We debuted a new scan recently which goes by the name- All Star Momentum.

All Star Momentum is a brand new scan that pinpoints the very best stocks in the market. This time around, we have incorporated our stock universe of Nifty 500 as the base. Among the 500 stocks that we follow, this scan will pump out names that are most likely to generate great returns.

While we go through our lists of sectors and stocks on a weekly basis, we thought of launching a product that would highlight the names that are the strongest performers in our universe and those that are primed for an explosive move.

Just like The Outperformers scan, this is a list of stocks belonging to the sectors that display relative strength in the market at any given point in time. Since sector rotation is the lifeblood of a bull market, we will be ahead of the curve before the gears keep shifting.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Crude oil is at its highest level since 2014 after it took out resistance around 76. 

Energy stocks just ripped off of support and are back above a key level of resistance, trading at highs not seen since early 2020.

Economically sensitive commodities and cyclical stocks, in general, remain very well bid. 

Meanwhile, the mainstream media is hung up on narratives surrounding stagflation and the possibility of a global recession. But we’re just not seeing this at all when we look at price. 

Risk assets are performing as well as they have all year. And, when we look outside the US, while there’s definitely been selling pressure around the world, the areas that stick out all seem to have something in common.

The energy-dependent countries are showing leadership. 

This supports the recent price action from energy futures and stocks, many of which have been ripping to fresh highs.

In today’s post, we'll take a look at some international equities we can use to express a bullish thesis on higher oil prices -- and higher prices for risk assets more broadly.

This is our ASC Research Q4 2021 Playbook.

With the current market environment giving us many mixed messages, what better time to dive in and see what's happening underneath the surface?

• Stocks (International & U.S.)
• U.S. Sectors & Industries
• Market Breadth & Sentiment
• Commodities
• Currencies
• Intermarket Analysis
• Crypto Currencies
• New Trade Ideas
• Overall Strategy

A big concern for stocks this summer was that there weren't any bears left.

Most of the silly permabears had given up and moved on to torture investors in other asset classes like Bitcoin or Gold.

Sentiment this summer was a headwind.

And now it's the opposite. Sentiment is a tailwind for stocks.

Take a look at the sentiment from Financial Advisors and Individual investors. Just a few months back, we saw the most amount of bulls since January 2018, just before stocks all over the world plummeted.

All it took was half the nasdaq stocks dropping 20% for sentiment to mean revert. Take a look at this chart showing that we're down to levels where bulls historically start showing up, and that's usually because of an increase in stock prices:

From the desk of Steve Strazza @sstrazza

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 the stock is about to move in their direction and make them a pretty penny.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Welcome to our latest “Minor Leaguers” report.

We’ve already had some great trades come out of this small-cap-focused column since we launched it late last year and started rotating it with our flagship bottom-up scan, “Under The Hood.”

We recently decided to expand our universe to include some mid-caps…

For about a year now, we’ve focused only on Russell 2000 stocks with a market cap between $1 and $2B. That was fun, but we think it’s time we branch out a bit and allow some new stocks to find their way onto our list.

The way we’re doing this is simple…

This week we’re looking at a long setup in the Auto sector. We're seeing strength come through in the Auto segment and thought of taking a look at a stock that's ripe for a bullish move.

Let's take a look at this stock.

One of the first things you learn in Technical Analysis is that markets are fractal.

That means that you'll find the same human behaviors (i.e. price patterns) whether you're looking at daily timeframes, weekly time frames or even intraday (e.g. 10-min or 30-min candles).

This is a concept that Brian Shannon has done an amazing job of highlighting throughout his career. Brian has been an inspiration to me since about 2005, which is pretty unbelievable to think about. Since then we've become friends and go skiing together and all that. It's pretty cool how life works sometimes.

Anyway, the idea behind "Multiple Timeframes", which is literally part of the title of Brian's book (go buy it), is to use this reality of "markets being fractal" to our advantage.

That can mean a lot of different things to different people.

For us, in what we do here at All Star Charts is, we start with Weekly and Monthly time horizons. That's where it all begins.

We've been discussing Covid for so long now, that it feels as though it's been going on forever. It carried out massive damage across different segments. But we are now seeing a resumption in trends that have been in place long enough to call them trends.

As we know, travel had been largely affected by the pandemic. Getting out of the house to buy groceries became the new travel plan! But not anymore!

We're now witnessing a strong and consistent pick-up in flight and hotel bookings which means that we can start taking a look at the shares that belong to these categories as well!

So let's do just that.

First up, let's take a look at the custom Leisure Index that we track at ASC.

As can be seen from the chart below, the custom Leisure Index is at a crucial level. Currently trading close to its 2019 highs, the index seems ready to break out soon. And why is it that we think so?

Because there are signals that are coming through from the constituents of the index that suggest so.

Click on the image to zoom in.

One thing unique about the market is that the game is never over. There aren't four 15-min quarters or two 20-min halves like in sports.

In those endeavors there is a beginning and an end.

You know who won (or who tied in some cases). But the match is over, and there will be another one in a few days or a few months, depending on the sport.

In the market, it never ends. This can cause issues psychologically, so it's something we should all be aware of and keep in mind.

But if you ask me, currently the bulls are scoring a lot more points. This is the first time we've seen that since Q1 this year, when the bears started running up the score.

Look at the S&P500 break out to new all-time highs relative to US Treasury Bonds.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Our Hall of Famers list is composed of the 100 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’s got all the big names and more.

It doesn’t include ADRs or any stock not domiciled in the US. But don’t worry; we’re developing a separate universe for that, and we’ll be sharing it with you soon.

So, The Hall of Famers is easy.

We simply take our list of 100 names and then apply our technical filters in a way that 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:

And here’s how we arrived at it:

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza and Ian Culley @Ianculley

Commodities have been on an absolute tear, with our Equal-Weight Commodity Index up almost 40% over the trailing year. 

But ever since Q2, the vast majority of the space has been chopping sideways along with most cyclical assets. 

Sounds a lot like stocks, doesn’t it? And while we’re still yet to see any major resolutions from equities, we have seen some bullish developments in the commodities market of late.

Energy asserted itself as the new leadership group with a series of major breakouts. Both crude and heating oil broke to new six-year highs, while gasoline futures completed a seven-year base. 

Then there’s natural gas, which gained more than 25% during the trailing month and tested its 2014 highs just above 6.

The emerging leadership from energy comes as no surprise, as we noticed signs of relative strength last month.  

Now that it’s here, what are the implications for the rest of the commodity space and global risk assets?