that underlying trend/theme.

In this post, I want to highlight a few trends that I know people are aware of, but may not realize their severity.

From the desk of Tom Bruni @BruniCharting

The US Dollar has frustrated the majority of market participants this year, particularly if they're only looking at the US Dollar Index.

With that said, we've been focused on other US Dollar pairs that aren't getting much attention but are trending well and providing us with plenty of opportunities.

In a recent report, the All Star Charts team highlighted some mixed signals and the lack of trend in many areas of the stock market right now. These are often frustrating situations for straight stocks players. Luckily for us options traders, we can craft strategies that best suit any market environment we may be in. For today's play, we're going to get a little creative, mixing a credit spread with a calendar spread to establish a unique risk profile in a name that we're cautiously bullish on.

From the desk of Tom Bruni @BruniCharting

We've been writing about the lack of trend in the Major Indices and highlighting some relative strength in places like Software and Insurance, but overall signals remain mixed.

This morning I set out to write another post about areas showing relative strength, hoping to find a clean theme that the most actionable stock setups fit within.

What I found can be boiled down to the length of two tweets.

"Going through the S&P 1500 I see a number of actionable names on the long side, but they don't all fit a theme. They're all from different areas of the market. Where there are themes I see a lot of extended names and unattractive entries."

and

"I can see that the path of least resistance is higher in a lot of names, but that doesn't mean that current levels offer an attractive entry."

Great themes, but no great way of executing...

From the desk of Tom Bruni @BruniCharting

Last week I sat down with Justine Underhill for Real Vision's "Trade Ideas" show to discuss a tactical trading opportunity in Palladium and a longer-term play in the Insurance industry.

These are themes I've shared with our Institutional Clients over the last few weeks. I hope you find some value in them.

In a recent blog post, All Star Charts highlighted a stock retesting a breakout from a very large base. This was the money quote:

First off, big bases take time to form because they are caused by steady institutional accumulation. Mom and pop investors aren’t the ones creating this trend, so I know that there’s underlying demand that will support prices if they do move lower.

Because prices have memory and the base has taken a significant period of time to build, there’s likely been more trading at each price level along the way. As a result of this institutional support, the rate of change to the downside is likely to be less severe versus a name that’s advanced quickly to the upside with less trading activity at each level, and thus less memory among market participants to defend these levels on the way down.

Secondly, our risk is extremely well-defined when trading these patterns. In the event that we are buying a base breakout (or pullback), we know exactly where we are wrong and can generally minimize our risk relative to potential reward.

This is precisely the scenario we see...

From the desk of Tom Bruni @BruniCharting

Wednesday's Mystery Chart is one of my favorite charts, so thank you everyone for your feedback and participation.

I received a lot of answers, but most of you were buyers of this recent pullback, while others were waiting to see if prices reacted positively to support before jumping in. Not many of you were sellers.

With that as our backdrop, let's get into it.

Like a fly to honey, I'm always attracted to asymmetric opportunities that offer limited risk and the potential for unlimited gains. Trading options allows us to quite literally create these types of risk/reward opportunities every day. It's built into the very structure of your basic call or put option! And when we can spot a stock chart that offers us a little bit of an edge on the future direction of prices, it is time to take action.

Phil Pearlman has always been a good guy to talk to about a lot of different things. I know for a fact that a lot of your favorite fintwit personalities would agree with that.

Phil doesn't do a lot of media anymore like he once did, but I do get to catch up with him quite often and we publish our conversations as The Money Game Podcast. You can check out all of those episodes on Technical Analysis Radio and iTunes.

Today we're talking about what little Daisy Pearlman the puppy taught Phil about life: