From the Desk of Ian Culley @Ianculley

Whether you’re looking across the curve or around the world, interest rates continue to rise.

Benchmark rates in Germany, France, Spain, and Portugal hit fresh multi-year highs last week. Interestingly, the US 10-year yield did not. And neither did the two-, 5-, or 30-year yields.

I’m not claiming US yields have put in a lower high. It’s far too early to assume that. A downside resolution below last month’s pivot lows needs to materialize before making that claim.

Nevertheless, the lack of confirmation from US interest rates is intriguing, especially as European yields turn lower this week.

Check out the triple-pane chart of Developed European 10-year yields (Germany, France, and Spain):

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 our January 3rd Monthly Charts Live Strategy Session

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

I’m not big into seasonality.

I pay attention to it, of course. But it’s not in my top three data points after price. 

Don’t get me wrong, seasonality brings context and enhances awareness of any given market – which should be a priority for any trader or investor.

I have multiple almanacs on my desk, including the Stock Trader’s Almanac by Jeff Hirsch and Christopher Mistal and the Spectra Markets Trader Handbook and Almanac by Brent Donnelly and Justin Ross.

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 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.

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

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 which you can check out here.

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:

From the Desk of Ian Culley @Ianculley

Bonds have endured quite the year.

Perhaps 2022 marks the worst on record, or at least the past 100 years. Nevertheless, we’ve all witnessed extraordinary selling pressure in what has historically acted as a safe-haven asset. 

Despite the dismal returns and destruction of the traditional 60/40 portfolio, the bond market continues to instill valuable lessons in those willing to listen and learn.

Check out these three poignant reminders courtesy of the bond market…

Trends Persist

It’s an oldie but a goodie. And interest rates have refused to let us forget that trends persist.

The chart below highlights the five-, 10-, and 30-year US Treasury yields finding support at their respective year-to-date trendlines and pivot highs from the spring.

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

So long, 2022. It’s been real.

With only a few trading hours left in the year, I’m ready to turn the page. I’m sure plenty of you can relate.

In the spirit of looking ahead to a bright and beautiful 2023, I want to share seven of my favorite commodity charts for January.

No grand thesis, just seven potential setups that have my attention heading into the new year.

1. Sugar

Sugar futures print a potential failed breakout after coiling within a tight range since the summer of 2021: The lack of upside follow-through accompanied by a bearish momentum divergence warrants caution.

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

Have you checked out our new Gold Report?

We run through nearly 4o charts, breaking down the key levels and intermarket relationships, suggesting Gold could hit 5,000.

In this update, I’m going to share two of my favorite charts. 

Plus, I’ll reveal one mining stock setting up for a buy signal.

First, Gold outside the US presents a very different picture.

Yes, the USD dominates global trade. And yes, we want to witness a break to fresh all-time highs priced in US dollars. But when we look around the world at other major currencies, Gold has already broken out!

This is what Gold looks like when we remove the US dollar bias: