I had a nice chat this week with Aaron Task and Stephen Alpher over at Seeking Alpha.

We talked about why price matters most and how come media outlets choose to ignore it in favor of other things.

What's going on with US Stocks, Interest Rates, Crypto and which stocks are we buying?

We go over all of this and much more throughout our conversation.

This was a lot of fun. Check it out.

No matter which markets you're investing in, this is a good lesson.

The visual below comes from this Yesterday's Crypto Note. It shows the different scenarios that almost all cyrpto currencies currently find themselves in.

Most are below their former highs, and stuck in a range once again. You can put US Small-caps in that exact same category too, for example.

Homebuilders and Semiconductors look like the one on the left. You can put $LUNA $MANA $SAND $CRO and even $ETH in that category.

And then you can find a lot of nasty Cryptos that look like the one on the right. You can probably put the ARK Funds, Biotechs and China in that bucket too:

Over the past couple of months, we've seen the market give up its highs and settle lower. We also saw certain levels being breached and certain levels being held. But what is the outlook going forward? What are the levels that will be crucial to follow in the days and weeks ahead?

We're here today to discuss just that.

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

Last week, we pointed out that commodity-centric currencies were beginning to slide. 

Our petrocurrency index was making new 52-week lows, and the Australian dollar was on the verge of breaking down. By Friday’s close, the AUD/USD cross looked to have completed a topping pattern and was trading at its lowest level since the summer of 2020.

Seeing one of the world’s leading commodity currencies break down from a major distribution pattern would not bode well for commodities and other risk assets.

But the bulls aren't ready to roll over yet. Investors are back on offense this week, as buyers have already repaired all or most of the damage that was done to stocks and commodities last week.

They needed to come out swinging after the latest flurry of selling pressure… And that’s exactly what they did! 

We're also seeing very strong bounces in risk-on currencies like the Canadian dollar and the Australian dollar. What started out as a nasty resolution lower in the Aussie has...

From the desk of Willie Delwiche.

This All Star Charts +Plus Monthly Playbook breaks down the investment universe into a series of largely binary decisions and tactical calls. Paired with our Weight of the Evidence Dashboard, this piece is designed to help active asset allocators follow trends, pursue opportunities, and manage risk.

From the desk of Willie Delwiche.

In yesterday's note, we outlined our neutral approach, pointing out that sideways, messy action looks to be the most likely scenario for Bitcoin.

We're currently in elevated cash positions, sitting on the sidelines waiting for a higher-conviction entry before moving back into aggressive long positions. It appears as if these next few weeks could involve a high concentration of whipsaws in the context of choppy price behavior.

But today is when we publish our full crypto chartbook, so we thought we'd share how we're approaching new longs, despite the evidence pointing to this being a messy market for Bitcoin.

There's really a common pattern appearing in the alts right now.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @sstrazza

This is one of our favorite bottom-up scans: Follow The Flow. In this note, we simply create a universe of stocks that experienced the most unusual options activity — either bullish or bearish… but NOT both.

We utilize options experts, both internally and through our partnership with The TradeXchange. Then, we dig through the level 2 details and do all the work upfront for our clients. Our goal is to isolate only those options market splashes that represent levered and high-conviction, directional bets.

We also weed out hedging activity and ensure there are no offsetting trades that either neutralize or cap the risk on these unusual options trades. What remains is a list of stocks that large financial institutions are putting big money behind… and they’re doing so for one reason only: because they think the stock is about to move in their direction and make them a pretty penny...

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Welcome to our latest “Minor Leaguers” report.

We’ve already had some great trades come out of this small-cap-focused column since we launched it late last year and started rotating it with our flagship bottom-up scan, “Under The Hood.”

We recently decided to expand our universe to include some mid-caps…

For about a year now, we’ve focused only on Russell 2000 stocks with a market cap between $1 and $2B. That was fun, but it’s time we branch out a bit and allow some new stocks to find their way onto our list.

The way we’re doing this is simple…

To make the cut for our new Minor Leaguers list, a company must have a market cap between $1 and $4B. And it doesn’t have to be a Russell component–it can be any US-listed equity. With participation expanding around the globe, we want all those...

From the desk of Willie Delwiche.

Key Takeaway: Indexes stumble as generals see their armies fleeing the field. Bond yields drop below important thresholds. Rising volatility brings focus back to managing risk.

