The most important crop report of the year has hit.
Yes, it’s generated quite the buzz over the past few weeks, as grain markets ripped higher in anticipation.
Some observers even speculated that Friday’s report was the most important in the history of the agrarian economy.
So let’s round down, be conservative, and call it the most important crop report in 5,000 years.
Seriously, though, it was a big deal, as acreage estimates for soybeans represent the largest miss since the report's inception – or, like, ever, in history.
More importantly for traders and investors, the report brought increased volatility.
If you’re like me and prefer to sit out these kinds of days, you’re patiently waiting for the dust to settle.
Meanwhile, if you’re at all put off by the volatility of these futures contracts, I have a vehicle that promises a much smoother ride…
Let’s talk about Archer Daniels Midland $ADM, “supermarket to the world.”
The $41B commodity behemoth has more than 100 years of experience in the grain markets.
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
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.
The former 2011 highs remain front and center for gold futures – and all precious metals.
These shiny rocks will experience increased selling if gold slips back below those former highs marking the prior commodity supercycle peak.
Silver, palladium, and the Gold Mining ETF $GDX are already printing fresh lows. And new multi-month lows for the silver/gold ratio indicate dwindling risk appetite.
These aren’t the type of developments that support a sustained uptrend.
Yet this action hasn’t deterred gold bugs.
Despite every reason to sleep in and shirk any and all responsibilities, they continue to show up right on time…
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.
Something we've been working on internally is using various bottoms-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.
“This mess could turn downright ugly for the entire precious metals space if buyers don’t step in and support higher prices in palladium – and fast.”
I am many things, but “alarmist” isn't one of them. I simply find it hard to believe gold will post new all-time highs while palladium falls to fresh five-year lows.