Signals act as indicators for what's to come or what we can expect. If you look closely, there are several signals that can be picked up from the market in order to stay ahead of the curve. A lot of analysis goes into arriving at the bottom of the funnel that is stock selection.

While the bigger trends are in place and their relative analysis helps us understand their strength and weaknesses, there are certain signals that can be picked up on a regular trading day as well.

The market has been gaining from strength to strength and if anything, we see greater participation across the globe as this rally matures into what looks like a long-term bull market.

One phrase we hear pretty often during such bull markets is the "Risk-on environment". So what is a Risk-on environment and what are the indicators that allude to such a set-up?

Let's take a look at some charts!

This week on the podcast, I'm thrilled to have Jeff Weiss, CMT join me for a really fun chat. If you know Jeff, you already know that he's quite the character. The stories he has from his early days in the 1960s and 70s are awesome. Have you ever heard of a squawk box? How about quote machines that you had to stand in line to use, and would still only get one stock quote at a time?

In this conversation Jeff shares old stories about how he got his first job, cold-calling CEOs of different firms until one of them finally gave him a shot. Even if you're not into Technical Analysis, and you're just a fan of the market, or business in general, this episode is for you.

Make sure to check out Jeff's book: Relationship Investing, named "Best Investment Book of the Year" by the 2018 Stock Trader’s Almanac.

This was a ton of fun. Big shout out to Jeff Weiss for joining me on the show.

Enjoy!

Our view remains that this is a new bull market in stocks, so we want to continue using any weakness towards 10,000 in the Nifty 50 to be adding exposure. With that said, just as we would pull the weeds out of our garden periodically to keep it healthy, we want to do the same with our portfolios.

And what better time to review your portfolio than at the end of the quarter?

In this post, we're going to show a few examples of stocks that remain out of favor...and their characteristics, so that you can identify any of the weeds in your portfolio and determine the best course of action for them.

I've learned a lot of things and met some amazing people during my trips to India over the years. One of them is the original meaning of the word "Guru".

You see, in America it definitely has a negative connotation. Most people I speak to don't even know what "guru" actually means. For us, it's usually a charlatan-type that no one likes. They usually know less than most and typically do much more harm to their audience than good. You'll often see them buying twitter followers and spamming your LinkedIn messages.

In marketing parlance, they refer to the "Guru" as the guy (usually male) who they spend all their time on marketing and making them look good. The better and smarter the “guru” appears to be, the more money that comes in, and the more profits for the marketing company, regardless of how completely full of it they actually are.

In America, whenever you hear, "Financial Guru", usually you want to run away as fast as possible.

But the truth is, Guru Purnima is one of the most beautiful concepts I've ever learned about. This unique festival on the...

Contrary to popular belief, Small and Mid-Cap stocks do not always provide better returns than Large-Cap stocks.

In academia, the thesis is that these "riskier" Small and Mid-Cap stocks should provide a higher potential return than more mature "Large-Cap" stocks. If they didn't, then rational investors would not own them because they're not being adequately compensated for the risk they're taking.

In the real world, we know that this theory is absolute nonsense. Instead of the consistent outperformance from the SMID (Small/Mid-Cap) segment of the market, we see periods of outperformance, periods of in-line performance, and performance of underperformance.

Since 2018 the SMID market-cap segments have been absolutely clobbered, but the weight of the evidence is suggesting that we may be at a major inflection point and SMID stocks are beginning a period of long-term outperformance.

Here we're going to explore the SMID resurgence thesis, what it would mean for Equities as an asset class, and how we're taking advantage of it.

First, let's start with the Nifty 50/Nifty Small-Cap 100 ratio. Since January 2018 it has been in a strong...

From the desk of Tom Bruni @BruniCharting

Two weeks ago I wrote about the downside resolutions in Treasuries and Yen and the questions we would be asking in the days following. Given their rallies in the last week, we continue to ask those questions and observe what messages these "safe haven" assets are sending about the market.

This week's talk of the town is the "Island Reversal", and rightfully so, as some of the world's strongest indexes are sporting this pattern.

Let's take a look and get into what it could mean for the days/weeks ahead.

One of our "Five Bull Market Barometers" is the Nifty 100/Nifty Small-Cap 100 ratio due to its importance as a measure of risk appetite.

Today, we want to look at a more concentrated version of this ratio, the Nifty 50/Nifty Small-Cap 100, which is a major inflection point.

Let's discuss what's happening and why it's important to our broader view on Equities as an asset class.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Lots of charts are being shared showing the exponential growth in trading activity, new accounts, and anything else that might paint a story of euphoria at retail and discount brokerages since the pandemic broke out.

Here is some personal background only to provide context for what I’m about to discuss.

I live on an island. It is tiny, about 4 square miles. In fact, I live on an obscure island just above Key West which is technically much smaller than that. As a “Census Designated Place” it’s really just a collection of roads and canals, a village of about 4,400 people.

It’s nice, but it comes at the cost of an economy that relies almost entirely on Tourism. The people who live here are more or less fishermen or workers at the many hotels, bars, and restaurants in what’s generally a booming downtown area. Since shutting down our borders months ago, the local unemployment rate has spiked to an estimated 50%.

From the desk of Tom Bruni @BruniCharting

Thanks to everyone who participated in this week's Mystery Chart, as always. Most saw that I was doing it this week and didn't even bother to try guessing, simply stating that they were buyers of this massive base breakout on any pullbacks.

During Tuesday's Members-Only Conference Call we discussed not wanting to be aggressively long or short stocks on an absolute basis. Our Five Bull Market Barometers continue to suggest this is a choppy, messy environment where we need to be very selective when putting capital to work. Cash/patience and uncorrelated trades like Gold continue to work for those who have the ability to stay out of the equity market.

Not everyone has that luxury though. Many fund managers have a mandate to be long stocks regardless of the market environment. Some may have the ability to short stocks against their exposure, but many are "long-only" and need to outperform in weak markets by owning the stocks that are going down less.

The easiest way to identify the types of stocks that are outperforming, as well as market-neutral opportunities for those with the ability...