JC and I were chatting this morning about things we're seeing in the markets. The big thing we're observing is the breakout in financials. And a breakout in financials is rarely something one observes in a bear market, or a bull market that is in the process of "topping."

While it might be wise to wait for pullbacks in the financials space before entering any new trades there, we were able to take some risk off in a bullish calls trade in Morgan Stanley $MS we've been in since December 11.

But one stock that has JC's attention has been lulling investors to sleep over the past six months. And this is kind of ironic since one of their main product lines is Trojan -- which promotes anything but sleep ;)

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Dividend aristocrats are easily some of the most desirable investments on Wall Street. These are the names that have increased dividends for at least 25 years, providing steadily increasing income to longer-term minded shareholders.

As you can imagine, the companies making up this prestigious list are some of the most recognizable brands in the world. Coca-Cola, Walmart, and Johnson & Johnson are just a few of the household names making the cut.

Here at All Star Charts, we like to stay ahead of the curve. That’s why we're turning our attention to the future aristocrats. In an effort to seek out the next generation of the cream-of-the-crop dividend plays, we’re curating a list of stocks that have raised their payouts every year for 5-9 years.

Introducing the Young Aristocrats. We like to say these are "stocks that pay you to make money". Imagine if years of consistent dividend growth and high momentum & relative strength had a baby, leaving you with the best of the emerging dividend giants that are outperforming the averages.

By adding our technical analysis to the mix...

This is the video recording of our January 5th, 2021, Monthly Charts Live Strategy Session.

Here is the video in full:

Metals are soaring and we're tracking this space to see if the sector breaks above its resistance. We are currently working on the Quarterly Playbook for our Premium members but wanted to pause and share some interesting ideas with you guys here.

Did you see Crude Oil breaking out above all of those former lows from the past 4 years?

Wow, Crude Oil is back!

Take a look at this massive topping pattern that completed in the first quarter this year. Crude Oil prices are now back above that massive neckline.

From the desk of Louis Sykes @haumicharts

I hope you all had a great Christmas and enjoyed your New Year's celebrations.

It's around this time of the year everyone gets all excited to ramp up their New Year's Resolutions: start exercising more, lose some weight, drink less...

But if there's one resolution I'd like to see more of from technical analysts, it's to keep your charts clean!

This is the video recording of our January 4, 2021 Monthly Charts Live Strategy Session

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.

After several months of consolidation, the major indexes have set the foundation for another leg upward in line with their primary trends. We've been seeing many of them resolve higher in recent weeks.

We continue to see rotation into economically sensitive and cyclical assets - supporting our view that there is a strong appetite, not aversion, for risk.

And the FICC markets continue to confirm this bullish environment for stocks and risk assets.

Let's jump right into this week's report with our US index table.

The defensive Dow Jones Utilities Average was...

Happy New Year! 2021 is here!

I don't know about you, but I'm super excited for this coming year. I'm expecting volatility in both directions. And volatility = opportunity for options traders.

That said, let's not rush into anything. I know... if you're like me you're itching to start firing off trades.

But as the opening 90 minutes of trading has showed us so far today, things can get slippery fast as people and institutions start putting money to work and rotating money around in often sloppy fashion. This is pretty typical in the first couple trading days of any new year.

This week we're looking at a long setup in the FMCG sector that is witnessing a good move. 

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.

Consumer Staples stocks are breaking out to new all-time highs. These are the stocks representing the companies whose services and products we as consumers would still buy regardless of how bad the economy might be. These stocks historically outperform by a lot when stocks in general are under pressure, which makes sense right?

I mean, no matter what, we're still going to brush our teeth and wash our dishes, drink beers and smoke cigarettes. Those are the "Consumer Staples": Procter & Gamble, Pepsi, Philip Morris, etc.

When stocks are doing well, you'll see Staples underperforming, because money is less willing to pay up for those defensive less growthy stocks. I wrote about this here and how this plays into our approach in the current market environment.