The DeFi Revolution is upon us, at least according to Jim Bianco. For many years, I've looked up to Jim and the work he's been doing at Bianco Research and, in fact, he's the one who first inspired me to rip through hundreds of charts during my live presentations in order to get my points across. It took me about a decade to realize it, but it was him who I got that from.

Fast forward to 2021, and the Macro Technician who I've always admired has turned into one of the leading voices of what's taking place in DeFi, or "Decentralized Finance". Who better to talk to about what's going on than Jim himself? Ethereum, Bitcoin, Dogecoin, Yield Farming, Metamask Wallets, Coinbase....the whole thing.

This is the video recording of our May 3, 2021 Monthly Charts Live Strategy Session

I've caught myself talking more and more about Cryptocurrencies since last Summer.

And there's a reason for that.

We like buying things that are going up in price, and selling (or not buying) the things going down.

That's really it.

You guys who have been around for a while remember me writing about, commenting and informing readers about Bitcoin back in 2016. I was talking about Crypto trading then even more than I am now. In fact, if you knew me back in 2014, I probably sent you some bitcoin as a gift. I was into doing that sort of thing back then.

BUT, in between 2018 and 2020 there wasn't really much to do in that space, so I stayed quiet and focused my efforts and attention elsewhere, like in Technology and Growth stocks for example.

More recently, we've been pounding the table about Bitcoin since last summer and then Ethereum more so throughout 2021.

But why?

From the desk of Steve Strazza @sstrazza

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 to profit in the weeks and months ahead.

The weight of the evidence still suggests it's prudent to be a buyer, not a seller, of risk assets for more meaningful time horizons.

Shorter-term, the market looks increasingly messy. For the first time in over a year, defensive assets are beginning to stabilize at logical levels of support, while stocks and major risk groups achieve our upside targets. Even a handful of some key Intermarket ratios are potentially diverging from the broader averages.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @sstrazza

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 to profit in the weeks and months ahead.

The same themes that we've been pounding the table on more or less continue to drive primary trends.

In recent weeks, we've seen some rotation back into Large and Mega-Caps, which has propelled the major indices to new highs, while SMIDs are still resiliently consolidating. While the list of negative data points has grown, it's still not close to anything that warrants concern.

The big news to end of the week is Ethereum completing this monster base and breaking out to new all-time highs.

For me, I don't care if we're talking about Crude Oil Futures, Apple or Tesla shares, Treasury Bond ETFs, Gold, Silver, Crypto....

It doesn't matter to me. It's just letters and math. All that other stuff isn't my problem.

The trade has been to be long ETHUSD if we're above those former highs from 2018. It was that simple. The risk was very well-defined and the potential reward was exponentially greater. That's what we look for. And so far, that strategy has worked well for us.

But now, while stocks are on holiday, Ethereum is really making a go of it:

Two things we've been pointing to this week are the potential failed breakouts in Small-caps and Micro-cap stocks, which would confirm a series of bearish momentum divergences. And also the relative strength out of Consumer Staples throughout March, which is something we haven't seen in a long long time....

Remember, Consumer Staples outperforming is consistent with a market environment where stocks are under pressure.

Here's that chart showing Staples potentially confirming a rare "Diamond" reversal pattern relative to the S&P500:

Bitcoin is a market that we are very fond of here at Allstarcharts. You've heard me say it plenty: it's a beautiful case study for Technical Analysis.

It's not a company. There are no fundamentals.

And you guys have watched us analyze the behavior of Bitcoin and other Crypto Currencies since early 2016.

It's been pretty amazing to watch and participate in a new market like this. They were telling us we were late to the party back then. They're still saying the same thing now.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @sstrazza and Louis Sykes @haumicharts

Are we finally entering the long-awaited alt-season?

We're seeing incredibly healthy rotation within the Cryptocurrency space, which we can only interpret as support for higher prices for this group of digital assets moving forward.

We've been bullish on Bitcoin $BTC and crypto since last summer when BTC was near 10,000.

Here's a post in October where JC outlined that the path of least resistance was higher in BTC, and another in December where we outlined a target, which was hit in a matter of days. Our current target for the Crypto leader is 70,000.

The price action is clear: Crypto continues to benefit from a well-established uptrend.

Our main focus today is the broadening participation of many Altcoins (lingo for any Cryptocurrency not named Bitcoin).

This is the video recording of the February 2021 Conference Call.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @sstrazza

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 to profit in the weeks and months ahead.

We continue to harp on the risk-on themes that support our bullish macro thesis.

Rotation down the market-cap scale, commodity strength, and defensive alternatives making new relative lows have been some major themes we continue to see play out.

This week on the podcast, Jonathan Krinsky joins me for a chat about Sector Rotation. While the Mega-cap names like Apple, Google, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft grinded sideways, or even down, since August, the Small-caps, Mid-caps and Micro-cap names have been the leaders. What happens if the Mega-caps break out of these bases to new all-time highs? Does the sector rotation continue? Or do we then rotate into the more defensive areas like Staples, Utilities and REITs, which currently keep making new relative lows?