Expert technical analysis of financial markets by JC Parets
From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley
“Looks like cocoa and sugar are poised to break out.”
That’s the first message I saw on my phone this morning as traders across the US were preparing for the upcoming session.
But I wasn’t ready to get behind a tactical move in either cocoa or sugar.
Instead, my full attention rests with one commodity on the precipice of an explosive rally…
From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley
I bought bonds last December and again in March.
I thought it was time to bring these beaten-down assets back into the fold as US Treasuries printed fresh six-month highs.
But I was wrong.
Fast-forward to today, and the downtrend for bonds remains intact.
And those false breakouts last spring have led to fresh breakdowns as we head into the fall.
The 10- and 30-year futures are flashing sell signals as they undercut their respective March pivot lows.
Now, the shorter end of the curve is doing the same.
From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza
When investing in the stock market, we always want to approach it as “a market of stocks.”
Regardless of the environment, there are always stocks showing leadership and trending higher.
We may have to look harder to identify them depending on current market conditions. But there are always stocks that are going up.
The same can be said for weak stocks. Regardless of the environment, there are always stocks that are going down, too.
We already have multiple scans focusing on stocks making all-time highs, such as Hall of Famers, Minor Leaguers, and the 2 to 100 Club.
We filter these universes for stocks that are exhibiting the best momentum and relative strength characteristics.
Clearly, we spend a lot of time identifying and writing about leading stocks every week, via multiple reports.
Now, we’re also highlighting lagging stocks on a recurring basis.
From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley
The US dollar sits atop the heap.
Major global currencies, including the Australian dollar, the New Zealand dollar, the Japanese yen, the Canadian dollar, and the Singapore dollar, are limping lower against the greenback.
The long list could grow in coming sessions as momentum builds behind a sustained USD advance.
While the evidence suggests we lean in that direction, I always prepare to take the other side of a trade if and when the data changes.
So, what’s the best way to play a falling dollar?
From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza.
Welcome back to Under the Hood, where we’ll cover all the action for the week ended August 4, 2023. This report is published bi-weekly and rotated with The Minor Leaguers.
What we do here is analyze the most popular stocks during the week and find opportunities to either join in and ride these momentum names higher, or fade the crowd and bet against them.
We use a variety of sources to generate the list of most popular names.
There are so many new data sources available that all we need to do is organize and curate them in a way that shows us exactly what we want: a list of stocks that are seeing an unusual increase in investor interest.
Click here for a behind-the-scenes look at our process.
Whether we’re measuring increasing interest based on large institutional purchases, unusual options activity, or simply our proprietary lists of trending tickers, there’s a lot of overlap.
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.
We also weed out hedging activity and ensure there are no offsetting trades that either neutralize or cap the risk on these unusual options trades.
What remains is a list of stocks that large financial institutions are putting big money behind.
And they’re doing so for one reason only: because they think the stock is about to move in their direction and make them a pretty penny.
Then we flip through our list of stocks flashing unusual activity and pick the best setups using many of the same technical filters we do for our other scans.
And, just like that, we’ll follow the money flow and fatten our own pockets along with some of the world’s most powerful financial institutions.
From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley
Gold is hanging on for dear life.
Rising interest rates and a strengthening dollar create formidable headwinds for the shiny yellow rock.
I remain optimistic for the entire precious metals space, but hope is not a viable trading strategy – especially if gold undercuts its 2011 highs.
Some gold bugs may find it difficult to accept, but gold’s a short if and when it decisively closes below its prior commodity supercycle peak.
And it’s trading back at those former highs today…
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.
