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:

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A funny thing happened last summer.

Financials as a sector successfully retested the highs in price from just before the start of the Great Financial Crisis.

Look at the 2007 peak in Financials. After testing that level and failing in 2018 and 2020, prices ultimately broke out.

Last summer was the retest.

Former Resistance turned into Support:

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

The relative strength of Emerging Market bonds shores up the ongoing bottoming process for risk assets.

Check it out!

From the Desk of Ian Culley

It’s impossible to ignore – investors are reaching for risk.

Biotech stocks are catching higher. Copper futures are working on their tenth up-day in a row. Even the Emerging Market HY Bond ETF $EMHY is breaking to 7-month highs as it completes a multi-month base. 

And don’t forget about Silver! Gold’s crazy cousin has proven by far the best-performing asset since the US dollar peaked last fall. Strength among these market areas indicates a healthy risk appetite.

I can’t overlook these signs of a constructive bottoming process, especially considering the next chart…

Check out the Emerging Market Bond ETF $EMB relative to the US Treasuries ETF $IEF:

There’s plenty to unpack here…

First, the EMB/IEF ratio is challenging fresh 7-month highs after posting a higher high and a higher low last fall. A bearish to bullish trend reversal is underway for this important risk-on ratio.

You can add this to the growing list of...

I got a lot of feedback on my last letter where I suggested active traders need to stop trading Covered Call spreads for tactical trades and instead do a simple Naked Puts trade.

Thank you to everyone who engaged.

Anyway, here’s one question [edited to the important parts] I got from a reader where I thought my answer might be instructive to more of you:

Hi Sean,

I read your information on naked puts. When I intend to buy a stock, I would like to sell a put. I just don't know how to go about it. I just don't know where the strike price would be. I understand that I would have to buy the stock at that price (whether it is better or worse than hoped).

If you could give me an example that would help.

Cheers!

This is a great question, but one without a clear-cut answer. Here was my response:

Forget cryptocurrencies. Look at these crypto stocks!

Seriously, some of these moves have been nuts.

We took a small long in MicroStrategy $MSTR at the lows, and it hit our 50%-plus target in just two weeks.

Crazy...

If cryptocurrencies are going to start trending higher -- which is our bet -- these stocks face serious resistance.

But let's approach this with a level head.

The underperformance out of U.S. Large-cap Growth indexes continues.

It's not the stock market's fault that the S&P500 has way too much exposure to large-cap growth.

And when we talk about "the stock market", there are countries outside of the United States that continue to shine.

Today's Chart of the Day shows the S&P500 hitting new 52-week lows relative to Developed Countries outside of North America:

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

The US dollar index $DXY registered a "death cross" last week, confirming a bearish trend reversal.

But it's not the confirmation of the dollar downtrend that has my attention. It's what the signal suggests for stocks in the coming months and quarters.

Check it out!

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Welcome to the 2 to 100 Club.

As many of you know, something we've been working on internally is using various bottom-up tools and scans to complement our top-down approach. It's really been working for us!

One way we're doing this is by identifying the strongest growth stocks as they climb the market-cap ladder from small- to mid- to large- and, ultimately, to mega-cap status (over $200B).

Once they graduate from small-cap to mid-cap status (over $2B), they come on our radar. Likewise, when they surpass the roughly $30B mark, they roll off our list.

But the scan doesn't just end there.

We only want to look at the strongest growth industries in the market, as that is typically where these potential 50-baggers come from.

Some of the best performers in recent decades – stocks like Priceline, Amazon, Netflix, Salesforce, and myriad others – would have been on this list at some point during their journey...

I'm about to show you what a healthy chart off the bear market lows looks like. One of the beautiful things about this chart is it's not heavily reliant on any one company.

This is a sector ETF for a corner of the stock market we believe should continue to do well for the foreseeable future. There will be winners and losers within the sector, and we don't know which ones will ultimately be the leaders, so why not just trade 'em all?

Additionally, trading the sector ETF significantly lessens any earnings-related or product announcement or FDA-approval-driven gap risk.

This is a question I've been getting a lot.

"JC, how could you say we're already in the 8th Month of a new bull market???"

The things people call me over email or on twitter are not something I would repeat in front of my mother, or daughter, and certainly not in front of any of you guys.

But I'm a big boy. I spent a lot of time on trading floors, dugouts and locker rooms. I've heard way worse.

It is interesting, however, to observe the feedback I get from just some basic arithmetic.

This isn't like some random opinion I have about the economy, or Fed policy or earnings. This is just 3rd grade math.

Are more stocks going up? Are more stocks making new highs? Or are more stocks going down and making new lows?

Since June, the answer has been up and certainly not...

This is the video recording of the January 2023 Mid-month Conference Call.