From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza.

Welcome back to Under the Hood, where we'll cover all the action for the two weeks ended April 26, 2024. This report is published bi-weekly, in rotation 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.

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.

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

Natural gas futures are due for a pop.

It might sound silly as the widow-maker is falling back toward its mid-1990s lows.

But this is a logical level to witness a sustained rally. Especially when you consider previous cycles and where Natural Gas is trading relative to crude…

Earlier this week, JC mentioned the crude oil vs. natural gas ratio during an internal strategy session.

He tracked this relationship when he day-traded natty gas, using it as a mean reversion indicator.

Fast-forward to today, and the crude-to-natural-gas ratio is retreating from its highest level in more than a decade.

The last time the ratio hit these levels, natural gas futures ripped 225% in less than two years. 

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

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

Goldielocks’s soft landing is proving sticky.

Commodities are outperforming stocks and bonds. Interest rates are rising worldwide, and investors are anticipating increased inflationary pressures—not multiple rate cuts—this year.

In fact, inflation expectations are reaching levels not seen since June 2022…

Check out the Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities ETF $TIP vs. the nominal US Treasury Bond ETF $IEF ratio zoomed out twenty years:

Monster base. But I don’t think of this ratio in those terms. Instead, I use it to gauge investors’ desire for inflation protection. 

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Welcome to The Junior International Hall of Famers.

With the goal of finding more bullish setups, we have decided to expand one of our favorite scans and broaden our regular coverage of the largest US-listed international stocks, or ADRs.

This scan is composed of the next 100 largest stocks by market cap, those that come after the top 100 and are thus covered by the International Hall of Famers universe.

Many of these names will someday graduate and join our original International Hall Of Famers list. The idea here is to catch these big trends as early on as possible.

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

This is our Junior International Hall of Famers list:

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Welcome to The 2 to 100 Club.

As most of you know, we use various bottom-up tools and scans to complement our top-down approach.

It's really been working for us!

One way we're doing this is by identifying 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.

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

Did you see the candlestick in the Mexican peso last Friday?

It was all wick!

The way I learned it, you want to trade in the opposite direction of blow-offs like this. 

That means betting on a stronger peso and an end to the stock market correction.

Check out the XXXL lower shadow in the Mexican peso futures (denominated in USD):

Last Friday’s intraday swing spanned six percent and registered the highest single-day ATR reading since March 2020.

Despite the earth-shattering volatility, the bulls prevailed. That’s the critical lesson from last week’s action: The bulls immediately repaired the damage. 

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Welcome to The Minor Leaguers.

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 now, a company must have a market cap between $1 and $4B.

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

Investors are dropping gold and silver like they’re hot.

But don’t let the sellers push you toward the exit.

It might look ugly, but a corrective period following gold’s vertical rally to our initial target sounds about right.

Plus, three of our current long positions – Harmony $HMY, Wheaton $WPM, and Kinross $KGC – posted new 52-week highs Thursday. 

I expect the new highs list to expand as gold and silver work through overhead supply in the coming months.

Instead of sweating today’s selling pressure, I’m placing orders to buy the following two mining stocks on a breakout…

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

The media is showering gold and precious metals with attention.

I get it. New all-time highs capture eyes. 

But you can’t leave copper and base metals out of the story…

Copper is ripping to its highest level in almost two years, posting a 15% year-to-date gain:

For perspective, the S&P 500 is up less than 5% since January 1.

Our next profit target of roughly 4.85 is now in focus. A decisive break above this new objective sends copper toward new all-time highs and the psychologically important five-dollar level.  

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