From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

There’s no doubt about it: Fundamentals drive markets over longer time frames.

It’s a common misconception that technical analysts don’t believe in fundamental analysis. 

That’s not true.

Many of us simply chose to follow price for a multitude of reasons. Price always made sense to me, especially since it pays at the end of the day.

Whether you use fundamentals or technicals to inform your investment decisions comes down to philosophy. 

Remember, we’re all solving the same puzzle – just from different perspectives…

Check out the dual-pane chart below of the CRB Index and the overall CPI percentage change from a year earlier:

I was shocked at how closely these charts move in tandem. They look almost identical! It makes sense considering inflationary assets such as commodities rise along with inflation.

You can choose to focus on the CPI report or...

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

$SPY hit the 415 mark and then pulled in.

And then this market limped into the close.

Tech was weak once again, and this might be a continuing theme. 

There are some big cap software stocks on the verge of resolving out of beautiful bases to the upside. Of course, we have to be on the ball to avoid earnings landmines as it's that time of the year.

That said, my favorite chart among these big caps that still has breathing room in it (about six weeks) before we have to deal with their next earnings report is Salesforce $CRM.

Check out this chart:

The next new position in our Paid-to-Play portfolio is:

For many years, we had to hear those miserable gold bugs telling us how inflation was coming and Gold would be our savior.

Well, inflation came in harder than at any point in over 40 years and Gold prices fell.

So the same people who owned the only asset not making any money for an entire decade, got it wrong again.

I can't believe it.

So here we are, Gold prices are pressing up against all-time highs again, now that inflation expectations have been falling off a cliff.

The most significant insider transaction on today's list comes in a Form 4 filed by FedEx Corporation $FDX director Stephen E. Gorman.

Gorman reported a purchase of FDX stock worth $249,204.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

Bank stocks are taking off this morning after some of their earnings releases, while tech stocks seem weak again.

It seems to be the theme of the week.

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza and Alfonso Depablos @AlfCharts

The market continues to shake off negative news as stocks react positively to incoming economic data and the Fed's actions.

Sure, banks are still a problem, and we need to watch them closely as earnings season kicks off.

But we can only give this price action from financials so much weight as the list of bullish developments in other areas continues to grow.

Overall, there are a lot more positives than negatives right now. And this proves true when we look through our universes, such as our Inside Scoop list.

We continue to see more and more bullish setups and stocks we want to buy come across our radar.

Let's talk about the latest now.

On Monday evening, my family ordered some takeout barbeque from the local joint here in town. Everything was delicious and I went to bed that night feeling just fine.

But I awoke around 1 a.m. to a twisting feeling in my stomach. Before long I was keeled over my bathroom toilet, puking my guts out. I wasn’t able to sleep at all, as I always felt I was moments away from hurling again.

The upchucking eventually subsided by sunrise, but I was left battling a ping-pong game of sweaty overheating and teeth-chattering cold shivers. All of this continued in between bouts of near-total unconsciousness as I could barely get myself out of bed for more than five or ten minutes at a time.

And when I was able to get on my feet, every muscle in my body ached and it took a herculean effort to put one foot in front of the other in a feeble attempt of movement that looked something like walking. It was as if I’d suddenly...

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

Today was quite a turnaround.

We went from a bearish pattern to right back on course!

It's been a choppy week.

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

Despite another CPI report and the latest job numbers reflecting easing inflationary pressure, markets are a mess!

Indecision and uncertainty are running high. Investors simply aren't able to get a read on the economy and the Fed's next step. 

I don’t blame them.

If you’re focusing on the Fed comments du jour or lagging economic data that will likely be revised in the future, confusion and pain are the higher probability outcomes.

That’s why we study price.

Let’s check in on the charts to clear things up…

Here’s the US 10-year breakeven inflation rate:

This chart shows the difference between the 10-year nominal bond yield and its corresponding TIPS Treasury yield, gauging inflation expectations (or the real return on a 10-year Treasury bond).

While the chart doesn’t reveal direct buying and selling pressure, both yields are based on the bond market. And, as is the case for global risk assets,...

We've adjusted a position in the Paid-to-Play portfolio today:

The catalyst all along was the U.S. Dollar.

During this US Dollar decline over the past couple quarters, the Dow Jones Industrial Average and Nasdaq100 are each up over 15%.

These tremendous gains for stocks started once the journalists all agreed on how strong the Dollar was at the time.

You can see those implications here.

The most significant insider transaction on today's list comes in a Form 4 filed by Christopher M. Hilger, director at Donaldson Company $DCI.

Hilger reported a purchase of DCI stock worth $199,953.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

$QQQ dropped yesterday to its 21-day moving average, and $SPY fell to its eight-day moving average at 407.50.

I was looking at $MRK yesterday in the live trading room, and I wish I bought it as it's up this morning.

These are the registration details for our Live Mid-month Conference Call for Premium Members of All Star Charts.

Our Live Call will be held on Monday April 17th at 6PM ET. As always, if you cannot make the call live, the video and slides will be archived and published here along with every other live call since 2015.

Here are the details for Monday night:

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Welcome to the 2 to 100 Club.

As many of you know, something we've been working on internally is using various bottom-up tools and scans to complement our top-down approach. It's really been working for us!

One way we're doing this is by identifying the strongest growth stocks as they climb the market-cap ladder from small- to mid- to large- and, ultimately, to mega-cap status (over $200B).

Once they graduate from small-cap to mid-cap status (over $2B), they come on our radar. Likewise, when they surpass the roughly $30B mark, they roll off our list.

But the scan doesn't just end there.

We only want to look at the strongest growth industries in the market, as that is typically where these potential 50-baggers come from.

Some of the best performers in recent decades – stocks like Priceline, Amazon, Netflix, Salesforce, and myriad others – would have been on this list at some point during their...

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

It's a very sloppy market.

Either we're digesting to head higher or we're going to head lower right here.

We had a resting GTC order filled at our profit target in the Paid-to-Play portfolio today: