This is the video recording of the March 2023 Mid-month Conference Call.

Buyers taking control of a market heading into the weekend exude confidence. And Gold bugs have done it two weeks in a row now and counting, as they reclaimed the former 2011 highs.

So what’s next for precious metals?

Well, if Gold priced in other major currencies is any indication (which I think it is), it looks like new all-time highs.

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.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza.

Welcome back to Under the Hood, where we're covering all the action for the week ended March 17, 2023. This report is published bi-weekly and rotated 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.

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

Precious Metals are back on track, with Gold leading the way.

Gold bugs closed out last week with another strong showing, absorbing overhead supply at a critical level – the former 2011 highs.

With momentum on their side, let’s see how precious metal bulls are faring in other areas of the world.

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

Due to the recent bank failures, this week has been all about the financial sector and the selling pressure taking place there.

However, the price action for energy stocks has been even worse by some measures.

The Energy Sector SPDR $XLE is on pace to fall -6.8% this week, while the Financials Sector SPDR is only lower by about -5.8%.

When we look at energy futures, the outlook only worsens with crude oil registering its largest weekly loss since trading into negative territory in April 2020.

So, what does this all mean for the bull market in energy?

The sector has been so resilient, showing steady leadership for several years now. Is it all over?

Maybe not, but there is some serious damage that will require immediate repair work.

Let's take a look at it.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza and Alfonso Depablos @AlfCharts

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:

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Markets have been on the ropes since late last week when a Silicon Valley Bank press release sparked a run on regional banks. 

As Wall Street scrambles to reprice the financial sector -- for what, up until last week, were unforeseen risks -- selling pressure and panic is spreading to Europe and other parts of the world.

Regulators are taking action. And the Fed is taking notice as expectations for future rate hikes plummet.

While Bitcoin and tech stocks have performed exceptionally well through the volatility, cyclical stocks and commodities have been hit hard, with energy and the CRB Index breaking to new lows this week.

What are we to make of all this? Should we be concerned?

Is the regional banking crisis a contained event, or is it about to send reverberations through the broader market and economy? 

Whenever we have questions like these, the first place we want to look is the bond market. 

Any signs of stress tend to show up there first.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Welcome to the 2 to 100 Club.

As many of you know, something we've been working on internally is using 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.

These are the registration details for our Live Mid-month Conference Call for Premium Members of All Star Charts.

Our Live Call will be held on Monday March 20th at 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 night:

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.