From the desk of Steve Strazza

Have you ever heard of the Nokkie-Stokkie?

It’s forex trader lingo for the Norwegian Krone/Swedish Krona… and right now this obscure cross is setting up for a classic failed breakdown.

After undercutting key support in early May, it’s snapping back toward this level now. And with each passing day, it’s looking more and more like a bear trap.

We’re not just writing about this unheard-of FX pair to amuse you. Believe it or not, the currency pair carries valuable insights.

It’s one of our most trusted intermarket energy whisperers.

So it's no surprise the scoop-n-score setup in the NOK/SEK looks almost identical to the one in Crude Oil Futures:

Crude is working on its own bear trap — carving out a tactical reversal pattern just below a shelf of former support.

...

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza and Ricardo Sarraf @nullcharts

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...

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.

And it doesn't have to be a Russell component — it can be any US-listed equity. With participation expanding around the globe, we want all those ADRs in our universe.

The same price and liquidity filters are applied. Then, as always, we sort by proximity to new...

One thing I’m looking to do more of here at ASC is share some of the scans we’re running internally each week.

Our roots are in top down technical analysis. We do it better than anyone. And we share a lot of it, but we don’t share enough.

We’re literally running hundreds of ad-hoc scans each week. And we’re going to start giving one away every weekend.

This one is a clear and simple leadership scan, which is why I like it so much. This is the textbook top down approach. It doesn’t get any better.

We start with the best sectors, drill into the best subgroups, pick one, and then find the top stocks.

This week, Industrials stand out as a clear leader—second only to Tech, up nearly 9% in May, and the first sector to complete the V-shaped recovery and retest all-time highs.

Within Industrials, the...

The nuclear energy trade just got a massive jolt of energy.

Last Friday, Uranium stocks exploded higher after President Donald Trump signed executive orders to revitalize U.S. nuclear energy production.

The result? The VanEck Uranium & Nuclear Energy ETF $NLR had its best single-day performance since 2008.

But this move isn’t just about headlines. It's also about the strong fundamentals and technicals behind it.

The AI revolution is massively increasing global power demand, and everyone is turning to nuclear energy to scale their operations.

Top tech firms know this, and they’re investing heavily in small modular reactors (SMRs) and advanced nuclear infrastructure to power their data centers and server farms.

Meanwhile, geopolitical instability and the global push for energy security have made Uranium and nuclear development mission-critical for many countries.

That’s the story, and the market’s listening.

The VanEck Uranium & Nuclear Energy ETF holds the best names in the space, from heavyweights like Cameco $CCJ (~7%) and Constellation Energy $CEG (~8.7%) to fast-growing...

One of the things I love most about bull markets is how they try to include everyone.

Everyone is making money. 

Whether it’s growth stocks or value stocks. US stocks or international stocks. Gold or bitcoin. 

It’s all working and we’re all happy. The parties are better. You get the picture. 

And the reason this is true is because most risk assets participate in bull markets. 

Even the bad ones join the party eventually. 

And of course, we can always find bad stocks that are bucking the trend and falling, but I’m talking about subgroups and thematics. Most areas end up working.

At the end of a sustained bull market, the list of groups that didn’t go up will be very short. 

It’s a hallmark characteristic of the good times....

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

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...

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

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:

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...

During our time in New Orleans at the Portfolio Accelerator event, I brought the Israeli Shekel to the table—and it sparked a really interesting discussion.

We were diving into global risk indicators, and I was showing how the Shekel is an excellent tell for speculative growth stocks and the “ARKKy” trade. 

That’s because Israel’s economy isn’t built on commodities or manufacturing like so many others—it’s built on software, cybersecurity, and innovation.

It’s one of the top technology countries overseas.

So when the Shekel starts breaking out, it’s not just a local FX story—it’s the market telling us there is demand for some of the most risk-on corners of the stock market.

And right now? The Shekel is on the verge of a major breakout. It’s literally happening as I write this.

This isn’t some quirky currency coincidence. Currencies are always whispering—sometimes shouting—about...

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.

By...

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.

Some of the best performers in recent decades – stocks like Priceline, Amazon, Netflix, Salesforce, and myriad others – would have been on this list at some point during their journey to becoming the market behemoths they are today.

When you look at the stocks in our table, you'll notice we're only focused on Technology and Growth industry groups such as Software, Semiconductors, Online...

Yes, the U.S. had a rough 20-year auction. Yields on the 30-year almost retested their October highs, touching 5.15%. But that’s not the real story.

The real bond crisis is in Japan.

This week, Japan saw its worst 20-year bond auction since 1987. Long-end JGBs—30s and 40s—are ripping to all-time highs. Not because of inflation or growth. Because no one’s buying.

Life insurers, once the backbone of demand, are out. Solvency regulations crushed their appetite. Reinsurers are selling. The market is flooded with supply, and demand is structurally broken.

Now add fiscal stress, political risk, and an election promising tax cuts—and the bond vigilantes are wide awake.

This isn’t a local issue. Goldman says Japan’s long-end move added 80 bps of pressure to global yields. What’s happening in the U.S. isn’t just about the Fed. It’s about Japan breaking.

When the most conservative central bank starts losing control, that’s not background noise. That’s the alarm bell.

Bond dysfunction doesn’t just mean volatility.

It means inflation.

Because when buyers disappear… you print.
And when you print into a supply-constrained world…...