From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Dividend Aristocrats are easily some of the most desirable investments on Wall Street. These are the names that have increased dividends for at least 25 years, providing steadily increasing income to long-term-minded shareholders.

As you can imagine, the companies making up this prestigious list are some of the most recognizable brands in the world. Coca-Cola, Walmart, and Johnson & Johnson are just a few of the household names making the cut.

Here at All Star Charts, we like to stay ahead of the curve. That's why we're turning our attention to the future aristocrats. In an effort to seek out the next generation of the cream-of-the-crop dividend plays, we're curating a list of stocks that have raised their payouts every year for five to nine years.

We call them the Young Aristocrats, and the idea is that these are "stocks that pay you to make money." Imagine if years of consistent dividend growth and high momentum and relative strength had a baby, leaving you with the best of the emerging dividend giants that are outperforming the averages.

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From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Welcome to The 2 to 100 Club.

In this scan, we look to identify 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.

Some of the best performers in recent decades – stocks like Priceline, Amazon, Netflix, Salesforce, and myriad others – would have been on this list at some point during their journey to becoming the market behemoths they are today.

When you look at the stocks in our table, you'll notice we're only focused on Technology and Growth industry groups such as Software, Semiconductors, Online...

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...

We've been obnoxiously talking about soft commodities lately.

But, it's for a good reason! And it all comes down to relative strength.

Aside from a few pockets of strength, the trends have been a mess in the broader commodity complex.

Products like Natural gas and precious metals have been hard to ignore if you're involved in the commodities markets.

There's more though. 

Orange Juice futures made a new all-time high this week and look primed to begin a new leg higher.

Let's talk about how we're playing it:

First, some context: 

Like Cocoa, Orange Juice futures have gone wild in recent years. OJ has rallied 450% in the last 5-years, while Cocoa rallied nearly as much in half of the time. 

The momentum behind products like Cocoa and...

When Junk Bond traders jump ship, I’m out of stocks.

With all the talk about credit spreads “blowing out” since early August, this is an important discussion to have right now.

We always trust the bond market. Throughout history, bonds have done an impeccable job at alerting investors about problems in risk asset markets. 

When there is stress in other markets, it shows up in fixed income first.

However, as technical analysts, we are mindful of the math that is behind some of the relationships we study and give weight to.

What if I told you that industrials have been massive underperformers during this bull market? 

The absolute price chart looks incredible. How could that be?

We call it the denominator fallacy. 

Benchmarked against the S&P 500 or Nasdaq 100, of course they are underperforming. 

We think there is a similar situation playing out for our bond market ratios right now.

The absolute chart up top looks great. The relative trend, down below, not so much.

...

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

First up is the $1.3B pet health & wellness services provider, Petco $WOOF:

We first covered Petco in June, after the retailer had its best 3-day rally in history.

With a 200% run-up in the month of May, the stock earned a few months of digestion, and that is exactly what's played out.

Last week, it rallied over 50% on the heels of earnings, sparking a new short squeeze.

With a 29% short...

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Welcome to The 2 to 100 Club.

In this scan, we look to identify 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.

Some of the best performers in recent decades – stocks like Priceline, Amazon, Netflix, Salesforce, and myriad others – would have been on this list at some point during their journey to becoming the market behemoths they are today.

When you look at the stocks in our table, you'll notice we're only focused on Technology and Growth industry groups such as Software, Semiconductors, Online...

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Last week, we outlined a short squeeze in Phathom Pharmaceuticals $PHAT, which has been working for us.

It doesn't seem like the market is finished squeezing the short sellers out of their biotechnology positions.

Today, we're discussing yet another biotech stock that has a ridiculously high days-to-cover ratio and short interest.

More importantly, the risk couldn't be more well-defined.

So, we're stepping up to the plate and taking another swing at a short squeeze.

With fall approaching us, things are beginning to change.

The weather is perfect for golfing, the Kansas City Chiefs are back to dominating the NFL, and it's the best time of the year for Natural Gas futures.

In July, we outlined asymmetric risk/reward setups in Natural Gas futures and 4 natural gas stocks.

As we expected, it has taken some time for these setups to come to fruition. 

However, the cleanest fossil fuel has carved out a textbook reversal pattern and looks poised to blast off any day now.

Here's the average monthly performance for Natural Gas futures over the past 3 decades:

Natural Gas has a tendency to rally in the fall as September and October are the two best months of the year.

The longer-term structure is also shaping up quite nicely:

Historically, we've seen demand for methane step in at this level time and again.

But these bottoms have been messy...

So instead of getting chopped up in a range, we like the monthly MACD as a mechanism for timing our entry.

This long-term...

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Our Hall of Famers list is composed of the 150 largest US-based stocks.

These stocks range from the mega-cap growth behemoths like Apple and Microsoft – with market caps in excess of $2T – to some of the new-age large-cap disruptors such as Moderna, Square, and Snap.

It has all the big names and more.

It doesn’t include ADRs or any stock not domiciled in the US. But don’t worry; we developed a separate universe for that. Click here to check it out.

The Hall of Famers is simple.

We take our list of 150 names and then apply our technical filters so the strongest stocks with the most momentum rise to the top.

Let’s dive right in and check out what these big boys are up to.

Here’s this week’s list:

*Click table to enlarge view

We filter out any laggards that are down -5% or more relative to the S&P 500 over the trailing month.

Then, we sort the remaining names by their proximity to new 52-week highs.

This leaves us with only the strongest stocks. Let’s talk about some of...

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Precious metals stocks have been ripping since Gold futures resolved a multi-decade accumulation pattern earlier this year.

But most of these stocks don't have much short interest...

We love to trade stocks with high short interest as there is a built in catalyst of forced buyers when the stock makes an upside move.

Today, we're outlining a trade for a precious metals stock with an extremely high days-to-cover ratio and short interest.

First, check out this long-term uptrend in A-Mark Precious Metals $AMRK:

There aren't many precious metals stocks that look this good...

Here's how we're trading it:

The stage is set for a strategic shift.

Since this summer, safe haven assets have been catching a bid and outperforming across the board.

Investors are paying attention to growth indicators like ISM and PMI data. Other investors are looking at CPI and paying extra-close attention to the Fed… 

Here's the US Core Inflation Rate along with the 7-10 Year Treasury Bond ETF $IEF. Since inflation peaked and rolled over in 2022, bonds have been building a massive base:

However, similar to economic growth data, inflation is a lagging indicator.

The same is true for employment.

Here's the unemployment rate along with the 2s/10s spread.

We are starting to see some pressure in the labor market, which goes hand-in-hand with rising treasury spreads.

July job openings dropped to 7.67 million, the lowest since January 2021. This marks a significant decline from the March 2022 peak of 12.2 million. 

There were only 1.1 jobs for every unemployed person, down from 2.0 last year. Major declines were seen in healthcare, government, and transportation. Voluntary quits decreased to 3.3 million...