Stocks in the United States aren't up because of what is happening in New York or Washington DC. They are up despite of what is going on in those places. Stocks in the U.S. are up because stocks all over the world are up. That's how this works.

So when we are trying to figure out whether the next move in stocks is higher or lower, and whether we should be buying them or selling them, we don't just want to look within U.S. borders. By doing that we're missing the bigger picture. We care less about the behavior of stocks in our own country and more about stocks as an asset class.

...then you simply have to get long The Granddaddy Oracle $ORCL here.

It appears Oracle has successfully digested the hit the stock took after it's most recent earnings report, and the stock is hanging just above the highs it set back in the year 2000! I could be wrong, of course, but I just don't see $ORCL holding around these levels for too much longer. There's just no way it recoups 2000 levels and then just stops here.

Earlier this week, JC pointed out that the software sector broke out to new all-time highs. I don't mean to keep harping on this, as you've no doubt read JC making this point over and over, but this sector making highs is simply not something we are likely to see if the overall market is pointing to a bear market.

The third largest component in the software index is Service Now, ticker $NOW. And we see an interesting opportunity developing.

Every month I host a conference call for All Star Charts India Premium Members where we discuss ongoing themes throughout the India Share Market. We take a look at all of the NSE Indexes and Sectors as well as some of our own custom indexes. At Allstarcharts we have become known around the world for the top/down approach to stocks. After we analyze each of the indexes and sectors and have identified where the strength and weakness lies, then we break it down to individual stock opportunities. By having momentum, relative strength and market trend in our favor, the probabilities of success increase dramatically.

We've been bullish towards Indian and Global Stocks as they remain in strong uptrends on any sort of intermediate-term time horizon. I still think this is an environment where we need to be buying weakness in stocks, not selling strength. The weight of the evidence is still pointing to an increased amount of risk appetite, not risk aversion. We will go over a multi-timeframe approach on this conference call where we will start with the longer-term and then work our way down...

The Indian Financial Services sector is broken down into three formal sector indices: The Nifty Financial Services index, the Nifty Bank index, and the Nifty Public Sector (PSU) Bank index. Both the Nifty Financial Services and Nifty Bank index have been showing great leadership, sitting just off their all-time highs on both an absolute and relative basis, however, the Nifty Public Sector Bank index has not participated to the same extent. 

I think our messaging has been clear that we want to be buying equities, and buying those showing relative strength. The Nifty Financial Services index and the Nifty Bank index are sitting just off all-time highs relative to the Nifty 500, so I've done a deep dive into them to highlight the best large, mid, and small cap names on the long side. I've also included some names from the Nifty Public Sector (PSU) Bank index, but would note that it's hitting 2-year lows relative to the Nifty 500 and therefore has a much smaller representation on this list despite being part of the Financial Services sector as a whole. 

I am a firm believer that the Stock Market, U.S. or otherwise, is in an uptrend that began in early 2016, or summer of 2016. You can buy me beers one day and we'll discuss less relevant data points, like this 6 month difference, that dorks like me enjoy arguing about over beers. The point is, however, that this is a new bull market, not a 9-year old one like some people like to tell you.

So if we're in a bull market, then consolidations within this uptrend should resolve in the direction of the underlying trend, which is up in our opinion. The first industry group to break out from this consolidation the past couple of months and make new highs is Software. It's a major standout guys and we need to pay attention. So here's a breakdown of the sector components and which ones we want to be buying right now.

Every month I host a conference call for All Star Charts Premium Members where we discuss ongoing themes throughout the global marketplace as well as changes in trends where new positions would be most appropriate. This includes U.S. Stocks & Sectors, International Stock Indexes, Commodities, Currencies and Interest Rate Markets.

The new volatility regime in 2018 has caused many to question the uptrend in stocks that we've seen the past couple of years. In this call we will go over all of the markets around the world including intermarket relationships that help us identify whether risk appetite overwhelms any risk aversion we're seeing from institutional investors. On Tuesday, we'll focus on the strongest sectors and strongest stocks that we believe will be leaders during the next leg higher throughout the rest of 2018.

This month's Conference Call will be held on Tuesday May 15th at 7PM ET. Here are the Registration Details:

In a recent report to Allstarcharts Premium subscribers, J.C. laid out a case why he's bullish on the Industrials sector and why that's important to the overall market. Not ever one to mince words: "we want to be buying right here right now and very aggressively. The bet is that Industrials are now heading higher and leading the market to new all-time highs." That sounds pretty convincing to me!

Please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Sean McLaughlin and I’ve been involved in financial markets as a Trader, Exchange Member, blogger, in building social communities, podcasting, training and in sales for 20 years.

Some of you may already know me or have engaged with me on Twitter, Medium, or StockTwits where I go by the handle @chicagosean. Others may know me from the 7 years I spent as Director of Community at StockTwits, and a few more may know me in my role of Sales, Training, & Strategy at Trade Ideas, LLC.

Wherever you may or may not know me from, I’m happy to be teaming up with my friend JC Parets at Allstarcharts.com to build upon his excellent and unparalleled work in providing actionable insights to the financial community.

Together, we are launching All Star Options to leverage JC’s well known skills in separating facts reflected in price action from the ever deafening social and financial media noise, and combining it with my ability to construct simple, straightforward action plans to...