From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza and Alfonso Depablos @AlfCharts
We love our bottoms-up scans here at All Star Charts. We tend to get really creative when making new universes as we want to be sure they will deliver us the best opportunities the market has to offer.
However, when it comes to our latest project, it couldn’t be any simpler!
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 stocks.
Welcome to The Junior Hall of Famers.
This scan is composed of the next 150 largest stocks by market cap, those that come after the top 150 and are thus covered by the Hall of Famers universe. Many of these names will someday graduate and join our original Hall Of Famers list. The idea here is to catch these big trends as early on as possible.
There is no need to overcomplicate things. Market cap is a quality filter at the end of the day. It only grows if price is rising. That’s good enough for us.
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.
Are you wondering whether this correction in the stock market can turn into something much more severe?
I certainly am.
As thrilled as we are to see some of these Tech and Growth stocks get hammered, the question is whether this aggressive selling will spill into other more value-oriented areas.
There are 3 main charts that we have on our radar.
The first one is in credit. If we're entering into a new bear market, or an aggressive period of high volatility, you are likely to see that stress in the bond market. If Treasuries begin to outperform High yield, it's evidence of that stress.
The next one is in High Beta vs Low Volatility stocks. This ratio tends to move very closely with the averages. If you start to see a bid in Low Volatility stocks relative to High Beta, then this correction is likely to be more severe.
And finally the Consumer Discretionary vs Staples. Similar to the High Beta / Low Vol ratio, this tends to signal rotation into more defensive areas of the market.
As is common when the stock market is moving lower, we're seeing rising options premiums. We aren't seeing any big volatility spikes yet, and $VIX is still relatively muted, but the recent rise coupled with setups that appear to be ripe for some sideways action in the coming weeks and months has me on the hunt for delta-neutral premium selling opportunities.
Today's trade is in a metals and materials stock that appears to be stuck in a year-long range that we're betting on continuing.
Check out this chart of Freeport McMoran $FCX for a visual of what we're seeing:
Markets chop sideways most of the time. This has been the reality for forex markets for much of the year.
But that’s starting to change as numerous US dollar pairs reach new 10-month highs. The dollar is taking down crucial levels while the US Dollar Index $DXY retests a year-to-date downtrend line and key former highs.
The peculiar coincidence sets up some potentially critical resolutions for these USD pairs.
If they fail, the dollar rally is likely over.
If they hold and additional USD breakouts materialize, selling pressure will intensify for many risk assets.
As of today, quite a few forex pairs are on the verge of supporting a sustained US dollar rally…
Let’s start with the second largest component of the DXY (13.6%), the US dollar-Japanese yen:
