From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

If it wasn't at the very top of the list, the Japanese yen was certainly among the best shorts of 2022.

But the times they are a-changin’.

King Dollar has ducked down a dark alley.

And it doesn't take a weatherman to tell us to buy the yen.

Here are Japanese yen futures carving out a year-long base following fresh 30-year lows:

I like buying strength on a breakout of this bottoming formation. But the yen has quite a way to travel before completing this possible double bottom. 

I don’t want to miss those potential gains, so let’s get tactical by taking a closer look… 

Check out the daily chart with a Fibonacci retracement framing the 2023 decline:

I’m long Japanese yen futures against 0.7075 (the 38....

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.

And it doesn't have to be a Russell component — it can be any US-listed equity. With participation expanding around the globe, we want all those ADRs in our universe.

The same price and liquidity filters are applied. Then, as always, we sort by proximity to new highs in order to...

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

I’ve had palladium on my mind for a while – long before gold posted a new all-time high.

Why palladium?

It all started with an extreme Commitment of Traders (COT) profile…

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...

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

Metals are beginning to shine.

Gold’s new all-time high has captivated the masses. But all that glitters isn’t gold.

In fact, base and industrial metals are also providing ample trading opportunities.

Check out ol’ Dr. Copper challenging near-term resistance:

A decisive close above 3.91 set the path of least resistance toward the year-to-date highs at approximately 4.25.

It’s difficult to imagine a more bullish scenario for global equities aside from a continued expansion in the new highs list.

As much as I enjoy trading futures, I can’t ignore the money flowing into stocks.

If the expansion in new highs isn’t enough, stocks outperforming commodities should grab your attention.

With that in...

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

The bond market is turning the page. 

Our long US Treasury trades are finally working. And investors are reaching for high-yield debt.

On the surface, it’s a positive shift for the hardest-hit markets in 2022. 

But it also sends a clear message to stock market investors…

Buy!

Credit spreads are contracting as the iShares High Yield Corporate Bond ETF $HYG trades at fresh 52-week highs relative to the iShares 3-7yr Treasury Bond ETF $IEI:

It’s classic bull market behavior.

But that’s not all…

The newest junk bonds to hit the street are catching higher on an absolute basis. 

Check out the Fallen Angel High Yield Bond ETF $ANGL:

Stocks have a strong tendency for positive gains when investors are...

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

Bing Crosby dreamed of a White Christmas.

Who hasn’t?

Growing up, I wished for a white Christmas every year. I knew snow was a stretch living in Florida. But a kid can dream… 

This season, stock market bulls hope for quite a different, serene vision: a weaker dollar.

Based on the charts, they might just get their wish.

Check out the updated US Dollar Index $DXY chart:

DXY has respected key retracement levels on the way up and down over the past six months. The repeated touches add to my conviction in these levels.

Today’s breakdown below 102.54 suggests further weakness toward the year-to-date lows. A fall to those former lows would undoubtedly stir tailwinds for global equities, producing joy and cheer among investors worldwide.

The 102 area also carries...

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.

By adding our technical analysis to the mix,...

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.

Welcome to the Short Report.

We...

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

Last week’s fresh all-time highs left many gold bugs empty-hearted. 

The market continues to torment precious metal bulls as they wonder what could have been.

But hopes and dreams aren’t a viable strategy.

The only “what if” that concerns me is whether the yellow metal flashed a failed breakout.

Or are we simply dealing with a a premature move?

Let’s dig in…

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...

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza.

Welcome back to Under the Hood, where we'll cover all the action for the week ended December 8, 2023. 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.

Click here for a behind-the-scenes look at our process.

Whether we’re measuring increasing interest based on large institutional purchases, unusual...