First Santa Claus showed up for his rally.

Now the "First 5 Days" of the year were up (+1.37%).

That's 2 for 2 so far in the January Trifecta.

So now what's next?

The January Barometer is the last leg of the early year triple crown.

"As January goes, so goes the rest of the year". According to my handy Stock Trader's Almanac, the S&P500 has an 83.3% hit rate for the full year when January is in the green.

So with more and more positive signs for stocks, it really shouldn't be a surprise to anyone.

The trend for most stocks has been up and to the right. That was a strong back half of 2022 and a very strong 4th quarter.

And not just in the U.S., but we're seeing breadth expansion internationally.

The weaker Dollar has certainly helped.

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza.

Welcome to Under the Hood, where we'll cover all the action for the week ended January 6, 2023. This report is published bi-weekly and rotated with The Minor Leaguers.

What we do here is analyze the most popular stocks during the week and find opportunities to either join in and ride these momentum names higher, or fade the crowd and bet against them.

We use a variety of sources to generate the list of most popular names.

There are so many new data sources available that all we need to do is organize and curate them in a way that shows us exactly what we want: a list of stocks that are seeing an unusual increase in investor interest.

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @sstrazza and Alfonso Depablos @Alfcharts

This is one of our favorite bottom-up scans: Follow the Flow.

In this note, we simply create a universe of stocks that experienced the most unusual options activity — either bullish or bearish, but not both.

We utilize options experts, both internally and through our partnership with The TradeXchange. Then, we dig through the level 2 details and do all the work upfront for our clients.

Our goal is to isolate only those options market splashes that represent levered and high-conviction, directional bets.

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

Have you noticed precious metals printing fresh highs?

Last week, gold posted new multi-month highs. So did silver and platinum, hitting their highest levels since the spring of 2022.

Not a bad start to 2023 for these shiny rocks. And it gets better!

Gold broke out to new all-time highs relative to bonds last week. The yellow metal is not only showing strength on an absolute basis – it’s also outperforming its alternatives.

These are classic bull market characteristics and two critical pieces of evidence suggesting gold is in the early stages of a new structural uptrend.

If gold is on its way to new all-time highs, gold mining stocks will be participating. 

And it just so happens they are…

If gold prices rise, companies that remove gold from the ground and sell it will surely benefit. Simple!

I was back on The Compound & Friends show this week.

But this time I brought ASC Director of Research Steve Strazza with me.

This show is always a lot of fun and this time was no different.

We don't take ourselves too seriously and like to enjoy ourselves. So this is the perfect show for us to come on.

We discussed the Bull Market in stocks that continues to broaden out to new sectors and countries, the potential breakout in Gold prices to new all-time highs, how the US Dollar falling apart is impacting asset classes, and some of our favorite stocks to profit from the current environment.

We also discussed our Bitcoin trade, Chinese Internet and the ASC Hall of Famers.

Big shoutout to Josh and Michael for the invite.

I love being a guest on one of my favorite shows to watch! I know Steve Strazza feels the same way.

Enjoy!

If you're not making money in this environment, it's not because it's a "bear market".

Don't be one of those investors left holding the bag in the few remaining stocks that are not working, while almost everything else is.

On an equally-weighted basis, every single sector is up since the bear market ended last June.

Here's the performance of each of the Sectors since the new lows list on the NYSE peaked in Q2. Notice how Consumer Discretionary is the best performer. How can consumer discretionary stocks doing so well possibly be a bad thing?

It's the weekly commodity edition of What the FICC?

The major commodity indexes look ready to roll despite sustained strength from precious metals.

Check it out!

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza and Alfonso Depablos @AlfCharts

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 Ian Culley @IanCulley

The Bloomberg commodity index $BCOM is breaking down, approaching fresh 52-week lows.

Somehow Gold and Copper didn’t get the memo. They must be too busy printing new highs.

But when we review other major commodity indexes (including our own equal-weight index of 33 individual contracts), they look poised to roll over.

Check out the triple pane chart of the Bloomberg, CRB, and our equal-weight commodity indexes:

It’s interesting to note the differences between these indexes. The weighting structures vary, as do their support levels. But the CRB index and our equal-weight commodity index challenge their 2022 lows while the BCOM has undercut its respective lows. 

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Welcome to our annual edition of Young Aristocrats.

Dividend Aristocrats are easily some of the most desirable investments on Wall Street.

These are the names that have increased dividends for at least 25 years, providing steadily increasing income to long-term-minded shareholders.

As you can imagine, the companies making up this prestigious list are some of the most recognizable brands in the world.

Coca-Cola, Walmart, and Johnson & Johnson are just a few of the household names making the cut.

Here at All Star Charts, we like to stay ahead of the curve. That's why we're turning our attention to the future aristocrats.

In an effort to seek out the next generation of the cream-of-the-crop dividend plays, we're curating a list of stocks that have raised their payouts every year for five to nine years.

We call them the Young Aristocrats, and the idea is that these are "stocks that pay you to make money."

It's a new year with new leaders emerging in the market. So what better time to drop in and chat with our friends over on Fox Business about what's going on.

Charles likes my Ratio charts so we took a look at some of those.

But I think the bigger point here is that Gold doesn't have to be this 'End of the world' trade that some make it out to be.

History has proven time and time again that Gold prices can rise, even during bull markets for stocks. And to be clear, Gold prices can also fall along with stocks.

They are not mutually exclusive.

Check out the full clip and let me know what you think!

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

We held our January Monthly Strategy Session Tuesday night. Premium Members can access and rewatch it here.

Non-members can get a quick recap of the call simply by reading this post each month.

By focusing on long-term, monthly charts, the idea is to take a step back and put things into the context of their structural trends. This is easily one of our most valuable exercises as it forces us to put aside the day-to-day noise and simply examine markets from a “big-picture” point of view.

With that as our backdrop, let’s dive right in and discuss three of the most important charts and/or themes from this month’s call.