Despite the recent volatility, gold continues its steady ascent, unaffected by the broader market noise. 

As seasonals have shifted and new leadership has come and gone this year, gold remains resilient, moving through market regimes with ease.

Whether stocks rally or risk-off sentiment prevails, gold thrives. The yellow metal has been red-hot all year.

In these times, the saying goes, "there is no fever like gold fever." 

But, is there any evidence of this kind of euphoria among investors yet?

While the COT report suggests sentiment may be overstretched, let’s talk about what we’re seeing on the ground.

There’s little buzz about gold in the financial media. No bold predictions of $10K gold on magazine covers, no headlines touting it as the ultimate safe haven in an impending crisis—signals that often show up at market tops. We’re just not seeing it.

For context, in 2011, fears of currency depreciation were rampant. The covers of TIME magazine and Smart Money allow us to remember this moment. They came right at the top.

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Welcome to The 2 to 100 Club.

In this scan, we look to identify 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.

Reminder: Tonight @ 6PM ET is our LIVE Conference Call for Premium Members of ASC Research. This is where walk through the most important trends and share our best ideas to profit from the current sector rotation that is dominating these markets.

As a Premium Member, you also get complimentary access to our 12-week Mastermind. This week is all about Why Momentum Works and How To Profit From It. 

Click here to join us as a Premium Member of ASC Research and get access to tonight's LIVE video conference call, 24/7 access to Premium Trade Alerts and our 12-week LIVE Mastermind.

Momentum Week begins today!

Large Speculators haven't owned this much Gold since 2020. We have the data.

In precious metal bull markets, it's perfectly normal for Commercial Hedgers to offset their physical positions by shorting the underlying futures contracts.

We also tend to see the Speculators build massive net-long positions.

Check out the extreme Commercial Hedger net-short position in Gold and Silver futures:

Below is the 3rd ASC Mastermind Lab Course. These are special videos that will be made available throughout the duration of the 12-week course featuring conversations with professionals from across Wall Street discussing topics in their expertise. 

The theme of the first week of ASC Mastermind is focusing on defining personal objectives. So I thought I'd talk to a friend of mine who helps people reach their goals for a living: Dr. Phil Pearlman. 

Phil is the founder of The Pearl Institute, where he works directly with clients, many of whom are professional traders and investors, to improve their mental and physical health. He also writes a tremendous Substack.    

Phil's ability to tie together human psychology, mental health, and financial markets is second to none. I hope you enjoy.  

Below is the 2nd ASC Mastermind Lab Course. These are special videos that will be made available throughout the duration of the 12-week course featuring conversations with professionals from across Wall Street discussing topics in their expertise. 

With the first Mastermind class focusing on defining personal objectives, it only makes sense for me to get an advisor's perspective. That's where Stephen Weitzel comes in. 

Stephen is the Managing Partner, Reveille Wealth Management, a firm with over $1 billion in assets under management. And the things I discussed in our first class are the very things he discusses with clients every day. 

How do you identify your own time horizon and risk tolerance? Should you just buy and hold forever? What can you do to minimize drawdowns?

At the end of the day, Stephen is both managing and building wealth for his clients. And his ability to answer these questions is part of what helps him do that. 

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 September 27, 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.

When it comes to our short-squeeze universe, the best trades tend to come from the junkiest stocks. 

In late 2022, we went dumpster diving for the most beat-up and heavily shorted stocks in the market and had some big winners. We were at the depths of the bear cycle, and the charts looked terrible. They were supposed to be zeros, but they weren't.

Just look at how Carvana $CVNA has performed since we were buying it at 8.25 almost 2-years ago.

Another junky group that has been working recently is the Marine Shipper industry.

Our custom Marine Shipping Index is on the verge of reclaiming the 61.8% retracement of its prior drawdown:

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.

Below is the first ASC Mastermind Lab Course. These are special videos that will be made available throughout the duration of the 12-week course featuring conversations with professionals from across Wall Street discussing topics in their expertise. 

If you watched the first Mastermind class on Defining Personal Objectives, you heard me talk about diversification. Well, meet Chris Cain. Chris is the U.S. Quantitative Equity Strategist for Bloomberg Intelligence, a division of Bloomberg LP, and he literally studies diversification. 

Chris and I discussed mathematics behind diversification, and how diversification can impact your long-term returns more than you even know. 

Enjoy this conversation. 

Have you heard about China?

Chinese stocks just had their best week in history, following the People's Bank of China's (PBOC) announcement of rate cuts, among other stimulative actions.

In July, we talked about Copper and its base and industrial metal peers showing broad weakness. But that seems to be changing...

China is the world's largest consumer of refined copper, so base and industrial metals have benefited from the recent pivot from the PBOC.

Chinese stocks and copper futures have been positively correlated for years:

Despite the gloomy headlines the market received this summer, major stock market sectors are showing resilience across the board, with new signs of life emerging. 

A shift seems to be on the horizon.

At the moment, we are long bonds. We like bonds, and the charts tell us we are right to like bonds here, but what does the future hold?

If inflation starts ticking up again, the market usually pivots toward the reflation trade—favoring sectors like energy, small caps, and financials as rates rise. (I am not saying that this is happening. I am saying that we need to keep an eye on this.) 

Energy has not participated in the bull run this year. When we compare XLE to some of the best stocks this cycle, like XLK, the performance gap is wild.

The chart below shows XLK up roughly 40% over the trailing 12 months while XLE is negative.

Meanwhile, the rally in bonds appears to be slowing down.