Thursday’s headlines were focused squarely on the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Silvergate Capital.

Last week’s news will inevitably get replaced by the next big thing.

That big thing? Doesn’t really matter…

You’ll hear about it. You’ll hear what the numbers mean. And you’ll certainly get a healthy dose of predictions.

Every day it’s a new (or recycled) headline. 

And investors get so caught up in every tick of the market that they lose sight of the bigger picture.

Unless you’re day trading your future – something I highly discourage – then you’ll want to focus on longer-term trends.

Focusing on long-term monthly charts gives us the chance to take a step back and put things into the context of their structural trends. 

It’s only 12 times throughout the entire year, but it’s easily one of the most valuable exercises as it forces us to put aside the day-to-day noise and headlines to simply examine markets from a “big-picture” point of view.

That doesn’t mean turning a blind eye to weekly or even daily charts. Of course not.

But it’s vital to understand the direction of the long-term trend.

So, with that as our backdrop, let’s dive into an ongoing important theme.

U.S. indices remain under pressure as sellers have been in control since early February.

As a result, the S&P 500 (SPX) continues to churn below a major horizontal resistance zone of around 4100.

As long as the price remains below overhead supply at the 4100 level then the index will be stuck in this range. Only time will tell how long it will take for a decisive move higher.

I have to admit, it’s getting boring discussing this next theme.

We’ve talked a lot about International markets, but Europe continues to stand out with a growing list of individual countries reaching new all-time highs.

Here’s the London FTSE 100 Index breaking out to its highest level in history.

Unlike the S&P 500 and its nearly 30% tech exposure, European equities have little technology exposure and are more heavily weighted to value areas… things that tend to do well in a rising interest rate environment

Not only is the London FTSE 100 achieving all-time highs, but France’s CAC 40 Index recently broke to new all-time highs.

The fact that more and more countries are trending to the upside speaks to broadening participation overseas. 

The moves to all-time highs from both France and England continue to support our bullish view of equities worldwide.

Message to investors: The U.S. is not the only place to invest. If things look shaky here, look elsewhere!