*Steve Strazza wants you all to know that HE came up with this title ;)

I have to be honest, its been hard looking for spots to put more bullish exposure on. Many stocks we like have already had significant bullish runs over the past three weeks. Buying some of these names here would feel like I'm asking to get smacked in the face by a long overdue pullback.

The commodity space is no exception. But we've found a name that looks like its just setting up for a fresh breakout so let's get right to it.

 

From the desk of Willie Delwiche.

Key Takeaway: Q1 returns reflect a bifurcated market. Weekly data shows breadth struggling for traction. Inflation-fighting proposals are political palliatives, not economic solutions.

We closed the book on Q1 last week and some of the stats are stunning:

• There was a 50 percentage point  spread between the best performing sector (Energy) and the worst performing sector (Communication Services) in the quarter, the widest such gap in years.
• An even greater dispersion was seen between the best performing ACWI market in the quarter (Brazil) and the worst (Egypt).
• From an asset class perspective, commodities (+27%) posted their best gain in decades while bonds (-6%) experienced their worst loss in decades. The 60/40 (stock/bond) benchmark portfolio stumbled to one of its worst starts in the past quarter...

The big news of the day is centered around an SEC filing by the wealthiest man in the world.

This morning, Elon Musk disclosed a 9.2% ownership stake in Twitter $TWTR in a 13G filing. Musk has amassed roughly 73.5 million shares for a value of almost $3 billion.

According to the filing, Musk has been buying since the middle of March.

Where do you find your trading headspace?

How do you get to a place where you can immerse yourself in “the Zone” to think deeply about trades, strategies, strategizing, or new ways to approach risk management?

For me, far and away the best way to enter this zone is to go for a long walk – preferably in the mountains or in a forest. Just me, maybe my dog, and the sound of the wind whispering in the trees.

On Wednesday night, I returned from four days in the Redwoods National & State Parks of Northern California. Me and a friend hiked nearly 35 miles total.

I cannot begin to describe how amazingly beautiful this corner of the world is. It was my first time there. I took some pictures and videos, but it does not do it justice. You just cannot feel it the way you do when you’re standing amongst those towering Redwood trees and the deafening silence of the endless foggy forest washes over you.

Today we sit down and chat with Professional Trader Kimmy Sokoloff.

I'm lucky to have known Kimmy for well over a decade, and we hit it off from the start.

Kimmy went through the CMT program in the 90s. And funny enough, volunteered later on with the CMT Association to grade Level 3 exams, which are mostly essays. We joke that she most likely graded mine in 2007-2008.

While I like to look out weeks and months for my timeframes, Kimmy focuses specifically on the hours and days. A 2 week trade for her is "Long-term".

We're both trained in similar ways, as CMT Charter holders. But our experiences are different.

Kimmy spent most of her career in Institutional Sales and Trading. She spent decades on the phones all day with huge funds.

So when Kimmy has something to say, we want to listen. I hope you enjoy this as much as I did.

This is the weekly post that aggregates all the charts we put together throughout the week and organizes them all into one, easy to flip through deck.

This is just too perfect.

Straight from the Monopoly Rule Book, written 90 years ago.

Who would have thought that our central bankers would be getting their inspiration from a board game?

And so what are the consequences of such shenanigans?

Well....

It's Saturday Morning Chartoons time. 

This is the weekly post that aggregates all the charts we put together throughout the week and organizes them all into one, easy to flip through deck.

You can find the whole list of trades here.

Below you'll find the full PDF of this week's charts:

 

 

From the desk of Steven Strazza @Sstrazza and Ian Culley @Ianculley

The relentless outperformance from commodities and commodity-related assets shows no signs of slowing.

The CRB Index is up 27.03% year to date while the S&P 500 and the 30-year Treasury bond aren’t even in the ballpark, posting lackluster performances of  negative 4.95% and negative 6.25%, respectively.

Commodities are really the only game in town these days.

With that as our backdrop, we want to continue focusing on this asset class for buying opportunities.

As many of these contracts consolidate or correct following explosive upside moves, we’re paying extra attention to those that have been basing in recent months – such as natural gas. 

Let’s take a look.

Here’s a zoomed-out weekly chart of natural gas futures:

One thing commodities aren't short on is big bases – and natural gas is a great example.

It’s carving out a...

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Our International Hall of Famers list is composed of the 100 largest US-listed international stocks, or ADRs. We’ve also sprinkled in some of the largest ADRs from countries that did not make the market cap cut. 

These stocks range from some well-known mega-cap multinationals such as Toyota Motor and Royal Dutch Shell to some large-cap global disruptors such as Sea Ltd and Shopify.

It’s got all the big names and more--but only those that are based outside the US. You can find all the largest US stocks on our original Hall of Famers list.

The beauty of these scans is really in their simplicity.

We take the largest names each week and then apply technical filters in a way that the strongest stocks with the most momentum rise to the top.

Based on the market environment, we can also flip the scan on its head and filter for weakness.

Let’s dive in and take a look at some of the most important stocks from around the world.

Here’s this week’s list:

...

From the desk of Willie Delwiche.

We discussed the need to look beneath the surface of the market in our Weekly Townhall and I  mentioned it again on the Townhall Takeaway Livestream. This chart for the weekend hits that point one more time. When we look across the global market composites, Emerging Markets have experienced the largest drawdown from their 52-week high. When we look beneath the surface of the indexes, the median emerging market has had a smaller drawdown than the median Developed Market or the median Frontier Market. When we look at it from a country-level perspective, trends in Emerging Markets vs Developed Markets are stronger than they’ve been at any point in the past decade. That isn’t reflected in the indexes yet, but it may just be a matter of time until we see that transition. Speaking of transitions, while this chart is still looking at the distance below 52-week highs, we are starting to find ourselves thinking more about where things are relative to their 52-week lows.    

...

The title of this post is the sound I might make if today's trade hits its profit target, helping to offset the pain I'm feeling at the pump every time I fill up my car with gas.

I was just in California this week and paid $6.00/gallon for my rental car. Ouch!!

Today's trade is in a name that has already been a strong performer this year but is showing no signs of stopping as of yet.