Crude oil is setting up for a big move, and almost nobody is paying attention. In fact, sentiment in the energy trade couldn’t be more bearish right now. Everyone hates it, everyone.
As Strazza said on our call yesterday, “Even Warren Buffett is losing money on this one.” That’s the vibe.
XLE keeps dropping, the bearish sentiment intensifies, yet producers are stepping in and buying. That’s a bullish signal if I’ve ever seen one.
There are plenty of reasons to start liking energy here, especially when headlines like these are flying under the radar of most U.S. investors.
Sure, this crisis might trigger a short term pop, but I’m not in it for a flash move, I’m looking for a trend.
And the pieces for a sustainable breakout are falling into place.
Let’s talk about seasonality. Most people think energy’s best season is summer. Makes sense, right? But the data tells a different story. Energy peaks in the summer, then drifts into bearish seasonals, until now.
The best short squeezes happen when sentiment is thoroughly washed out, and it's difficult to picture a scenario where things can get worse.
This is the playbook we've followed for some of our best trades this cycle. Just look at how we nailed the bottoms in Carvana and Coinbase in late 2022.
We think Walgreens Boots Alliance is setting up for a similar face-ripping rally like those mentioned above, and here's why:
Walgreens Boots Alliance was added to the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) in 2018 and replaced General Electric. Less than 6 years later and over 60% lower, the eggheads at S&P Dow Jones Indices decided to give WBA the boot.
This removal coincided with the resolution of a multi-decade distribution pattern and an additional 60% downside in the following months.
President-elect Donald Trump rang the bell at the New York Stock Exchange this week, and it was reminiscent of the times when Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush went to the NYSE years ago.
The infamous Reagan quote, "We're going to turn the bull loose," immediately came to mind.
Considering that, it seems appropriate to talk about bulls today because of their positive correlation to economic growth.
Live cattle futures and bond yields have danced together for decades:
As you can see, cattle futures and bond yields are structurally similar but sometimes diverge from one another. In the lower pane, we've included the 200-day rolling correlation to highlight the past (and current) divergences in price.
The biggest problem with correlation analysis is that it doesn't tell us which direction the lines will likely go next.
However, the primary trends have been higher since the 2020 low, and the odds favor that the primary uptrends will eventually reassert themselves.
And we think that's currently underway, with live cattle futures closing this week at the highest price in history.
Speculative technology stocks have been mooning in recent weeks. Many of these stocks have rallied over 100% in the last month alone.
Today, we're outlining a technology stock that rallied 700% in half a year after pivoting from blockchain infrastructure to high-performance computing. In other words, they pivoted from crypto to AI.
After consolidating for over a year, the stock put the finishing touches on a textbook basing pattern last week and is beginning a fresh leg higher.
But it's not just the chart that has us excited... the short sellers have gotten way too greedy, and we're going to exploit their weakness.
The New York Stock Exchange held its annual Tree Lighting Event this week. It was spectacular, as always.
But we're not here to talk about pine trees or LED lights. We're here to talk about commodities.
The NYSE has an array of vehicles to trade, most being equities.
They also have several commodity funds, which happen to offer asymmetric risk versus reward opportunities at current levels. Let's talk about them.
Our first setup is the Invesco DB Agriculture Fund $DBA:
The top five holdings are cocoa (14.8%), coffee (13%), live cattle (11.9%), sugar (11.6%), and corn (11.4%), several of which we've recently discussed.
My cousin wasn't asking me about crypto during this year's Thanksgiving feast.
Instead, he wanted to know which commodity to buy after the historic cocoa trade.
Without hesitation, I told him, "coffee."
And I really believe that!
Let's talk about why.
Our Soft Commodity Index is testing a critical level of interest:
The index peaked and rolled over in 2011 and has carved out a massive basing pattern in the years since then. If and when the bulls resolve this pattern, we want to be long.
On a relative basis, soft commodities are printing fresh 52-week highs versus the broader commodity complex. This is precisely what we're looking for in a leadership group, and we expect this outperformance to continue for the foreseeable future.
Cocoa futures recently resolved a 45-year base and put the bears in a dirt nap, and we think coffee futures are up next:
As you can see, coffee is at its highest level since it peaked in 1977, following a face-ripping 600% rally in two years.
A close above 340 would mark the end of a nearly 50-year consolidation and the beginning of a new uptrend.
Welcome to TheJunior 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:
Click table to enlarge view
And here’s how we arrived at it…
We removed laggards which are down 5% or more relative to the ACWI Ex. U.S. Index $ACWX over the trailing...
Last week, we identified a bullish momentum divergence in the commodities versus stocks ratio at a shelf of former lows.
The evidence suggests we're on the verge of a new era of commodity outperformance.
If we're right, it's time to prepare a list of our favorite setups to seize this opportunity.
We've already covered promising setups in uranium and solar.
Now, let's focus on oil and gas, and here's why:
First, crude oil, heating oil, and gasoline have been consolidating above a shelf of former highs for more than two years, and the risk is skewed in favor of the bulls.
Until the bears can resolve these consolidations to the downside, we want to continue betting these levels hold as support.
More and more stocks are completing primary trend reversals.
The most risk-on groups are leading the charge.
With this in mind, it's time for another Freshly Squeezed report.
Here's our approach:
We find the most heavily shorted stocks in the market. Then, we monitor these names for signs of upward momentum. Once that momentum kicks in, we ride them higher as the bears get squeezed.
We got fresh short data on Monday, so let's dive in and talk about it.
Our scan is quite simple. It is designed to identify stocks with the most aggressive short positions.
When a stock is shorted, it means incremental buyers are waiting in the wings...