Crypto markets can be daunting for those who come from traditional backgrounds.

There are entirely new market mechanisms, trading hours, different exchanges, and distinct ways to analyze the market, let alone the decentralized nature of how these markets operate.

It's no wonder that people find this asset class complicated.

Adding to the already heightened perplexity of these markets is how they're driven and how investors benchmark their performance.

Hear me out.

It starts with credit.

Bottom line.

This isn't crypto where all these shitcoins can go to zero and it won't matter to anyone who matters.

These aren't marijuana stocks that are irrelevant to global asset allocation.

This is the bond market.

This is the biggest and baddest of them all.

We're talking about almost a $120 Trillion asset class.

It's just math: if there is real systemic risk in the equities market, you're going to see it in credit.

There's no way around it.

And so how are credit spreads doing?

As tight as they have been since last summer, and getting tighter:

It's the weekly currency edition of What the FICC?

Yesterday, the US dollar index $DXY booked its largest three-day gain since it peaked in late September. So will today's bounce turn into tomorrow's rally?

I don't know. But you want to monitor these two levels for insight.

Check it out!

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

The US dollar index $DXY has some extra pep in its step after posting three consecutive daily gains.

In fact, the past few days constitute its largest three-day gain since the index peaked in late September.

I think it’s safe to say the long-awaited USD bounce has arrived. The question now is whether it will turn into a sustained rally.

No one knows, of course. But these next two levels will help us prepare for an impactful dollar advance…

First, let’s zoom out…

The early 2017 high of 103.82 marks the first significant hurdle for the dollar index. Let’s call it 104.

They teach you this stuff at technical analysis kindergarten.

Buy support.

Sell resistance.

Of course, in the real world, with our primitive monkey brains, implementing this into a trading system is easier said than done. Just take a look at the squeeze you're seeing in real-time in all these beaten-up growth stocks.

The permabears started shorting these names in droves when they'd already slumped into 90% drawdowns.

Talk about a reckless strategy...

When we look at the most heavily shorted stocks, Coinbase stands out with a short interest of almost 30%. With clear levels and a favorable risk/reward, we leaned on COIN as a vehicle to profit from the short squeezes taking place in recent weeks. We're seeing them all over.

Seriously, go through some of these charts.

Carvana, Tesla, and AI are all great examples -- these moves are no joke. Bed, Bath & Beyond was up over 90% yesterday!

This isn't 2022.

This is the video recording of our February 6th Monthly Charts Live Strategy Session

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.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza.

Welcome back to our latest Under The Hood column where we'll cover all the action for the week ended February 3, 2023. This report is published bi-weekly and rotated on-and-off with our Minor Leaguers column.

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.

It's the weekly Gold Rush!

This week Strazza and I highlight critical levels to keep on your radar in the coming days and weeks. 

Check it out...

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

The dollar is back and on the move.

After falling for four straight months, the US dollar index $DXY is up three days in a row. Whether the near-term dollar strength turns into a more sustained trend is anyone’s guess.

Regardless, risk assets feel the pressure as many areas begin to correct, including precious metals. 

Despite this recent selling pressure, we have clear levels to trade against when it comes to Silver and mining stocks.

Stock market bulls have been rewarded over the past 3 months.

And remember, historically these are the best 3 months of the year - November through January.

And then comes the hangover.

Think about those last three months.

Did you see people having a good time?

Were some having a little too much fun?

Would you agree there was some disorderly conduct?

Were participants behaving as if they were under the influence?

You bet.

And this sort of behavior is normal for this time of the year, and the entire 4-year cycle for that matter.

But then comes February - one of the worst months of the year.

"I only trade U.S. Stocks, JC"

"If you can't find a stock in America to buy you're not looking hard enough, JC"

"I live in America, JC"

"I don't know anything about those stocks in other countries, JC"

Trust me, I hear all these things.

Not so much from you guys, as it is my friends and colleagues in the business.

I feel like readers of Allstarcharts know better, and also we have a very global audience.

So the recency bias that oozes out of most American investors, who have gotten accustomed to the U.S. being the best place to be, forgot what it's like when that's not the case.

You're talking about a decade of outperformance, and depending on how you measure it, you can even argue that's it's been a decade and half of U.S. dominance.

But believe it or not, stocks traded before 2011.

The U.S. wasn't always the global leader in equities.