From the desk of Steve Strazza @sstrazza

Check out our latest Mystery Chart!

What we do here is take a chart that's captured our attention, and remove the x and y-axes as well as any other labels that could help identify it.

This chart can be of any security, in any asset class, on any timeframe. Sometimes it's an absolute price chart, other times it's on a relative basis.

It might be a ratio, a custom index, or maybe the price is inverted. It could be all three!

The point is, when we aren't able to recognize what's in front of us, we put aside any biases we may have and scrutinize it objectively.

While you can try to guess the chart, the point is to make a decision...

So let us know what it is… Buy, Sell, or Do Nothing?

This month, I'm going to start presenting these monthly reviews in a different way. I think what would be far more useful to all of you would be a review of all trades we exited in the previous month, as well as updates on any positions approaching expiration in the current month.

While we had a bunch of exits in February, we don't have any positions remaining on the books with March expirations. Let's get to it...

We debuted a new scan recently- The Outperformers.

The Outperformers is our newest scan that pinpoints the very best stocks in the market. It’s the fastest, easiest way to find quality names that are primed for major moves.

The goal is that as the market rally progresses, the sector rotation within the market will reflect in this scan. So while our Top/Down Analysis helps us with the broader view of the market, this Bottom/Up scan makes sure that we catch the slightest change in sentiment.

This is the video recording of our March 2nd, 2021, Monthly Charts Live Strategy Session.

Here is the video in full:

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza and Ian Culley @IanCulley.

We held our March Monthly Strategy Session last night which Premium Members can access and rewatch here.

In this post, we’ll provide a summary of the call by highlighting three of the most important charts and topics we covered along with commentary on each.

Let’s dive into it.

From the desk of Willie Delwiche.

Key takeaway: Another bout of late-month market volatility produced quickly frayed nerves. The VIX spiked and put/call ratios moved away from excessive complacency. Our tactical sentiment indicators point to still-elevated optimism even as sentiment surveys have eased recently. Risks arise when breadth deteriorates and a sustained shift from optimism to pessimism emerges. We are not seeing this yet. The $78 billion of equity ETF inflows in February (over the past two months equity ETFs have seen daily net outflows on only 3 occasions) suggests excessive investor positioning, but the risks inherent in that have not yet been manifested. Despite last week’s volatility, cyclical sector leadership persisted and defensive areas made new lows. That does not suggest investors are moving quickly to a risk-off posture.

Sentiment Chart of the Week: XLU/SPY & XLP/SPY Ratios

Two of the most defensive sectors, Utilities and Staples, made new lows...

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

We think it's time to buy Gold Miners again, specifically the VanEck Vectors Gold Miners ETF $GDX.

The yellow metal has not been a great place to deploy capital over the last 6 months as the environment has significantly favored stocks over rocks... and risk-assets over defensive ones in general.

Owning Gold or Gold Miners has been nothing more but opportunity cost. However, there is mounting evidence that suggests now might be the time to jump back into this trade.

First, Commodities have really been working as an asset class. We've been pointing this out for months now, from Industrial Metals and Ags to even petroleum-based commodities.

Although through the early innings of this Commodities resurgence, Gold and Gold Miners have taken a back seat as prices peaked all the way back in the summer of last year and have been trending lower since.

We think that...

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.

Momentum fades but firming economy keeps evidence bullish.

This is the video recording of our March 1, 2021 Monthly Charts Live Strategy Session

From the desk of Steve Strazza @sstrazza

We've enjoyed a ton of success with our bottoms-up scans and the columns they've inspired over the past year.

We've already launched four columns around them since last summer, and we have more coming soon.

When we combine these scans with our traditional top-down approach, they make it almost impossible to miss profitable opportunities and key market themes.

Today, we're sharing one of our internal favorites with you. It's called "Fade The Street,"  and we introduced it in a report last month which you can read here.

It was a big hit and there's been a lot of change since then, so we thought a follow-up was appropriate.

Our Fade The Street scan leverages buy/sell ratings and price target data from sell-side analysts to identify strong stocks with significant potential tailwinds that can propel prices higher in the future.

How do we do this? Simple...

From the desk of Willie Delwiche.

Key Takeaway: Market volatility has not interrupted rotation to new leadership. Long-term breadth remains robust, but shorter-term trends are in need of repair. Earnings and economic data continue to supply the market with positive surprises.

The Industrials sector made a big jump in our relative strength rankings this week, moving from 7th to 3rd among the large-cap sectors. Elsewhere, Consumer Discretionary continued to lose relative strength and Materials dropped out of the top five. Technology remains highly ranked (2nd overall) but on a short-term basis, it has been a market-laggard. If it cannot re-assert strength soon, its time in the leadership group could be winding down. Our industry group heat map shows overwhelming relative strength from small-cap groups (nine of the top ten & only one in the bottom ten) and widespread relative weakness in large-cap groups (none in the top ten and seven of the bottom ten). Deteriorating trends in the Technology groups...