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From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

Fear runs rampant across financial markets as the US Dollar Index $DXY prints fresh one-month lows.

Wait… what?

I thought the USD was a safe haven.

Perhaps it is. But it appears the gig is up for King Dollar after being the only game in town for almost a year.

So what now, buy stocks?

Sounds good to me.

And I think we can start buying other global currencies too…

Check out the EUR/USD pair:

The euro is swinging back toward our risk level of 1.08 after failing to hold its breakout earlier this year.

It’s pretty straightforward. If and when it reclaims our breakout level, we’re long targeting 1.1450.

Remember, last month, the 1.08 level was our line in the sand. Below there, a USD rally had potential.

On the flip side, if the euro trades above that level, dollar bulls will have a tough time and risk assets will likely enjoy a significant tailwind...

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

Strength begets strength.

Buyers taking control of a market heading into the weekend exude confidence. That describes gold bulls last Friday as they drove prices higher into the close.

To no surprise, Gold kicked off the new week gapping higher and rallying more than 2.5%. We call this bullish follow-through. 

So what’s next for precious metals?

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...

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...

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.

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. 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,...

Energy commodities are holding up despite last week’s selling pressure.

No, I’m not talking about natural gas – that rope snapped months ago.

But the rest of the main players – crude oil, heating oil, and gasoline – rebounded heading into the weekend. And when I look at the charts, Friday’s strength might be the beginning of a more sustained advance for energy.

Check out the equal-weight energy index:

It’s finding support where I would expect – the prior-cycle highs from 2018 and a key retracement level off the 2020 low.

Notice the index found support at this level in late 2021. This is the polarity principle in action.

A bounce here makes sense for energy contracts. It doesn’t mean they will, of course.

The index is also retesting a...

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

US bank stocks big and small took a beating Thursday, with the Bank ETF $KBE posting its largest single-day decline since 2020.

The steep sell-off came on the heels of Silicon Valley Bank’s $SIVB Wednesday announcement of a $1.8B loss, mainly due to accepting unrealized losses in US Treasuries.

Based on SIVB’s acute exposure to the tech industry, you can argue larger banks with more diversified portfolios and clients don’t carry the same risk. And they don’t.

Regardless, the next chart reveals a storm brewing beneath the surface...

Check out bank stocks (KBE inverted) overlaid with the US Treasury 2s10s spread:

I inverted KBE to highlight the strong relationship between banks and the yield curve. The two lines look almost identical over longer timeframes.

The main takeaway: Banks do not fare well when the shorter end of the curve outpaces the longer end.

Why? They hold heaps of government debt across the curve – especially shorter durations. 

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Dividend Aristocrats are easily some of the most desirable investments on Wall Street. These are the names that have increased dividends for at least 25 years, providing steadily increasing income to long-term-minded shareholders.

As you can imagine, the companies making up this prestigious list are some of the most recognizable brands in the world. Coca-Cola, Walmart, and Johnson & Johnson are just a few of the household names making the cut.

Here at All Star Charts, we like to stay ahead of the curve. That's why we're turning our attention to the future aristocrats. In an effort to seek out the next generation of the cream-of-the-crop dividend plays, we're curating a list of stocks that have raised their payouts every year for five to nine years.

We call them the Young Aristocrats, and the idea is that these are "stocks that pay you to make money." Imagine if years of consistent dividend growth and high momentum and relative strength had a baby, leaving you with the best of the emerging dividend giants that are outperforming the averages.

By adding our technical analysis to the mix,...

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

What year is it? 

Is it 2023 or 2022? Because it’s starting to feel like last year all over again…

No, Will Smith hasn’t slapped anyone (that I’m aware of). And I’m confident Bennifer 2.0 is going strong (solely based on Superbowl commercials).

But that’s not my concern. Here’s what does have my attention: the dollar and rates. 

These were big themes last year – rising in tandem – and continue to be as we head into March.

It shouldn't come as a surprise as the next chart reveals the crux of the story…

Check out the overlay chart of the US dollar index $DXY and the US 10-year yield $TNX with a rolling 126-day correlation in the lower pane:

Notice the consistent positive correlation between the US benchmark rate and the dollar since fall 2021. It all began as Federal Reserve officials swept...

This is the video recording of our March 6th Monthly Charts Live Strategy Session