No doubt, the new normal of volatility makes near-term forecasting an adventure. But then again, volatility is what keeps traders and market analysts in business. After all, if nothing moves then there is no profit – or people who want to read about it.

Remember, bitcoin was an afterthought a few years ago. Then, all of the sudden, it balloons in price and a whole industry pops up to profit from it. There’s nothing like huge sums of money changing hands to get the juices flowing.

Right now, stock market volatility not only makes things interesting but provides ample fodder for journalists. And for charting wonks like me, it lets us trot out more obscure relationships to explain things better than the other guy.

I want to look at three charts today and they are all purely technical. And they are reasons for me to say that buying stocks now, as long as you are prepared for a few big drawdowns along the way thanks to volatility, will make you happy a few short months from now.

After that, I am not so sure. We had a nice, needed cleanse but the rebound will likely cause a lot of the speculation to return, setting us up for yet another “event” and possibly a cyclical bear market.

Let’s cross that bridge later.

Oh, and as for the title of this missive, it is a play on Reasons to be Cheerful, Part 3, from the bizarre Ian Dury and the Blockheads back in 1980. Go ahead, Google-Bing those lyrics and wonder how that happened before there were Tide pods to eat.

Reason 1 – Risk Bonds Beating Risk-Free Bonds

Regardless of the general direction of interest rates, we can discern a risk attitude of bond investors using a ratio of the investment grade corporate bond ETF (LQD ) and the 20+year Treasury ETF (TLT). If investors are really fearful they will look for the default-risk free characteristics of the TLT. The ratio will fall in a flight to quality.

But guess what? It is not falling. It actually just broke out to the upside from a flag-like pattern.

Don’t do whiz-bang technical analysis on this ratio but definitely use it to get a feel for which component is stronger than the other. Right now, it is corporate bonds.

Reason 1a – Junk to Hi-Grade Bonds

Let’s take this one step farther. Junk bonds are holding their own against their higher quality cousins. The ratio of the SPDR Junk Bond ETF (JNK ) to LQD, which was actually falling all of last year, also seems close to an upside breakout.

There is a problem here in that the ratio fell last year when almost everyone was a risk lover. I cannot explain it so let’s just leave the conclusion that at least investors are not getting scared away from junk. That means they think the economy is O-tay and will continue to put money into stocks.

Reason 2 – Small-Cap Stocks to Big Cap Stocks

I was indeed concerned that the small-cap Russell 2000 lagged the big-cap S&P 500 late last year. It was one of the few contra-indications for higher stock prices overall. After all, speculative small stocks are supposed to be one of the leaders in a bull market. When they fade and the market narrows in breadth it is a warning sign.

Well, maybe not. The ratio fell all last year and stocks had a field day. Then again, nothing is in a vacuum and the falling dollar, which declined all of last year, could be the reason big, multi-national stocks outperformed.

Reason 3 – Gold still sucks

When stocks went nuts over the past few days, gold fell. Let that sink in. The ultimate safety asset went down even as everyone got panicky on stocks. And don’t forget cryptocurrencies collapsed, too, for even more reason to think of gold as a currency.

Granted, the dollar moved up and that is bad for gold but gold also fell when priced in euros so that’s a wash. The stock market seemed to be unraveling after months and months of smooth sailing.

Gold may very well be in the late stages of a major basing formation but if we’re only looking at it with stocks in mind then it is dead giveaway for a positive undertone in the latter.

Again, as I write this I am watching the Dow tick away and it was still all over the map. I still look for big swings for a while but in the end, I think investors will be happy with their portfolios in a few months.

However, I also believe this is the last wave up. I’ll be watching all these charts closely, and toss in breadth and interest rates.