• Energy slipped three spots (from 4th to 7th) in the large-cap rankings last week, and the sector appears even weaker beneath the surface. It's in the ninth spot on an equal-weight basis, and conditions are deteriorating within the mid-cap and small-cap energy space.
• Technology remains atop the overall rankings, but relative strength on a short-term basis is from coming from Utilities, Real Estate and Consumer Staples.

Options premiums still remain elevated across the board and therefore I continue looking for delta-neutral premium-selling strategies to implement.

We have to take whatever the market is offering. The recent downward price action has created a bunch of resistance levels to lean against on the upside. So I want instruments that also have clearly defined support levels and high premiums for us to sell.

This leads me to...

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Our Top 10 Charts Report was just published.

In this weekly note, we highlight 10 of the most important charts or themes we're currently seeing in asset classes around the world.

Stocks Test September Highs

The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Dow Jones Transportation Average are both struggling at key Fibonacci extension levels from their 2018 drawdowns. Mid-caps and bank stocks are trapped back beneath key levels of overhead supply at their first-half highs. And the small-cap Russell 2000 is trading back toward the lower bounds of its year-to-date range. The majority of stocks are simply consolidating in holding patterns right now.

When we zoom in on the S&P 500, as we’ve done in the chart below, the importance of the September highs is hard to ignore. In November, price rallied to the first extension level from its fall drawdown. In the few weeks since, the index has retreated straight back to its prior peak near 4,540. For now, buyers are digging in and defending these pivot highs. Bulls need this level to hold if stocks are going to stop the bleeding and carve out a...

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Check out this week's Momentum Report, our weekly summation of all the major indexes at a macro, international, sector, and industry group level.

By analyzing the short-term data in these reports, we get a more tactical view of the current state of markets. This information then helps us put near-term developments into the big-picture context and provides insights regarding the structural trends at play.

Let's jump right into it with some of the major takeaways from this week's report:

* ASC Plus Members can access the Momentum Report by clicking the link at the bottom of this post.

Macro Universe

• Our macro universe was in the red again this week, as 68% of our list closed lower, with a median return of -0.42%.
• Lumber $LB was a massive winner, closing out the week with a gain of more than 18%.
• The biggest loser was US 10-Year Yield $TNX, with a weekly loss of -9.38%.
• There was an 11% drop in the percentage of assets on our list within 5% of their 52-week highs (currently at 38%).
• 64% of our list made...

It's an ongoing joke among many of us because we oftentimes catch ourselves thinking, and saying, that the upcoming week will be a big one.

"We'll get a lot more information this week" - is said at the beginning of every week.

Start noticing. You'll see.

But seriously, can we all agree that THIS particular week is extra important?

In a note published on Saturday, we briefly outlined what took place over the weekend, a $700B total market-cap decline that saw most crypto assets fall over 25% on an intraday basis.

As we'll cover in this week's report, we're on the sidelines with elevated cash positions. Risks still linger for long positions right now--we're waiting for a higher-conviction entry.

Here's a quick summary of what took place over the weekend:

Investing is hard.

If it was easy, then everyone would be good at it.

It takes discipline. It takes overcoming human emotions. It takes consistency and mental toughness.

Sorry to tell you, but chances are you don't have any of those, yet alone all of them.

This week we’re looking at a long setup in the crowd favourite IT sector. In the week gone by, we saw some strength come through and a particularly interesting breakout too!

Let's take a look at what we have today!

We retired our "Five Bull Market Barometers" in mid-July last year 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.

I can't help but notice the similarities between the Bitcoin Crash we just saw and what happened to stocks in 1987.

You guys following me for a while know I'm not big on analogs. Every market environment is different.

But history does help us put together a roadmap. We're all humans in this endeavor after all. And that certainly doesn't change, even if we are talking about Crypto and not stocks, 2021 and not 1987.

For you guys who are new to markets I encourage you to study the past. Learn about prior cycles and what happened.

These are great lessons. I promise you.

The US Stock market was booming in the 1980s, after doing nothing for decades since topping out in the mid-1960s.

Stocks were rolling. They had meme stocks and reddit back then too. They were just called other things like Junk Bonds and Corporate Raiders.

Those were some good times.

Then came Black Monday in October of 1987.

The S&P500 fell 20.4% in a single day.

With the volatility experienced over the last 24 hours, we thought we'd provide a quick update on what's taken place, and how we're approaching the market right now.

At its peak, the total crypto market cap lost $700B in a space of less than 24 hours, equating to an aggregate 26% decline. In this same period, over 400,000 traders and $2.5B worth of funds were liquidated, making this the most violent unwind we've seen since the May crash.