Today is a reason to celebrate.
It’s the last trading day of the month. At 4 pm ET, we print a fresh batch of monthly candlesticks.
Most people won’t even notice.
They’ll be glued to intraday headlines, arguing about tariffs, AI, software earnings, and whatever other narrative is trending this week.
But if you care about actually making money, this is one of the most important days on the calendar.
They’ll tell you there are no hacks in trading and investing. No shortcuts. No cheat codes.
That’s mostly true.
But there are structural advantages. And this is one of them.
We don’t know what the market will do next week, next month, or next quarter. But we do know one thing for a fact: Asset prices trend. They are not random. Decades of data across asset classes confirm it.
If trends exist, then our edge comes from identifying them early and sticking with them as long as they persist.
The beauty of monthly candlestick charts is that they force us to zoom out. They strip away the daily noise, the emotional whipsaws, the social media hot takes, and the endless debate about what should happen.
They leave us with what is happening.
And when you zoom out far enough, the primary trend becomes hard to ignore.
That’s why these monthly candlesticks are the closest thing we have to a cheat code.
And we’ll get a brand-new set of them today at the close.
Can’t See the Forest for the Trees
If you’ve felt confused by this market lately, you’re not alone.
The past few months have delivered mixed data everywhere you look. Tariffs. Software. AI. Historic dispersion between countries. Massive differences in returns across sectors and styles.
Depending on what you focus on, you can make a bullish case or a bearish one.
That’s the problem.
There’s an old proverb from the 1500s often attributed to John Heywood: “You cannot see the wood for the trees.”
In other words, you’re so focused on the details that you miss the bigger picture.
That’s exactly what monthly charts help us avoid.
At the end of every month, I go one by one through the most important stock market indexes, sector ETFs, industry groups, countries, bellwethers, as well as the major commodities, interest rates, and currencies.
Every chart. One at a time.
I’ve done this every single month for decades.
There’s nothing in my process that adds more value than this exercise. Nothing.
It takes about 30 minutes. Do that 12 times a year and you’re talking about six hours annually.
I can assure you there isn’t another six hours I spend on markets that are more important.
This process begins tonight as markets around the world close out the month.
At some point, the kids will be asleep, my wife will be in bed, and I’ll pour a glass of wine, put on some music, and start ripping through monthly candlesticks.
That’s the plan.
If you have three kids and a wife, you know plans can change. This might turn into a Saturday morning coffee session instead.
Either way, the work gets done.
Because when the noise gets loud, this is how I make sure I’m still seeing the forest.
What Are We Looking For?
Whenever I talk about my monthly chart process, the question is always the same:
What exactly are you looking for?
The answer is simple.
Primary trends.
Is the chart going up, down, or sideways?
Are most of them trending higher, or are more of them rolling over?
Did I think something was breaking down because of a few ugly daily candles, but on a monthly basis it’s still in a powerful uptrend?
Did I assume something was strong because of short term momentum, but zoomed out it’s actually starting to stall?
What stands out? What surprised me? Where was I wrong?
That’s the work.
Every month, I go chart by chart and let the evidence speak. No narratives. No predictions. Just direction.
I’ll be breaking down what stood out most during The Primary Trend LIVE on Mondays and The Divergence LIVE on Wednesdays.
And I’ll continue to lay out the major trends, and any changes in trend, right here in Everybody’s Wrong.
Because at any given moment, everybody is wrong about something. Usually several things.
Our job is to figure out where the crowd is misreading the market and positioned the wrong way.
Not to feel smart.
To make money.
I’m here to make money in the market.
This is how we do it.
Stay sharp,
JC Parets, CMT
Founder, TrendLabs