From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza and Alfonso Depablos @AlfCharts

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:

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

I started at the top last week, laying out my bullish energy thesis with five charts.

Energy commodities are reclaiming critical levels. They’re outperforming their alternatives. And buyers continue to support a healthy demand for crude oil distillates.

What’s not to like?

Today, I’m drilling down to individual stocks, highlighting five trade setups I didn’t cover in last Wednesday’s What the FICC episode…

And these stocks look ready to rip!

First up is oil services. I like this group of stocks because the oil services ETFs $OIH and $XES are the strongest among industry groups.

Here’s Schlumberger LTD. $SLB, the $81B behemoth:

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

FOMC meeting?

No worry, beef curry!

The markets barely flinched after the Fed raised interest rates – again. 

Honestly, I didn’t tune in to the press conference. I prefer to focus on the tape.

So you won’t get a rundown of Jerome Powell’s forward guidance, or lack thereof, from me.

I can only relay the information provided by the market.  

Obviously, the rising-rate environment remains intact amid sustained inflationary pressures – “higher for longer.”

We can all agree on that.

The true value from Wednesday’s events resides beneath the headlines…

Investors are adjusting to a new rising-rate regime as they accept the unavoidable: inflation.

The US 10-year breakeven inflation rate is shaping up as a potential “not a top” formation:

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza and Alfonso Depablos @AlfCharts

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

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 Ian Culley @IanCulley

The US dollar isn’t going down without a fight.

Investors weren’t given much time to celebrate the breakdown as it quickly turned into a potential failed breakdown. 

Before we get ahead of ourselves, it could simply turn into a hard retest.

It happens all the time.

So let’s check the charts…

The US Dollar Index $DXY is trading back above a critical shelf of former lows:

As long as it’s above that level – let’s call it 101 – the odds of a failed move increase.

On the other hand, price could chop sideways for longer than anyone cares to believe.

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

Here comes the Fed.

Another FOMC decision is upon us.

But the market has the central bank’s number this time, or so it seems.

The fed fund futures are pricing in an almost certain chance we’ll see a 25-basis-point rate hike come Wednesday.

With general consensus running at all-time highs, the focus will shift toward Jerome Powell’s words, basically the Fed’s forward guidance.

I won’t tune in to that press conference.

What I will do is monitor price.

When it comes to precious metals I’m following absolute trends, as usual, but I’m also tracking these two critical relative trends…

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.

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza.

Welcome back to Under the Hood, where we'll cover all the action for the week ended July 21, 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.

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.

Here’s this week’s list:

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

Investors hate commodities – especially energy. 

I don’t blame them. 

Most energy stocks and commodities have failed to provide the best opportunities for the average market participant.

In fact, they’ve been an absolute dumpster fire compared to high-flying tech names for almost a decade. 

But everything changed following the 2020 sell-off.

Commodities flipped the script, outperforming bonds and stocks. Long-forgotten energy names worked their way back in the conversation as the energy sector taught a masterclass in relative strength.

This story isn’t finished – not yet!

One glance at the market’s year-to-date performance reveals an explosive tech rally that’s managed to erase the past two years from our collective memory.

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza and Alfonso Depablos @AlfCharts

We love our bottoms-up scans here at All Star Charts. We tend to get really creative when making new universes as we want to be sure they will deliver us the best opportunities the market has to offer.

However, when it comes to our latest project, it couldn't be any simpler!

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 stocks.

Welcome to The Junior Hall of Famers.

This scan is composed of the next 150 largest stocks by market cap, those that come after the top 150 and are thus covered by the Hall of Famers universe. Many of these names will someday graduate and join our original Hall Of Famers list. The idea here is to catch these big trends as early on as possible.

There is no need to overcomplicate things. Market cap is a quality filter at the end of the day. It only grows if price is rising. That's good enough for us.