Inflation has peaked!

Or so I’ve been told… 

Rates are rolling over, undercutting their June highs from last year. High-yield debt, including emerging-market bonds, is catching a bid.

And major commodity indexes are on the verge of breaking down.

That all sounds logical to me.

But just because inflation might begin to ease doesn’t mean I’m taking a bearish stance on inflationary assets, especially commodities.

As crazy as that may seem,  these next four charts support my case…

Check out the long-term chart of gold futures overlaid with copper:

These metals are in the process of carving out decade-long bases.

What do the movies The Wizard of Oz and The Matrix have in common? The answer is that they both are stories about artificial intelligence.  The Wizard of Oz is one of the earliest examples of this in popular culture, with the philosophical question of what types of AI matter most - was it the Scarecrow, who needed brains (computational power), or the Tin Man, who needed heart (the emotional intelligence to understand us)? 

Thanks to the efforts of early pioneers in the field like Alan Turing in the 1950s, who helped address and begin work on these problems, we can fast forward 70 years and marvel at contemporary companies like OpenAI, that have solved many of those initial challenges.  

Here at All Star Charts, we’re more old school – but we’re not outdated.  We know that the foundations of technical analysis are predicated on the study of behavioral science, and how biases like price anchoring, fear, and greed create repeatable patterns we can take advantage of. 

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 Ian Culley

It’s impossible to ignore – investors are reaching for risk.

Biotech stocks are catching higher. Copper futures are working on their tenth up-day in a row. Even the Emerging Market HY Bond ETF $EMHY is breaking to 7-month highs as it completes a multi-month base. 

And don’t forget about Silver! Gold’s crazy cousin has proven by far the best-performing asset since the US dollar peaked last fall. Strength among these market areas indicates a healthy risk appetite.

I can’t overlook these signs of a constructive bottoming process, especially considering the next chart…

Check out the Emerging Market Bond ETF $EMB relative to the US Treasuries ETF $IEF:

There’s plenty to unpack here…

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.

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

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

Perhaps you’ve noticed that I don’t use moving averages.

For starters, I don’t like the way they look.

They muddy the pristine waters of price. And if I can't pick up on the underlying trend by looking at price action, then god help me.

Regardless, I do my best to stay open-minded. Everyone has their own process. Mine works for me, but that doesn’t make it superior by any stretch.

So, when Grant @GrantHawkridge dropped a US Dollar Index $DXY moving average crossover study in our analyst Slack chat last weekend, I couldn’t resist.

It wasn’t because it highlighted the “death cross” (when a 50-day moving average falls below a longer-term 200-day average), which always stirs a great deal of excitement.

Nor was it what his study suggests for the dollar in the coming weeks and quarters. 

Rather, it’s what it implies for US stocks.

Check out the chart of the DXY with a 50-day (blue line) and a 200-day simple moving average (red line):

It's the weekly Gold Rush!

As gold futures approach a significant area of overhead supply, we cover the most important charts in the space.

Check it out...

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 Ian Culley @IanCulley

The NYSE might be closed today, but futures markets are open.

And while the volume remains low during US trading hours, it hasn’t stopped Gold futures from revisiting a critical level.

Gold currently challenges a price level engrained in goldbugs’ minds worldwide…

The prior commodity supercycle peak!

Check out the chart of Gold futures:

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Welcome to our latest Minor Leaguers report.

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

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.