From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

Perhaps you’ve noticed that I don’t use moving averages.

For starters, I don’t like the way they look.

They muddy the pristine waters of price. And if I can't pick up on the underlying trend by looking at price action, then god help me.

Regardless, I do my best to stay open-minded. Everyone has their own process. Mine works for me, but that doesn’t make it superior by any stretch.

So, when Grant @GrantHawkridge dropped a US Dollar Index $DXY moving average crossover study in our analyst Slack chat last weekend, I couldn’t resist.

It wasn’t because it highlighted the “death cross” (when a 50-day moving average falls below a longer-term 200-day average), which always stirs a great deal of excitement.

Nor was it what his study suggests for the dollar in the coming weeks and quarters. 

Rather, it’s what it implies for US stocks.

Check out the chart of the DXY with a 50-day (blue line) and a 200-day simple moving average (red line):

...

Look, I get it.

Maybe you have some long-term holdings showing significant gains that you don’t want to pay taxes on. But you want to squeeze some additional income out of these positions because either you’re greedy (fine) or you want to practice responsible risk management (a better reason).

That’s fine. Go ahead and continue selling covered calls from your yacht. You do you.

This post is aimed at the rest of you knuckleheads who seem to think entering covered call trades as tactical short-term plays is a productive use of your time and capital.

Yes, you! You know who you are.

Let me show you two pictures.

It's the weekly Gold Rush!

As gold futures approach a significant area of overhead supply, we cover the most important charts in the space.

Check it out...

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.

We also weed out hedging activity and ensure there are no offsetting trades that either neutralize or cap the risk on these unusual options trades.

What remains is a list of stocks that large financial institutions are putting big money behind.

And they’re doing so for one reason only: because they think...

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

The NYSE might be closed today, but futures markets are open.

And while the volume remains low during US trading hours, it hasn’t stopped Gold futures from revisiting a critical level.

Gold currently challenges a price level engrained in goldbugs’ minds worldwide…

The prior commodity supercycle peak!

Check out the chart of Gold futures:

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Welcome to our latest Minor Leaguers report.

We've had some great trades come out of this small-cap-focused column since we launched it back in 2020 and started rotating it with our flagship bottom-up scan, Under the Hood.

For the first year or so, we focused only on Russell 2000 stocks with a market cap between $1 and $2B.

That was fun, but we wanted to branch out a bit and allow some new stocks to find their way onto our list.

We expanded our universe to include some mid-caps.

To make the cut for our Minor Leaguers list, a company must have a market cap between $1 and $4B.

And it doesn't have to be a Russell component — it can be any US-listed equity. With participation expanding around the globe, we want all those ADRs in our universe.

The same price and liquidity filters are applied. Then, as always, we sort by proximity to...

Yesterday we talked about how early the Phlx Gold & Silver Index was in this cycle.

This index of 30 precious metal mining companies was the first of the Gold related stock indexes to break out. This was about a month after Gold Futures confirmed a buy signal for us in early October.

But of the "stock" related indexes, we look to the Phlx Gold & Silver Index as a leader. It certainly acts like one.

And do you know how I know it's not a downtrend?

Look at its components. Each column represents a different moving average ranging from the 5-day...

Back in the late 1800s Charles H. Dow wrote down all of his Tenets about the market in the Wall Street Journal.

These articles ultimately became known as Dow Theory.

One of the basic tenets that many are familiar with is the confirmation of the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Dow Jones Transportation Average (which was simply known as the Railroad Average when Charlie was around).

If one of the two indexes is making new highs and the other is rolling over, something is wrong, and the trend is likely changing.

Now, if one of the two indexes is making new lows within an ongoing downtrend, and the other is already putting in higher lows, that bullish divergence is evidence of a change in trend.

In the 4th quarter we saw the Phlx Gold & Silver Index ($XAU) break out above its key level, invalidating any bearish thesis that one could possibly have for Precious Metals.

You see all that resistance in the $XAU in 2013 and 2016, right around $110-113?

Well once we got back above that in November, it was time to start buying Gold & Silver stocks.

But where was the most popular ETF $GDX?

It was still below that overhead supply, as you can see in this chart below.

Until now...

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.

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

As a responsible investor, I refuse to ignore strength. That includes stocks making fresh highs, especially when they're bellwethers!

Check it out!

On Tuesday of this week I was in the city for a few meetings, so I dropped by Fox Business to chat with my old pal Liz Claman.

Her and I have been doing this dance together for over a decade.

She's one of the best in the business and we always have a great time.

Liz knows me well by now so there's no gossiping about the Fed with me.

It was all about explaining how we're already entering Month #8 of this ongoing Bull Market for stocks.