You're finally seeing some of that defensive rotation with Utilities representing the only sector that is hitting new 6-month highs this week.

Here is a chart of Utilities relative to the S&P500, overlaid with Staples relative to S&Ps as well.

As you can see, both of these lines had been falling since 2022, because it's been a bull market.

But now that stocks have been correcting this year, you're seeing that outperformance coming from the most defensive sectors:

 We've built a proprietary scan that notifies us whenever a cryptocurrency exceeds a certain market-cap threshold for the first time. When there's an up and coming cryptocurrency, we're the first one to know about it.

This scan flags breakthrough cryptocurrencies, allowing us to capitalize on lucrative opportunities before they become mainstream.

Here's this week's crypto roundup. It's an opportunity for us to take a step back, set aside the distractions, and delve into the key charts shaping the crypto complex.

This week, I walked through Bitcoin's AVWAPs, the crypto new highs list, moving average analysis, Bitcoin derivatives, and the US dollar.

Every week, we create a Power Rankings table that lists the market-cap rank of the top 20 cryptocurrencies. This allows us to see the winners and losers as they climb the market-cap ladder.

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

Goldielocks’s soft landing is proving sticky.

Commodities are outperforming stocks and bonds. Interest rates are rising worldwide, and investors are anticipating increased inflationary pressures—not multiple rate cuts—this year.

In fact, inflation expectations are reaching levels not seen since June 2022…

Check out the Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities ETF $TIP vs. the nominal US Treasury Bond ETF $IEF ratio zoomed out twenty years:

Monster base. But I don’t think of this ratio in those terms. Instead, I use it to gauge investors’ desire for inflation protection. 

The perceived need to take action against inflation is heading back toward the upper bounds of a 15-year range, marked by the 2022 high and the end of the prior commodity supercycle in 2011.

Investors bracing for higher inflation makes sense as global yields rise and commodities climb.

Yet over the trailing three...

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Welcome to The Junior International Hall of Famers.

With the goal of finding more bullish setups, we have decided to expand one of our favorite scans and broaden our regular coverage of the largest US-listed international stocks, or ADRs.

This scan is composed of the next 100 largest stocks by market cap, those that come after the top 100 and are thus covered by the International Hall of Famers universe.

Many of these names will someday graduate and join our original International Hall Of Famers list. The idea here is to catch these big trends as early on as possible.

Let's dive right in and check out what these future big boys are up to.

This is our Junior International Hall of Famers list:

Click table to enlarge view

In today's Daily Digest, we'll review:

1. New position in XRT.
2. No adjustments are needed today.
3. No positions have exited since the last report.
4. Current status of open campaigns.

Let's dig in!

Island Reversals are few and far between. They don't show up very often.

But when they do....look out!

Here's Meta, the parent company of Faceplant, I mean Facebook, losing a few hundred billion dollars in value since yesterday's close.

I'll say that again, "Losing a few hundred billion dollars in value"....overnight!

From the Desk of Steve Strazza and Alfonso Depablos

The only insider transaction on today’s list is a Form 4 filing by William C. Rhodes.

Rhodes reported the acquisition of 50,000 shares of Regions Financial Corporation $RF at a total cost of approximately $1 million.

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

Did you see the candlestick in the Mexican peso last Friday?

It was all wick!

The way I learned it, you want to trade in the opposite direction of blow-offs like this. 

That means betting on a stronger peso and an end to the stock market correction.

Check out the XXXL lower shadow in the Mexican peso futures (denominated in USD):

Last Friday’s intraday swing spanned six percent and registered the highest single-day ATR reading since March 2020.

Despite the earth-shattering volatility, the bulls prevailed. That’s the critical lesson from last week’s action: The bulls immediately repaired the damage. 

That trend will likely continue in the coming weeks and months. If it does, US stocks, especially the materials sector, will resume their uptrend.

Check out the historically positive correlation between the Mexican peso and the Materials Sector ETF $XLB:

...

The hangover from the massive ramp in NVIDIA $NVDA is shown pretty clearly in the current premiums in out-of-the-money options.

The big moves -- in both directions -- are still fresh memories for all participants in this stock over the past several months.

This sets up an opportunity to put on a high-probability bet that the range in $NVDA will consolidate a bit here.