Traders were welcomed back from the long weekend with a pull back in equities, strength in bonds and continued weakness in oil.   Today we perform our weekly Relative Strength Wednesday analysis.  Tech is now the only sector outperforming the market according to the Chaikin Relative Strength comparison, and while it is out performing the power-bar ratio in tech is showing some fundamental weakness.  On the chart above, "Over -" indicates a b power-bar ratio above that of the SPY, but below 1.0.  Join us for our full analysis HERE

Happy Memorial Day Weekend!  Here's the recording for this morning's Chaikin Power User trading meeting. With oil selling off HARD, we're not sure we'd take this OS Buy trade with real money.  Kinda glad we're testing signals, though.  Good to see how they stand up despite market conditions. 

Join us for another Relative Strength Wednesday.  Energy continues to show strength, as does Tech.  As of late Basic materials are also starting to catch a bid.  Follow us through our entire relative strength Wednesday analysis HERE 

Join us for Macro-Monday! As energy continues to lead we are seeing some strength in a few new sectors.   We also manage our on-going swing trade forward test.  Join us HERE

...where the predictive properties sectpr Power-Bar differentials suggest where they're headed next.  The interest rate sensitive Utility and Real Estate sectors moved lower along with bonds last week, and Power Bar differentials suggest weakness will continue. 

Meanwhile, the commodity really continues to accelerate, with Basic Materials Power-bar Differentials pulling to even and ahead of the SPY.  XLB has put in strong  relative performance over the past 30 days.  If we drill down further, XLB sub-sector component XME is now in the top 1/3 of the 22 US market sub-sectors.  The miners have joined oil companies as benefactors of the commodity rally. 

5% of the market cap weight of XME comes from Bullish rated Cleveland Cliffs, which appears to be undergoing a "personality change" at the moment (market and model in agreement as the long term Chaikin trend turns higher).  These are the types of set-ups that have offered us long-running trends and high double digit returns in the past.   We'll be looking for CLF to clear overbought conditions and then bust through resistance at $9 to mark our entry point.

We wrapped up the week managing swing and trend trades, powered by Chaikin Analytics. Here's where you can watch a recording of Friday morning's trading meeting.

2018 Performance

• Q1 Bullish Trend Trading (click to view) - We started 2018 from scratch with a new trend following portfolio less than a month before the market top, followed by weeks of volatility.  Remember, these were non-diversified holdings, with only stop-losses applied as risk management.  We didn't use our real money.  This exercise was about forward testing Chaikin signals on Best of the Best stocks in strong industry groups with Very Bullish Power Gauges and model-confirming relative strength.  Because we started a new portfolio in a market that had been trending higher for over a year, there were plenty of Momentum Breakout signal trades with price extended well above the long term Chaikin trend that dotted the financial landscape.  An almost perfect storm portended potential portfolio disaster! Sure, we racked up a ton of losers. We got hammered. But you know what, when all is said and done (still a bunch of trades working), we might actually turn a profit from our aggregate Q1 entries, thanks to a handful of huge winners offsetting a substantial string of losers.  It just goes to show that if one keeps trading systematically, fearlessly and while adhering to a strict set of rules, the Chaikin model can protect from disaster in the toughest of times, and ...
• Q2 Bullish Trend Trading (click to view)...magical things can happen to one's account when market conditions change, and the overall trend supports the underlying strategy,  Now, the market will have to cooperate for a few weeks longer for these results to stick.  No weeks-to-months trend following system works well in choppy-volatile market conditions. That's where cutting position sizes down, managing overall portfolio heat, selling covered calls, trading in both directions and especially this...
• Q2 Bullish Swing Trading  (click to view)...swing trading over shorter time-frames...are all the keys to protecting capital in directionless markets.  And with Chaikin Analytics to provide the directional trading edge, performance can be quite good. 

Today we are managing our forward test.  We celebrate our small losers and look for bigger winners.  Listen HERE

It's Relative Strength Wednesday, powered by Chaikin.  Video Here   Traders have positioned against interest rate sensitive areas of the market like Utilities and and Real Estate, while moving money into Energy and Tech.   The mostly fundamental weighted Chaikin Power-bar differentials show promise for Healthcare and Financials too.  We'll look for Best of Best stocks in Industry Groups within those sectors showing relative strength in multiple timeframes for bullish trades if the market trend cooperates.

Macro-Monday, powered by Chaikin Analytics.  US Small Caps and Commodities (ok, oil) top the relative performance chart, and the equity market has moved to neutral/positive potential status based on the market conditions we track. Today, we entered long and short trades because, while we're seeing broader sector participation in the current market snapback, it's by no means universal  Video Here

As we wrap up what turned out to be a very bullish week, we look for additional trades to add to our swing and trend trade forward tests.  Join our meeting HERE   

See all of our current bullish swing trade forward test  HERE