I can’t think of a stronger trend than the dollar-yen last year. It absolutely ripped to the point we were joking everything priced in yen looked good – even gold!
But it wasn’t the only market trending higher at the time. The US dollar and interest rates also rallied together.
Today’s USD/JPY strength raises a painful question for many investors…
Will interest rates and the US Dollar Index $DXY follow?
Before we delve into the broader implications of a USD/JPY rally, let’s outline the setup for those who trade forex markets.
Check out the dollar-yen reaching its highest level since November 2022, completing a six-month consolidation:
The Technology Index made another new 52-week high on Monday.
This is becoming a habit.
Apple carries a huge weighting in that Index.
So as some people get distracted with how Apple's $2.75 Trillion market cap is now bigger than the entire Russell2000 Index, I'm more interested in how quickly Apple can get to $5 Trillion.
I think it can happen pretty soon.
Look at these massive moves in market cap that can happen in a relative short period of time.
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.
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.