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.

We also weed out hedging activity and ensure there are no offsetting trades that either neutralize or cap the risk on these unusual options trades.

What remains is a list of stocks that large financial institutions are putting big money behind.

And they’re doing so for one reason only: because they think...

This is the weekly post that aggregates all the charts we put together throughout the week and organizes them all into one, easy to flip through deck.

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.

We...

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:

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,...

A healthy rotation is underway across equity markets.

Leadership has swung toward cyclical value-oriented names over the trailing two weeks. Small-cap Energy, Materials, and Financials are outpacing the year-to-date top performers (Large-cap Tech). It’s a clear expansion in participation and a hallmark characteristic of any bull market.

But if cyclical stocks have a chance at participating over the long haul, we want to witness similar strength from corresponding commodity markets.

And we are…

Check out rebar futures posting a potential failed breakdown: 

The bounce in rebar fits with the strength in small-caps and Emerging Market equities. If industrial metals such as rebar start catching higher, procyclical commodities and their related stocks likely follow suit…

What about Dr. Copper?

Copper...

I recently read a book that was recommended to me by a friend in my traders meetup group.

Once I picked it up, I couldn’t put it down.

Here are some of my favorite quotes I continue to meditate on. I think you will also go down rabbit holes while pondering them…

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

Forget about Wednesday’s FOMC decision.

Yes, investors continue to react, unpacking Jerome Powell’s words while looking ahead to next month’s meeting. It’s a never-ending cycle proffered by unrelenting data.

But it’s this constant flux that makes the market the most engaging puzzle in the world (aside from life, of course).

Yet one piece of the puzzle renders the chaos manageable… 

The closing price.

That’s the main reason I choose to devote the majority of my energy to price charts. The closing price is seldom revised, acting as an anchor during turbulent conditions. 

Call me old school, but price is never wrong.

With that in mind, let’s take a fresh look at a key intermarket ratio many (including me) have labeled “broken”...

I'm talking about regional banks versus REITs.

This ratio belongs to a long list of intermarket relationships that haven’t...

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 Tuesday June 20th at 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.

Here are the details for Tuesday night:

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 adding our...

Congratulations to the 2023 NBA Champion Denver Nuggets!

I’m a total bandwagoner, having never watched a Nuggets game in the eleven years I’ve now lived in Colorado. My first Nuggets watch was the first playoff game this year. And I watched every game the rest of the way.

My timing was pretty good.

What has stood out the most to me in the interviews and press I saw and read last night and this morning following the Nuggets win is how their journey to the top required tremendous patience and a focus on their edge.

And more patience. More sharpening of the edge. And then a little more of both after that.

The Nuggets organization knew they were building a winner. But it would take time. Time for the stars to develop. Time for injuries to heal. Time for missing pieces to be added. And time for the stars to align.

How's the Bull Market treating you so far?

Can you believe it's been a year already since the new 52-week lows list peaked?

Remember, the first thing stocks need to do before they can start to go up in price, is to stop going down!

That happened 1-year ago.

Since then Technology, Communications, Consumer Discretionary and Industrials are all up over 20%. Tech is up almost 40%.

Meanwhile, Healthcare and Financials are each up 10% during this period.

And then some of the more defensive sectors, like Staples and Utilities, are up, but very much underperforming the more offensive sectors.

This is all perfectly normal behavior in bull markets, so we're not surprised at all. No one should...

They've been telling me for almost a year that this is just a bear market rally.

If you're one of those people, I would ask your therapist about it.

The New Lows list peaked last June.

It's been steady improvement and sector rotation ever since.

This month is just the latest example. We now started to get rotation into Small-caps.

See: Bullish Risk Reversal In Small-caps (May 2023)

I'm convinced the world needs more bubble charts. There just aren't enough.

So here at...