While the bull market in U.S. Stocks continues to be discovered by all the latecomers here in the States, the strength in International stocks continues unabated. Some of the strongest moves have been happening beyond our shores.

Today's trade leverages cheap options volatility for an attempted run back towards all-time highs and beyond.

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

Buyers are holding the line. 

The former 2011 highs remain front and center for gold futures – and all precious metals.

These shiny rocks will experience increased selling if gold slips back below those former highs marking the prior commodity supercycle peak. 

Silver, palladium, and the Gold Mining ETF $GDX are already printing fresh lows. And new multi-month lows for the silver/gold ratio indicate dwindling risk appetite.

These aren’t the type of developments that support a sustained uptrend.

Yet this action hasn’t deterred gold bugs.

Despite every reason to sleep in and shirk any and all responsibilities, they continue to show up right on time…

Even on Monday!

Check out the monthly gold chart:

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

The most significant transaction on today's list comes in a Form 4 filing by Carl Icahn.

Icahn revealed a purchase of $531,478 in Southwest Gas Holdings $SWX.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

It's a quiet morning so far for the market.

We'll see how the indices handle their respective moving averages this week.

What if we don't own enough Bitcoin?

Have you thought about that?

What if BTC is trading back above those Summer 2021 lows?

What is the risk of NOT owning enough Bitcoin?

That's what I think about.

Here's what the chart of BTC looks like as all that former support throughout 2021 has turned into resistance in 2023:

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 Ian Culley @IanCulley

The commodity supercycle will not be televised.

Jim Cramer will not provide commentary on cotton, cattle, and/or the crack spread.

Hollywood will not make a movie on crude oil trading below zero.

Nor will jeera futures have their turn in the limelight.  

That doesn’t mean we should plug in, turn on and cop out.

Instead, let’s focus on the charts…

Here’s the S&P 500 versus the CRB Index, a simple stocks/commodities ratio:

It’s been commodities over stocks since crude traded below zero in the spring of 2020.

Yes, the correction favoring stocks off the 2022 lows has been significant.

But it’s retreating from a logical confluence of potential resistance – a multi-year downtrend line and a key retracement level. 

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

Investors are bidding up growth names.

Perhaps it comes as a surprise, given elevated interest rates.

It did catch me off guard, but it hasn’t stopped me from taking advantage of the developing trend.

I’m not the only one noting the peculiar divergence between rates and tech stocks.

Todd Gordon cited a persistent rise in rates as a potential headwind for the growth trade during Friday’s episode of The Morning Show.

(If you haven’t watched his segment, check it out here.)

One of the charts he shared on the subject has also been on my radar…

Here’s the overlay chart of the US 10-year yield and the Small-Cap Value ETF (IWO) relative to the  Small-Cap Growth ETF (IWN):

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 Kimmy Sokoloff

It was a down week for the indices, which was warranted.

We'll see if we flag here and head higher or trend down to the 21-day moving averages.

$DIA and $IWM are below their 21-day moving averages, while $SPY and $QQQ are not.

Big cap tech has gotten all the attention in this current bull market rally, and deservedly so. There have been some truly massive gains there.

But as we know from history, the lifeblood of sustained bull markets is sector rotation. And we're seeing smaller caps begin to play catch up to their big brothers.

Today's trade is in a software name that has quietly been rallying since getting wrecked after a disappointing earnings report last November.

But with a bullish reversal pattern off those November lows, we feel the time is right for this quiet rally to get loud.