At a recent meeting of the Northern Ohio Chapter of the CMT Association, we had a roundtable discussion where each attendee shared a best idea. One of the junior members of the gathering gave a rather dire outlook for stocks, followed by the remark, "I've never traded a bear market before."

In honor of Independence Day, I wanted to share four books that bring key periods in American history to light.  This is by no means a "top four" list, as many books arguably deserve a spot.  This is simply a list of books I've read recently that are worthy of your attention.

I regularly scroll through all the charts in the S&P 500 as part of my research process.  Technical analysts that I respect a great deal convinced me of the value of this routine, which tends to increase your market awareness and decrease your vulnerability to market movements.

I wrote an article back in November highlighting the way that ETFs are often launched once an investment thesis has become way oversubscribed.  We looked at the recent example of the ProShares Decline of the Retail Store ETF, ticker EMTY (no kidding).  Can you guess what happened next?

A respected former colleague of mine absolutely loved to play devil's advocate.  Whatever investment thesis was posed, he would always take the other side of the argument. Over time, I began to understand and respect this approach.  Sometimes his challenge would expose behavioral biases such as confirmation bias or the endowment effect, leading us to reconsider our outlook and positioning.

About five weeks ago, I wrote an article for stockcharts.com regarding the US Dollar breaking out to the upside.  Based on previous resistance and Fibonacci retracement levels, we reviewed upside price objectives for the Bullish Dollar ETF ($UUP).

I was a guest speaker again this week on MarketWatchers LIVE over at StockCharts.com.  Always a pleasure to speak with Tom Bowley and Erin Swenlin who demonstrate straightforward and powerful methods to understand the markets through charts.

I've been chipping away at articles I've stored in my Pocket and just made it through a series of pieces on the "Sell in May" phenomenon. If you're not familiar, the proclamation "Sell in May and Go Away" speaks to the perceived seasonal trend where the US stock market tends to be weaker in the summer to fall period than the winter to spring period.

I am naturally quite disorganized.  Early in my career, I learned that if I wanted to compete with others in a professional setting, I would need to address this glaring personality flaw.  Thus began a lifelong effort to make sure my time and energy was devoted to what is most important to me.

Any time I read about a market "stalling" or reaching "stall speed" my palms start to sweat.  They are literally sweating right now.  Let me share why I'm uncomfortable, then I'll explain why stalls are often an ideal representation of the markets.