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.

Nowadays, 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 order...

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

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...

It has paid to pick our spots wisely in the commodities complex as it's been a very bifurcated asset class this cycle.

Live and Feeder Cattle are carving out distribution patterns.

Energy has been a rangebound mess.

Meanwhile, the relative strength has been in the soft commodities and precious metals.

Gold recently put the finishing touches on a multi-decade accumulation pattern.

Cocoa has resolved a 12-year base and rallied over 400% to new all-time highs.

Coffee is flirting with new multi-decade highs after completing a tactical reversal pattern.

And we're betting that Cotton will participate to the upside with the rest of the soft complex soon. The soft and fluffy commodity is on the verge of trapping the bears below a key level of polarity.

We want to continue leaning into the relative strength in soft commodities.

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

The best short squeezes always start with a burst of momentum.

These moves are often sparked by a headline or news-related catalyst.

The price action in Peloton $PTON yesterday was an excellent example of this dynamic.

After reporting earnings Thursday, Peloton screamed higher and registered its best single-day performance in history.

While the report was nothing extra special, it was the first time the exercise bike maker beat on both the top and bottom line since May 2021.

When sentiment is this sour, sometimes "less bad" is all it takes.

PTON rallied 35% on the heels of the report, and with such a massive short interest, we think it's just getting started.

Here's the chart with the 1-day rate of change in the lower pane:

With extreme short-term momentum behind this stock, we think the squeeze is on.

Let's talk about how we're playing it.

Here's another look at the $1.7B fitness technology company:

...

From the desk of Steve Strazza @sstrazza

For the first time in my career, I'm buying bonds.

It has less to do with positioning defensively and more to do with making a call on lower interest rates.

But what it really comes down to, more than anything, is the chart pattern.

Bond funds are completing bearish-to-bullish reversals for the first time in years. 

This is the same exact pattern we've gone back to time and again this cycle... and every cycle, really.

Rounding bottoms are some of the most reliable patterns we have as technicians.

And we're seeing them across the board in bond funds right now.

Let's dive in and talk about some of them.

Here's the US Aggregate Bond ETF $AGG: 

This fund holds treasury securities, corporate bonds, mortgage-backed securities, and municipal bonds. It is exactly what it sounds like. A diversified bond fund. It also offers investors a 3.4% yield.

The US Aggregate Bond ETF is pressing against the upper bounds of a multi-year accumulation pattern. With...

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 this one, 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 is it is a bull market. We want as many vehicles and options to express...

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...

The question we're asking ourselves today is a big one.

Is the US Dollar breaking down from a multi-year consolidation?

With the dollar rangebound all year, we haven’t experienced a trending currency market. 

When the dollar is trending higher or lower, we have a good idea of the impact it is likely to have on other markets.

However, when it is trendless, the dollar is neither a headwind nor a tailwind for risk assets.

We think that could be changing.

Here's a weekly line chart showing the U.S. Dollar Index making new year-to-date lows:

As you can see, the US dollar bears have taken control and resolved this multi-year consolidation to the downside.

Here's another way to look at it.

The index is trading at the lower bounds of a well-tested range. Notice the flat 200-day moving average, illustrating the sideways nature of the primary trend.

And notice momentum, hitting its lowest level...

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza.

Welcome back to Under the Hood, where we'll cover all the action for the two weeks ended August 16, 2024. This report is published bi-weekly, in rotation 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 that are 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...

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

It’s good to be a gold bug.

New all-time highs and fresh breakouts are dotting the charts. Buy signals are flashing left and right. And even the laggards – Palladium and Platinum – are refusing to break down. 

Best of all, Gold has a one-track mind: up and to the right!

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