The US dollar is marching higher, stomping gold mining stocks into dust.
Harmony $HMY, Kinross $KGC, and Eldorado Gold $EGO are hovering just above last month’s breakout levels.
And Franco Nevada $FNV – a secular leader among royalty companies – is sliding toward fresh multi-year lows!
Check out FNV undercutting a shelf of former lows:
I’m not crazy about shorting it. But you can’t own FNV below its 2022 lows at approximately 110.
The path of least resistance points toward 80 if it trades below those former lows.
A Franco-Nevada breakdown shines an unfavorable light on the current condition of the precious metals space. But FNV is taking a different course than most royalty companies.
Here’s a performance chart of FNV, Royal Gold $RGLD, Osisko Gold Royalties $OR, and the SPDR Gold Trust ETF $GLD since last March:
The returns carry less significance here than the divergence beginning last fall.
OR, RGLD, and GLD bottomed last October (when the US dollar peaked – not a coincidence) while FNV continued to fall.
Let's remember that throughout the 4th quarter we were going out of our way to be more aggressive than even we were accustomed to.
It was a different environment.
And while we did not know what 2024 would bring, we still don't, at least we came in with a good list of developments that would likely be occurring before a more severe correction was underway.
Remember, the new highs list peaked on December 14th. So that means we're over a month into a market correction that you can only see taking place...
These are the registration details for our LIVE Mid-month Conference Call for Premium Members of All Star Charts.
Our Live Call will be held on Thursday January 18th @ 6PM ET. As always, if you cannot make the call live, the video and slides will be archived and published here along with every other live call since 2015.
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.
Don't let today's headline scare you. I'm still bullish overall.
But with the S&P500 still bumping its head against overhead resistance, it wouldn't hurt to provide a little ballast for a mostly long portfolio here.
So with this in mind, I'm putting on a bearish trade in a stock that has not been participating in this bull market, and will likely continue to push lower as long as the broader indexes keep struggling here.
Cocoa futures have violated a parabolic trendline.
And it may not be safe for bulls to hold their long positions…
Cocoa fell -2.50% on Monday, cementing last week’s trendline break.
Commodity markets tend to experience steep selloffs following dramatic rallies. Escalator up, elevator down.
But buyers are refusing to throw in the towel here. In fact, Monday’s potential top is yielding a fresh 46-year high today – not bearish.
I will not short those new highs. Nevertheless, I want to prepare for Cocoa’s eventual decline.
Check out the March contract:
For now, 4094 marks the line in the sand. A break below that level flashes a sell signal. But only if today’s run-up in price fails to hold.
My bias remains higher toward 5000 (key extension level) as long as cocoa trades above 4343.
On the other hand, I’m ready to get short on a decisive breakdown with an initial target of approximately 3400 (the Oct. ‘23 low) and a secondary objective of roughly 2900.
And bonds – the largest market in the world – continue to reveal a risk-on environment.
High-yield bonds relative to Treasuries measure risky junk bonds' performance versus the safest fixed-income asset, US Treasury bonds.
The key characteristics of these assets create a critical risk gauge for bond and equity markets, as risk-seeking behavior in the bond market also bodes well for risk assets.
Check out the High Yield versus US Treasury Bond ratio ($HYG/$IEI):
Bonds supported a stock market rally last quarter. And the HYG/IEI ratio was one of those charts screaming, "All systems go!"
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 TheJunior 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.
The bottom line is it is a bull market. We want as many vehicles and options...