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.

That’s why I think it’s more important than ever to reiterate why I still like commodities in the back half of the year, specifically...

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.

The bottom line...

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.

A similar bearish-to-bullish reversal in momentum suggests bulls have taken control, confirming the upside resolution.

More importantly, the breakout in...

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...

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

The US Dollar Index’s $DXY break toward fresh lows resembles a defiant crawl more than an earnest march.

An image of dragging my children away from the toy aisle flashes across my mind.

(Actually, I let them walk around the store with their toy of choice. And then, we ditch the item before checkout after a couple rounds of negotiations. It works quite well – no screaming involved.) 

But while the DXY drags its feet, the individual currencies that comprise the index are picking up the pace. 

The Swiss franc is ripping. The euro is posting fresh 52-week highs. And the British pound is hitting our upside objective.

Our initial target for the pound marks a logical level of resistance.

But since the Dollar Index broke down less than a week ago, could the pound slice through this...

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

The US dollar is approaching a slippery slope. 

And few markets embrace a falling dollar quite like precious metals.

Yet gold’s response to a weakening dollar so far has been subdued, perhaps due to elevated real yields.

But gold’s crazy cousin, silver, has enjoyed quite the boost…

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Welcome to The Minor Leaguers.

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 new highs in...

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 and Alfonso Depablos @AlfCharts

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 which you can check out here.

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...

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

Commodities love the falling dollar.

Crude oil is breaking to multi-month highs. Copper is approaching the 4-dollar level. And Silver is ripping!

I’ll have more on the precious metals front Monday with your weekly Gold Rush.

Today, I’m focusing on the grain and livestock markets. The dropping dollar has helped line up a long list of fresh trade ideas: potential failed breakouts, possible failed breakdowns, and critical levels to trade against…

Let’s get to it!

First up – It’s corn!

Corn – Failed Breakdown?

We might have a failed breakdown on our hands…

Corn futures broke down to their lowest level since early 2021 only to quickly reverse higher.

Check out the Dec. contract:

I like giving Dec....

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

Welcome to The Junior International Hall of Famers.

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-listed international stocks, or ADRs.

This scan is composed of the next 100 largest stocks by market cap, those that come after the top 100 and are thus covered by the International Hall of Famers universe.

Many of these names will someday graduate and join our original International Hall Of Famers list. The idea here is to catch these big trends as early on as possible.

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

This is our Junior International Hall of Famers list:

Click table to enlarge view

We filter out any laggards that are down -5% or more relative to...

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

"Sell the two… Utah! Sell the two!"

I’ve parroted my bond outlook during internal meetings and across our Slack channels in recent weeks, partly in jest but mostly to highlight the underlying uptrend in rates. 

Honestly, I’m not crazy about selling the short end of the curve, though I believe there’s a trade there.

Instead, there are far better opportunities with longer-duration bonds.

Shorting bonds isn’t the most popular play with the Fed and the dollar and the CPI… 

But that makes me like this trade even more, especially when I put the headlines and the dominant narrative aside and simply focus on the charts…

Check out the 10-year yield $TNX:

The US benchmark rate remains within a well-defined uptrend, resolving higher from one bullish continuation pattern after another. And it’s showing no signs of a trend reversal.