Remember 3 years ago when Bitcoin was the talk of the town and everyone wanted in? Well, by then anyone who wanted to buy it had already done so. Bitcoin went on to lose over 80% of its value over the next 12 months. That's how bubbles end. An instant classic.

Now, as we've learned, newer markets in their infancy stages tend to have faster and more frequent cycles. When you go back and study the US Stock Market in the 1800s, for example, there was a "Panic" every other year. It was the wild west back then.

Welcome to the 21st Century's version of the wild west. Cycles happen faster. Bubbles collapsing take less time to reset and begin a new leg higher. I think this is something we should continue to expect in the Crytpo space.

Here we are just 3 years after the bubble peaked, working on a fresh breakout and new leg higher. To put things in perspective, Financials are still down from their peak in 2007, over 13 years later. Technology took 18 years to finally surpass its 2000 bubble peak. And Japan is working on over 30 years so far and still 45% away from its 1989 bubble highs.

So if you're not sure whether cycles in newer markets happen faster...

Nifty FMCG broke above its long-term resistance last week, moving out of a more than two-year consolidation. While the selected-few large caps from the sector have performed well with the rest of the market in the run up so far, we believe that the rest of the sector is on its way to play catch up.

Let’s take a look at the sector and see what the charts have to say.

Nifty FMCG has broken above its resistance and seems poised to perform well going forward. With the 200-DMA sloping upwards and the RSI in the overbought territory, bullish momentum can be seen in this sector.

On a relative basis to Nifty 100, the Nifty FMCG sector has begun to bounce back from multi-year support. So if ever there was a time for FMCG to rally, this is it!

The Mega-cap names have been digesting their 2020 gains since early September. Go one by one and most of them are down over the past 3+ months. All except the last one at the bottom.

The Tesla bulls will love this one:

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza and Louis Sykes @haumicharts

At the beginning of each week, we publish performance 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 in order to profit in the weeks and months ahead.

In last week's report, we discussed the continued rotation into SMIDS, international markets, and risk assets. Our conclusion is and continues to be that the market remains in a very healthy state of order.

FICC markets are also confirming the move higher in equities.

From a short-term perspective, SMIDS digesting their recent gains would be a healthy development.

While we have yet to see that play out, our long-term outlook continues to favor Growth-oriented stocks down the market-cap scale as a way to express our bullish thesis.

Without further...

Assets around the globe have been on the move since March, but the Rupee has remained steady.

Today let's take a look at the currency pairs we track and see if those charts suggest they'll be an actionable setup anytime soon.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza.

Welcome to our “Under The Hood” column for the week ending December 11, 2020.

What we do is analyze the most popular stocks during the week and find opportunities to either join in and ride these momentum names higher, or fade the crowd and bet against them.

We use a variety of sources to generate the list of most popular names. There are so many new data sources available that all we need to do is organize and curate them in a way that shows us exactly what we want: A list of stocks that are seeing an unusual increase in investor interest.

Whether we’re measuring increasing interest based on large institutional purchases, unusual options activity, or simply our proprietary lists of trending tickers… there is a lot of overlap.

The bottom line is there are a million ways to skin this cat. Relying on our entire arsenal of data makes us confident that we’re producing the best list each week and gives us more optionality in terms of finding the most favorable trade setups for our clients.

As the major indexes continue to trade at or near record highs, we continue to...

I'm not sure when this happened. When did they start grouping any company that uses a computer into the Technology Sector?

First of all, 80% of the FAANG stocks represent a ZERO weighting in the Technology Sector. ZERO.

Facebook and Google are in the Communications Index, together representing approximately 45% of that sector. Combined, $FB & $GOOD represent ZERO percent of the Technology Sector. Netflix $NFLX accounts for another 4% or so Communications, and again, a ZERO weighting in Tech.

Furthermore, Amazon represents approximately 21% of the Consumer Discretionary Index. When you look at the Technology Sector, you'll find that $AMZN has a ZERO weighting.

The latest version of journalists grouping any company that uses a computer into the "Technology Sector" is Airbnb and DoorDash. Neither one of these are in the Tech sector, but instead...

JC published a bullish piece on Japan today. He's been pounding the table on the potential for a massive base breakout for some time. He's so exited about it, we even traveled to Tokyo last year to see what's going for ourselves!!

One of the names he mentioned in the post stood out to me and I'm willing to step in and take a position.

Japan continues to rally as it breaks out to new 29-year highs.

And just think, the Japanese Nikkei225 can rip another 40% from here and still not get back to its highs from the late 1980s. That's how long it takes a bubble of that magnitude to correct itself.

Let's remember, at its peak in 1989, the real estate value of just one single park in Tokyo was worth more than all of the real estate in the state of California combined. I've been to that park. It's ok I guess. But not worth more than all of Cali, quite obviously.

So here's what that Nikkei chart looks like today:

This week we're looking at a long setup in the FMCG sector.

We retired our "Five Bull Market Barometers" in mid-July to make room for a new weekly post that's focused on the three most important charts for the week ahead.

This is that post, so let's jump into this week's edition.

This year has been fantastic for one sector in particular, and that is the Pharma sector. Stocks that had been in a secular bear move, reversed their trend late last year and have been trading higher since.

Let’s see if there are any opportunities in the current set-up as the sector prepares for its next leg higher (along with IT).

During bull markets I always get asked about when it's going to stop. I don't get asked about stock market bubbles and unsustainable valuations during bear markets, that's for sure. Those environments come with other kinds of funny questions.

This morning I woke up to one of my college buddies telling me that tech valuations are too high and that this has to be a bubble.

Journalists ask me every day how this can possibly continue. "Too high", they say. "Too fast", they tell me. "Fed Printing", they claim. "It's only 5 stocks!!!"... I can't.

Anyway, maybe this is the top. Maybe we are about to crash. Maybe valuations are too high....

But there's no evidence at all that this is the top. New All-time highs are not characteristic of downtrends. They are things we see regularly in uptrends. In fact, new highs are perfectly normal, and should even be expected in this type of environment.

The opinions of my college friends don't matter. The opinion of the bond market? Yes, that matters. Currencies? Yup....

2008-2009 was a dark period for the banking industry. The "Financial Crisis" nearly brought the whole system to its knees. Stocks in household name banks became penny stocks (Citibank!), Warren Buffet had to rescue Goldman Sachs, and a few had to put themselves up for sale (Merrill Lynch), or even became extinct (Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers).

For some long-term investors (and former employees in this sector), this is still a fresh wound.

But charts in this sector are starting to tell a different story.

From the desk of Louis Sykes @haumicharts

It's always hard for us market nerds to level with others who don't share our obsession for Finance.

And that's important because, with all the noise of today, I think there's a very real barrier to finding sound information. While I'm by no means an authority on this subject (in fact quite the opposite), whenever I talk to people about Finance, I always hear two complaints.

That it's boring and too complicated.