I was back on The Compound & Friends podcast this week with Josh and Michael.

They're both old friends of mine, so it's just us arguing and yelling at each other for an hour.

Always fun.

Hope you enjoy!

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 Ian Culley @IanCulley

We’ve been loud about energy lately. And how can we not be?

Energy stocks were the most resilient during the H1 selloff and are by far the best-performing sector off the 2020 lows. Every afternoon, energy quietly leads the pack into the close, whether the market is green or red on the day.

But the recent rally in stocks has started to fizzle. And even energy is beginning to feel the downside pressure.

While everyone scrambles to label the recent rally, gearing up for the next leg higher, or preparing for the world's end, we want to focus on the leaders – energy!

If this leadership group starts to fall, it could be an early warning sign of broad selling on the horizon.

And, with Labor Day upon us, it just so happens the energy sector ETF $XLE is retesting a critical shelf of former highs.

Here’s a chart of XLE:

Like many cyclical areas of the market, XLE reclaimed its prior-cycle highs during the...

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Our International Hall of Famers list is composed of the 100 largest US-listed international stocks, or ADRs.

We’ve also sprinkled in some of the largest ADRs from countries that did not make the market cap cut. 

These stocks range from some well-known mega-cap multinationals such as Toyota Motor and Royal Dutch Shell to some large-cap global disruptors such as Sea Ltd and Shopify.

It’s got all the big names and more -- but only those that are based outside the US. You can find all the largest US stocks on our original Hall of Famers list.

The beauty of these scans is really in their simplicity.

We take the largest names each week and then apply technical filters in a way that the strongest stocks with the most momentum rise to the top.

Based on the market environment, we can also flip the scan on its head and filter for weakness.

Let’s dive in and take a look at some of the most important stocks from around the world.

Here’s this week’s list:

...

From the Desk of Ian Culley @Ianculley

Heading into Q3, we wanted to play a mean-reversion bounce in US treasury bonds. A long list of reasons supported this position:

• US Treasuries experienced their worst H1 in history (or close to it).
• Bonds were finding support at their previous-cycle lows from 2018.
• Commodities and inflation expectations peaked earlier in the spring.
• Assets that benefit from rising rates (financials) were making fresh lows.
• Global yields were pulling back.

And, quite frankly, our risk was well-defined. We can’t ask for much more. For us, the greater risk was not taking a swing at this trade in the event bonds ripped higher…

Two months later, bonds across the curve are taking out their 2018 lows. The market has proven our mean-reversion thesis wrong. But we can live that because we manage risk responsibly.

It’s the most important part of playing this game.

Easily, the second-most important is to remain flexible.

As investors and traders, we have to be able to change our opinion on any given...

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza 

Regardless of the time frame, we continue to see leadership and relative strength from energy stocks.

Outside of utilities, it is the only sector flaunting positive returns on a year-to-date basis.

Even over the past several weeks, with the broader market coming under increasing pressure, energy stands out as the most resilient group.

When we look at the structural trend for energy stocks, this makes a lot more sense.

While most sectors and indexes are facing downward sloping or sideways 200-day moving averages, indicating that the path of least resistance is lower, energy stocks remain in a strong primary uptrend.

While the corrective action of the past few days has not left energy unscathed, the Energy Sector SPDR $XLE remains above our risk level of 79.

As long as this is the case, the bias is higher for energy, and we want to be looking for the strongest stocks to buy as a way to express our bullish thesis.

This brings us to today...

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Welcome to the 2 to 100 Club.

As many of you know, something we've been working on internally is using various bottom-up tools and scans to complement our top-down approach. It's really been working for us!

One way we're doing this is by identifying 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...

With the rise in $VIX (the "fear gauge") over the past several trading days continuing to persist, we've been on the hunt for options premium selling opportunities. Higher volatility environments lend themselves to better opportunities for premium sellers who can manage their risks and size their positions conservatively.

As such, we're going to sell some premium in the banking sector to take advantage of elevated premiums and what appears to be a high likelihood of continuing sideways action.

From the Desk of Louis Sykes @haumicharts

One of the hallmarks that's defined crypto is its sheer innovative and scalable nature.

Blockchains are bringing tremendous benefits to traditional industries; self-sovereignty of massive sums of capital, incredibly efficient payment methods, digital collectibles, play-to-earn, and decentralization are all great examples.

Perhaps one of the more overlooked outcomes of this asset class blossoming is the promotion of finance among disenfranchised youth.

These are the registration details for our Live Monthly Candlestick Strategy Session for Premium Members of All Star Charts.

This month’s Video Conference Call will be held on Tuesday September 6th @ 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 evening:

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

We look at a lot of charts. And believe it or not, many of them are absolute messes. Sideways, choppy, and trendless describe most markets right now.

It’s just a fact.

But we always find those big bases and tight continuation patterns on the verge of breaking out that keep us turning on our computers every morning. And the market I want to share with you today has both!

Lets’ take a look at coffee.

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

Currency markets have provided stellar trading opportunities this year. 

It isn't always this way.

Last year was rough. False breakouts and whipsaws were the norm, as most forex pairs and crosses chopped sideways in trendless ranges.

Many of those consolidations have now resolved, as currency markets have begun to trend again. And it’s hard to find a stronger primary trend to bet against than the declining Japanese yen. 

We’ve written about the yen multiple times in the past few months, pointing out that The Yen Provides the Base and joking that we could profit by simply buying Anything in Yen.

Today, we’ll follow up by outlining three tactical setups to bet on further yen weakness.