Crude Oil futures are pushing up against new 3-month highs just as investors have given up on the commodities trade.

No one I speak to thinks Energy leads the way in the 2nd half of 2023.

And I speak to a lot of people who got the past year very right. Even they don't believe...

Here's what I see: Former resistance for Crude Oil in 2018 turning into support throughout the past year:

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza.

Welcome back to Under the Hood, where we'll cover all the action for the week ended July 21, 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.

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.

Technical Analysis is the study of the behavior of the market and its participants.

So while identifying price trends is our ultimate goal, sentiment plays an important role in that process.

Prices don't move up or down because of "fundamentals" or "the economy". The price of assets move based on positioning.

When investors are all positioned one way, and are at a consensus, who's left to drive prices further in that direction?

Last summer we saw some of the most pessimistic sentiment towards stocks in history.

Some of that sentiment has started to shift a bit, like in the AAII and II polls. We're back somewhere towards the middle in those. You need, at least, some bulls to buy stocks to have a bull market.

But when it comes to Fund Managers, Cash is still their largest position, and they're most bearish on equities.

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

Investors hate commodities – especially energy. 

I don’t blame them. 

Most energy stocks and commodities have failed to provide the best opportunities for the average market participant.

In fact, they’ve been an absolute dumpster fire compared to high-flying tech names for almost a decade. 

But everything changed following the 2020 sell-off.

Commodities flipped the script, outperforming bonds and stocks. Long-forgotten energy names worked their way back in the conversation as the energy sector taught a masterclass in relative strength.

This story isn’t finished – not yet!

One glance at the market’s year-to-date performance reveals an explosive tech rally that’s managed to erase the past two years from our collective memory.

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

We love our bottoms-up scans here at All Star Charts. We tend to get really creative when making new universes as we want to be sure they will deliver us the best opportunities the market has to offer.

However, when it comes to our latest project, it couldn't be any simpler!

With the goal of finding more bullish setups, we have decided to expand one of our favorite scans and broaden our regular coverage of the largest US stocks.

Welcome to The Junior Hall of Famers.

This scan is composed of the next 150 largest stocks by market cap, those that come after the top 150 and are thus covered by the Hall of Famers universe. Many of these names will someday graduate and join our original Hall Of Famers list. The idea here is to catch these big trends as early on as possible.

There is no need to overcomplicate things. Market cap is a quality filter at the end of the day. It only grows if price is rising. That's good enough for us.

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

Bonds are breaking out!

Yes… Bonds!

No, I’m not talking about US Treasuries. Those “risk-free” assets have plenty of work to do before I can take an informed long position.

I’m referring to corporate bonds. Remember, companies have numerous ways to raise capital besides selling shares – bonds being one of them.

But they're not your run-of-the-mill corporate bonds flashing a buy signal…

They’re the issues investors can convert into equity.

Check out the Convertible Bond ETF $CWB:

CWB has traced a classic bullish reversal in price as it completes a yearlong basing formation.

As many of you know, Steve Strazza and I are touring South East Asia this month. We're hitting the homestretch of our trip, with about a week or so left. We're currently in Hong Kong and this city is beyond description. I don't even know where to begin. It's a cliche to say "you have to see it to believe it." But it is 100% true in this case.

As you can imagine, it's been a bit of a logistical challenge to keep up with the U.S. markets when we are on the other side of the globe. U.S. trading hours in Hong Kong are 9:30 pm to 4:00 am. Lucky for us, many of the positions we have on have been performing well. We've been positioned for a continued bull market and we're definitely being rewarded over the past few weeks.

We're currently positioned long in stocks like $AAPL, $MARA, $KBH, $GXO, $CARR, $VRRM, $ABNB, $IONQ, $DKNG, and more.

I mention this because as I'm looking at candidates for new long trades that we like, I am frustrated that most report earnings over the next 1-2 weeks. And as you know, I don't like positioning when a stock is so close to reporting earnings. I don't like the binary risk.

We interrupt this raging bull market to update you on some historic positioning in the bond market that is sure to impact your portfolio, whether you like it or not.

Even if you don't trade bonds, this is really really important.

You see, I know it's easy to sit back and chill out with the S&P500 making new 52-week highs, the Dow Jones Industrial Average and Dow Transportation Average making new 52-week highs and, of course, the Nasdaq100 making new 52-week highs after posting its best first half to a year EVER.

Market breadth continues to expand and sector rotation is frustrating the hell out of anyone trying to short this market.

The thing is, what even changed?

What happened that stocks have absolutely been ripping higher since last year?

Positioning.

It's not the economy that drives stocks. It certainly isn't fundamentals.

It's positioning.

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.