I'm really fortunate that I get to interact with traders and investors from all over the world on a regular basis. I receive emails with great questions all the time. And while I'm happy to share my thoughts, it's these questions that really help force me into thinking about a lot of different things. So I'm learning every single day from this simple exercise. Please keep them coming!

Here is a good example of some of the questions I get. This one comes along quite often, in fact. So I wanted to share it with you and include my response.

From the desk of Tom Bruni @BruniCharting

Thank you to everyone who responded to this week's mystery chart.

Most people were sellers of this one, while some were staying away fearing a whipsaw.

With that as our backdrop, let's take a look at this dumpster fire.

Humans are incredible storytellers. We've convinced ourselves of all kinds of things that biologically don't exist, like state borders and even money. States aren't like mountains or rivers that we can see and touch. They're just stories that we all agree are true, which is why it works. Money is really just a worthless piece of green paper. But we all agree that a $10 bill gets you 1000 sheets of paper to print your charts out on. While it helps society function, these things we're referring to are just stories. They are really nice stories, but they're just stories. They exist only in our minds rather than biologically.

The reason homo-sapiens have conquered the world is because of our ability to believe stories. If there were 7.5 Billion chimpanzees in the world today instead of 7.5 Billion humans, it would be complete chaos. Other animals don't have the ability to use their imagination to deal with many others of the same species. That's why other strong and smart animals are locked up in cages at zoos and laboratories, while humans rule the world.

This natural ability of ours to believe stories, however, doesn't help us when it comes to analyzing the market...

You guys want to hear a funny story?

Let me take you back to simpler times back in 2006 when you used to hear things like, "Real Estate only goes up" and "God only made so much land". Heck, you may have even said those things yourself.

But it was the brilliant market timers at the ETF companies that really stole the show. The iShares U.S. Home Construction Fund $ITB launched on May 1, 2006, and here's what it did immediately after that:

Meanwhile, the SPDR S&P Homebuilders ETF $XHB launched on January 31, 2006, and here's what it did immediately after that:

It doesn't get better than that does it? Classic human behavior at work....

Happy New Year! I don't know about you, but I couldn't be happier about kicking off 2020. Markets around the world are making new all time highs (including the US! -- I know, shocking for those of you fixated on War and Tariffs "news"), and volatility is surely to ramp up into the 2020 Comicon, er... I mean U.S. Election, resulting in tremendous swing trading opportunities for active traders like us.

So let's get to work!

During our recent All Star Options monthly conference call (link up soon), JC & I mentioned a few stocks I'm watching for potential entries.

One of those stocks is ready right now -- Oneok Inc. $OKE.

From the desk of Tom Bruni @BruniCharting

New Mystery Chart!

For those new to the exercise, we take a chart of interest and remove the x/y-axes and any other labels that would help identify it. The chart can be any security in any asset class on any timeframe on an absolute or relative basis. Maybe it's a custom index or inverted, who knows!

We do all this to put aside the biases we have associated with this specific security/the market and come to a conclusion based solely on price.

You can guess what it is if you must, but the real value comes from sharing what you would do right now. Buy, Sell, or Do Nothing?

This week on the podcast I'm thrilled to have Quint Tatro join me as our guest. I've been following his work for a long time and have always appreciated his technical approach to managing portfolios at his advisory firm Joule Financial. This was a great conversation where Quint walks us through how he got to Technical Analysis in the first place and how he applies those methods on a daily basis. We went over the overall stock market and how he wants to overweight International Stocks and Emerging markets heading into 2020. He also likes Gold bigger picture here and the mining stocks that come a long with it. I really enjoyed this one. Give it a listen!

In this special episode of The Money Game, Phil asks me about any new trends I’m seeing for 2020. I give him both the sexy answer, that everyone seems to want to hear, and the real answer. I think this was a quick but valuable conversation about US and foreign markets, US Sectors like Technology and Financials and even what we see coming for Bitcoin. We had good timing on this conversation as we’re just getting starting the new year.

The US Stock Market Indexes are all hitting new highs. This shouldn't be a surprise to anyone who reads the work we put out.

Isn't it nice when we just let the data dictate our actions?

Good music and clean charts. It works.

So today we're going to focus on a new sector that I think is just getting started: Industrials. Take a look at the fresh breakout from its 2018-2019 consolidation:

Click on charts to zoom in

See how this one is resolving? Consolidations tend to resolve themselves in the direction of the underlying trend. This one here is apparently no different.

Let's go back to 2014-2016 and play my favorite game: "Not a Head & Shoulders Top". These are incredibly rare patterns simply for the fact that markets trend and the likelihood for a trend to continue in its current direction is much greater than for it to just completely reverse. This is common sense for those of us who have done the homework. But because they gave this "pattern" a funny name that is easy to remember, people think they're...

As January gets under way, it’s time to review positions with January options that remain open (haven’t already hit profit targets or been stopped out).

Most trades I put on for All Star Options tend to have a minimum duration of 30 days (short premium plays) and often as long as 6-8 months (for long premium plays). As options approach expiration, greeks like theta and gamma start to become my enemy and whipsaw my P/L. Therefore, as options and spreads get into the expiration month, my best practice is to put each position on notice — it’s time to take action.

Do you want to know my cheat code?

It's the Monthly Candlesticks.

I'm telling you. That's my secret. And it's been starring at us right in the face at the end of every single month.

It takes me about half an hour to go through my Monthly Charts. When you add that up over 12 months, it's only 6 hours of work. There is no 6 hours the rest of the entire year that even comes close to the value I get from this monthly exercise.

Is this not a breakout from a 21 month base? 

From the desk of Tom Bruni @BruniCharting

Typically on Tuesdays, I post a Mystery Chart, but I expect participation to be lacking this week and I've not found a chart I think is worthy of the exercise...I don't want to make it too easy on you guys.

Instead, I want to look at a few charts that are all suggesting we may be due for a period of consolidation over the next few weeks.