From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

Commodities are losing ground as money flows back into stocks and bonds in hopes of a Santa Claus rally.

Yet fresh strength in equities isn’t completely leaving commodities in the dust. In fact, numerous bullish developments are underway for raw materials.

Dr. Copper is working its way higher. Crude oil is refusing to throw in the towel despite increased selling pressure. And softs such as orange juice, cocoa, and sugar are flying toward fresh decade highs.

That doesn’t sound bearish to me, especially when considering new buying opportunities in the grain markets…

First, check out the stock-to-commodity ratio:

The S&P 500 $SPY is violating a multi-year downtrend line relative to the CRB Index, signaling a potential trend reversal underway. 

It’s undoubtedly...

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Our Hall of Famers list is composed of the 150 largest US-based stocks.

These stocks range from the mega-cap growth behemoths like Apple and Microsoft – with market caps in excess of $2T – to some of the new-age large-cap disruptors such as Moderna, Square, and Snap.

It has all the big names and more.

It doesn’t include ADRs or any stock not domiciled in the US. But don’t worry; we developed a separate universe for that. Click here to check it out.

The Hall of Famers is simple.

We take our list of 150 names and then apply our technical filters so the strongest stocks with the most momentum rise to the top.

Let’s dive right in and check out what these big boys are up to.

Here’s this week’s list:

*Click table to enlarge view

We filter out any laggards that are down -5% or more relative to the S&P 500 over the trailing month.

Then, we sort the remaining names by their proximity to new 52-week highs.

This leaves...

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

When investing in the stock market, we always want to approach it as "a market of stocks."

Regardless of the environment, there are always stocks showing leadership and trending higher.

We may have to look harder to identify them depending on current market conditions. But there are always stocks that are going up.

The same can be said for weak stocks. Regardless of the environment, there are always stocks that are going down, too. 

We already have multiple scans focusing on stocks making all-time highs, such as Hall of Famers, Minor Leaguers, and the 2 to 100 Club.

We filter these universes for stocks that are exhibiting the best momentum and relative strength characteristics. 

Clearly, we spend a lot of time identifying and writing about leading stocks every week, via multiple reports.

Now, we're also highlighting lagging stocks on a recurring basis.

Welcome to the Short Report.

We...

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

The dollar has gone from slinging cheese to lobbing cookies.

Sellers finally got ahold of the US Dollar Index $DXY on Tuesday, sending it on its steepest single-day decline since October 2022.

Recall what followed for the dollar…

The DXY formed a major top and fell victim to not one but two subsequent 1 percent-plus daily drawdowns. 

Check out the DXY chart with the one-day rate-of-change in the upper pane:

The DXY dropped almost 1.5% during Tuesday's session. That’s a huge move for a currency (with the exception of the Turkish lira and perhaps the Polish zloty).

Based on the action witnessed last fall, it wouldn’t be surprising for the DXY to experience a reprieve from selling pressure in the coming days, followed by renewed downside action. 

As I mentioned last week, “If and when it (the DXY) falls below...

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

Miami is pure gold.

It sways to its own beat, enticing and intoxicating even the insular traveler.

Incidentally, I was engulfed by the city’s rhythm as I attended a family wedding last weekend.

And it was wild!

I danced with family and friends and sipped bubbles at sunset in Key Biscayne straight through to the early morning hours along South Beach.

But this old dog would never have made it to dawn without my wife’s crazy cousins. 

They displayed an appetite for reckless abandon that gold longs to witness from its own crazy cousin…

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza.

Welcome back to Under the Hood, where we'll cover all the action for the week ended November 11, 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 seeing an unusual increase in investor interest.

Click here for a behind-the-scenes look at our process.

Whether we’re measuring increasing interest based on large institutional purchases, unusual options activity, or simply...

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 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 Ian Culley @IanCulley

What a wild broad-market reversal yesterday!

Powell supposedly stated the obvious or blurted out what was on everyone’s mind. I don’t know. I haven’t watched the video or reviewed yesterday’s treasury auction. 

And I won’t.

I’m more interested in the “what,” not the “why,” as the former has proven far more valuable for navigating markets.

Nevertheless, the message is clear: no one wants to buy bonds. 

It makes sense to me…

Check out 30-year T-Bond futures:

Long-duration bonds are in a clear downtrend, stair-stepping lower.

Last week’s rally in US Treasuries was impressive. But based on the chart, it appears to be a standard retest of the 2022 lows – nothing more.

As far as I’m concerned,...

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

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 the price is rising. That's good enough for us.

The bottom line is it is a bull market. We want as many vehicles and...

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...

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

The US Dollar Index $DXY is still dealing like an old-school ace on the mound.

I don’t care what stock market bulls or technology investors want to believe.

The buck has been lights out since July.

And just because it found itself in a bit of trouble last week doesn’t mean it can’t retire the side…

The index pulled back to a key retracement level at approximately 105 on Friday:

Unsurprisingly, the dollar bore down at this critical area as it coincides with a logical support zone. 

But, when we take a closer look… 

Sellers are digging in, seeing the spin on the ball, with runners in scoring position.

Check out last week’s breakdown:

The DXY undercut the January and March pivot highs from earlier this...