From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

Let everyone grumble over the Japanese yen.

I get it. The yen was cast as the villain decades ago, and something or someone must take the blame for the VIX hitting 65 earlier this week.

While I prefer to point my finger at the preceding low-volatility environment, the November election, and potential rate cuts, the yen certainly played a part. 

But the real question isn’t who, what, when, where, or why. 

Instead, every investor wants to know…Was that it? 

Is the selloff over?

I think the worst is behind us. 

Here’s why…

Check out the USD/JPY chart with a 200-day simple moving average in bright blue (with the percentage above or below the long-term average in the lower pane):

In many ways the yen carry trade is a play on interest rates.

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.

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 August 2, 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 Ian Culley @IanCulley

Give the bears a pass. 

Precious metals and the companies that mine the rocks are seeing red. The new lows list is expanding. And breakouts are failing. 

I don’t want to step in front of that broadening weakness.

Instead, it’s time to protect profits and cut losers. Especially those losers printing multi-year lows…

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

Aside from gold’s new all-time highs, commodities look rough.

Natty gas is falling below two bucks. Copper is retesting four. And corn is rolling to its lowest level since 2020.

But of all the vulnerable commodities contracts, only one area stands out as a viable short: cattle.

Feeder cattle futures closed below 250 this afternoon, triggering a sell signal:

Notice the 14-day RSI led price by registering a new multi-month low ahead of today’s breakdown. The waning momentum speaks to weakening demand and the possibility of a swift move lower.  

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

US Treasuries are sticking a bullish reversal – an admirable feat following an unforgettable selloff.

If you aren’t buying bonds yet, it’s time to reconsider.

Here's the US T-Bond ETF $TLT trading above a rising 200-day moving average as it violates a multi-year downtrend line:

These are the early signs of a trend reversal.

Now, bond bulls want to witness the 14-week RSI post fresh multi-year highs. (We may see such a print following today’s action.)

Heading into the close, the 30-year T-bond is registering its largest one-week rate of change since spring 2020. And on a more tactical time frame, the 14-day RSI is reaching overbought conditions. 

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

Remember when anything priced in yen was trending higher?

It wasn’t too long ago that if you were looking for an uptrend, all you had to do was throw the yen in the denominator, and voila.

Just last month, the dollar hit a new 34-year high against the yen—levels not seen since the 1980s.

But the tables are turning in favor of the Japanese currency.  

While most central banks are either cutting interest rates or considering future rate cuts, the Bank of Japan (BOJ) is hiking—a policy shift that puts a bid beneath the yen…

A couple of months ago, I highlighted buying yen futures above .6500.

Fast forward to today, and I’ve adjusted the entry-level to the former 2022 and 2023 lows at approximately .6625:

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 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.

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.

Nowadays, to make the cut for our Minor Leaguers list, a company must have a market cap between $1 and $4B.

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

Perhaps gold and silver are stuck beneath overhead supply. 

But that’s not stopping mining stocks from hitting new highs…