We've adjusted a position in the Paid-to-Play portfolio today:

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

The stars have not aligned for gold bugs.

Rates and the US dollar are both catching higher – the opposite of what would likely ignite a precious metals rally.

Yet gold continues to hold above its former 2011 highs! 

Despite these setbacks, my bias remains bullish for gold.

But my desire to own the strongest assets is shifting actionable trade setups toward more profitable opportunities…

Let’s start at the top: the underlying uptrend in interest rates. 

Check out the US 10-year yield:

The 10-year has yet to resolve higher from this basing formation. Nevertheless, the uptrend remains intact as the market has not given investors any reason to bet on lower yields.

As long as yields continue to rise, procyclical areas of the market will offer better returns.

The overlay chart of the 10-year yield and crude oil versus gold tells the story:

Crude oil outperforms gold as rates rise (no wonder I keep finding quality long setups in energy names), while gold shines as rates fall.

Gold can catch higher along with yields. But...

The largest insider transaction on today’s list comes in a Form 4 filing by Karin Rotem-Wildeman, Chief Research & Development Officer for Keurig Dr Pepper $KDP.

Rotem-Wildeman reported a purchase of KDP shares worth roughly $1.8 million.

Remember in the back half of last year, when virtually everything was working EXCEPT for Tech stocks?

Well a funny thing happened early in 2023, money rotated into Tech and other Large-cap Growth.

These Tech stocks did so well, that people who are bad at math convinced themselves, and others around them, that it was only 5 or 7 stocks going up.

That was hilarious.

And while it definitely wasn't just 7 stocks, but thousands of stocks ripping in your face all year, Technology was certainly the leader along the way, particularly on a market-cap weighted basis.

But that relative strength has been rolling over the past few months as momentum has also diverged negatively.

Doesn't that make perfect sense ...

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

Well, late in the afternoon on Friday the markets took a nosedive.

We'll see how we close this week and whether we stay below resistance levels on the indices.

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.

It took most investors over a year to realize stocks had been in a bull market that whole time.

And now that, "breadth is finally improving" and, "the recession isn't coming", you get the classic rug pull and rotation into defensive sectors.

We held our August Monthly Strategy Session Wednesday night. Premium Members can access and rewatch it here.

Non-members can get a quick recap of the call simply by reading this post each month.

By focusing on long-term, monthly charts, the idea is to take a step back and put things into the context of their structural trends. This is easily one of our most valuable exercises as it forces us to put aside the day-to-day noise and simply examine markets from a “big-picture” point of view.

With that as our backdrop, let’s dive right in and discuss three of the most important charts and/or themes from this month’s call.

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 @IanCulley

It’s commodities over bonds.

In fact, we’re now in an everything-over-bonds environment as rates continue to rise. 

Looking for an uptrend?

Just place US Treasury bonds or the Japanese yen in the denominator, and voila!  

I consider the commodity-versus-bonds ratio one of if not the most important high-level intermarket ratio in our deck.

Why? Because it reveals the inflationary backdrop that colors the entire market,  determining secular leadership between asset classes and US stocks. 

And it’s hinting at the next trend in relative strength…

Check out the commodity-versus-bond ratio, as measured by the relationship between the CRB Index and 30-year Treasury bond futures:

Notice the ratio peaked in 2008 during the Global Financial Crisis and turned lower until the pandemic selloff of 2020. 

Disinflation...

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

We got a little reprieve from the selling today.

We'll see how the indices handle their respective resistance levels.

The next new position in our Paid-to-Play portfolio is: