From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

US Treasuries are taking a back seat to risk assets.

Bond market volatility is declining. Credit spreads are tightening. And Emerging Market high-yield bonds ($EMHY) are breaking out. 

Meanwhile, stocks are posting new all-time highs.

So, how high will interest rates climb over the near term?

My gut tells me not far — at least not in the coming weeks or months…

Check out the US benchmark rate finding resistance at approximately 4.33:

Last month’s high marks a logical ceiling for the US benchmark rate. 

Those former highs coincide with a key retracement level based on the run-up into the October 2023 peak. Plus, the 10-year yield paused at the same level for almost a month during last year's rally. That’s not a coincidence.

If the US 10-year breaks above 4.33, volatility will hit...

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

What happened to those everyday commodity contracts the average investor follows?

I’m talking about crude oil, gold, and copper.

These days, it’s all about cattle futures, orange juice, or cocoa hitting an all-time high. 

I’m sure everyone down at the NYMEX or the folks over at the CBOT in Chicago are having a ball. But what about the stock traders trying to get a piece of the action?

Sure, the energy trade is starting to work again. But gold has been a range-bound mess since the summer of 2020. And gold mining stocks have been an absolute dumpster fire.

It just doesn’t make sense amid a commodity bull run…

No, the absence of gold and copper...

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Our International Hall of Famers list is composed of the 100 largest US-listed international stocks, or ADRs.

We've also sprinkled in some of the largest ADRs from countries that did not make the market cap cut. 

These stocks range from some well-known mega-cap multinationals such as Toyota Motor and Royal Dutch Shell to some large-cap global disruptors such as Sea Ltd and Shopify.

It's got all the big names and more–but only those that are based outside the US. You can find all the largest US stocks on our original Hall of Famers list.

The beauty of these scans is really in their simplicity.

We take the largest names each week and then apply technical filters in a way that the strongest stocks with the most momentum rise to the top.

Based on the market environment, we can also flip the scan on its head and filter for weakness.

Let's dive in and take a look at some of the most important stocks from around the world.

Here's this week's list:

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These are the registration details for our Live Monthly Candlestick Strategy Session for Premium Members of All Star Charts.

This month’s Video Conference Call will be held on Monday March 4th @ 6PM ET. As always, if you cannot make the call live, the video and slides will be archived and published here along with every other live call since 2015.

Here are the details for Monday evening:

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Welcome to The 2 to 100 Club.

As most of you know, we use 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 journey to becoming the market...

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

What started out as a bearish reversal in the dollar-yen is beginning to look more like a bullish continuation pattern.

Buying the Japanese yen will produce absolute gangbuster returns – at some point. 

But the market’s simply not there yet…

For starters, Japanese stocks are hitting new all-time highs. These new highs support bullish USD/JPY positioning – long dollar, short yen.

Here’s an overlay chart of the Nikkei 225 Index and the dollar-yen pair, highlighting their positive correlation over longer time frames:

The USD/JPY tends to peak and trough in tandem with the Nikkei. 

We can apply the same logic to global equities, as a dollar-yen rally characterizes a true risk-on environment much like the one we’re experiencing now.

So if the Japanese stocks are taking out their  December 1989 highs, why can’t the dollar-yen do the same?

It’s awfully close to its comparable 1990 high of...

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

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.

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 to...

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

The market is punishing investors for owning gold mining stocks.

Sure, a handful of gold miners are holding above key levels.

Buenaventura S.A.A. $BVN, Orla Mining $ORLA, and Harmony Gold $HMY belong to this elite group of outperformers.

But that’s about it.

I’m not giving these trades too much room. And I’m not piling into new long positions. Not yet! 

Here’s why…

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 making moves.

Cotton is forming a bull flag following last week’s breakout. Coffee futures are coiling below a critical polarity zone. Cattle and hogs are running wild. Even Dr.Copper is perking up, posting positive returns over the trailing five days.

And don’t forget about cocoa futures as they continue to print fresh all-time highs. 

With all this action heating up, let’s turn our attention to one of 2021’s most explosive markets…

Lumber.

Remember all the lumber memes on Twitter?

Dudes were posting their W’s sitting atop stacks of 2x4s and plywood. I’ll never forget it. 

As a trader, I prefer to avoid lumber futures. It’s a thin market. But I can’t ignore the yearlong base forming on the daily chart:

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