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 now, a company must have a market cap between $1 and $4B.

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

Pop the champagne!

Gold reached new all-time highs. 

Now, whether we consider the shiny yellow rock a viable investment is another story.

You know I’m bullish…  

Yet I can’t overlook silver's lack of participation.

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 Ian Culley @IanCulley

Commodities are in the early innings of a secular bull run.

The list of raw materials hitting all-time highs since 2020 includes Gold, Copper, Wheat, Soybean Oil, Cattle,  Orange Juice, Cocoa, Heating Oil, Gasoline, Palm Oil, Lumber, Tin, Rebar, Iron Ore, and Coal. (If that roll call doesn’t scream commodity supercycle, I don’t know what does.) 

It’s an exhaustive list that will only grow in the coming years. Remember, these cycles can last decades. We’re only in year four!

Of course, there are also some laggards amongst the ranks. (ahem, Crude). But don’t lose sight of the bigger picture! 

Even Soybeans are queuing up for new all-time highs…

Check out soybean futures zoomed out to the 1950s:

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

The animal spirits have returned to equity markets near you!

How do we know?

Take a look around...

Biotechs are putting the finishing touches on a massive base, suggesting a new bull market for these stocks is underway.

Speculative growth indexes like the suite of ARK ETFs are completing (or have already completed) trend reversals.

The Renaissance IPO fund is at its highest level since early 2022.

A growing list of emerging markets countries (outside of China) are making new highs.

Cryptocurrencies are mooning every night while we're sleeping.

Participation is broadening to new groups like materials, and funds are flowing back into energy and financials again.

The most-hated and lowest-quality stocks in the market are catching a serious bid.

So, what do we do?

This is the optimal market environment for our Freshly Squeezed universe.

The idea behind this one is to find the stocks that bears are betting against the most and take the opposite side as they squeeze higher.

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 around $3T – to some of the new-age large-cap disruptors such as Arista Networks and Airbnb.

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:

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.

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

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

The Fed abides.

Three rate cuts remain the base case for 2024. Everyone had this scenario penciled in, including the bond market.

The US benchmark yield is holding at the same levels as last month. T-bonds are catching a modest bid. And bonds are…well, boring. 

Perhaps it’s not an ideal scenario for bond bears, but stock market bulls are welcoming the muted response…

The Bond Market Volatility Index $MOVE—the credit market’s equivalent to the VIX—is registering its lowest reading since spring 2022.

The last time the MOVE hit these levels, the Fed had yet to embark on its current hiking cycle. (We all know what followed—an epic downturn for bonds and stocks.)

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.

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

Currency markets refuse to choose a direction.

Up, down, or sideways: None appeal to the major US dollar pairs.

Meanwhile, the US Dollar Index $DXY is catching toward the upper bounds of its yearlong range.

If the dollar continues to rise, these swing trades will break for our targets…

I was monitoring the British pound for a breakdown below the December 2023 lows at approximately 1.25:

Instead of resolving lower, the GBP/USD took the opposite route, breaking above the December 2023 highs.

But those new highs were short-lived as the pound slipped back into its prior range. (Talk about indecisive!)

This is the video recording of the March 2024 Mid-month Conference Call.