"JC what's on your mind these days?"

I get asked this a lot. So it keeps me on my toes.

But it's a great exercise, even if you're not being asked regularly by colleagues and journalists.

So what is on my mind?

It's this.

It's still this.

It's the strong Dollar preventing stocks and crypto assets from rising in price:

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

It’s inescapable. If you haven’t read it in the news, seen it on Twitter, or heard it from a co-worker, here’s the scoop…

The euro has tumbled to parity with the dollar for the first time in almost 20 years!

That’s the big news in the currency markets these days. Sure, it’s a significant development.

But what currency isn’t falling against the US dollar right now?

It’s an interesting question. And it draws our attention to the Canadian dollar.

Let’s take a look.

Here’s a chart of the USD/CAD cross:

While the US dollar steamrolls everything in sight and prints fresh decade-highs against most major currencies, it’s still dealing with last year’s highs against the Canadian dollar.

Bulls continue to chip away at overhead supply, to no avail.

Remember, the resilience of commodity-centric currencies has been the story for almost a year. But the CAD is one of few left standing...

From the Desk of Louis Sykes

They're everywhere.

The long-awaited James Webb Space Telescope images...

Moments like these are not only significant for the scientific quest. They also deeply change the human condition and what we think is possible.

When Copernicus discovered the heliocentric model -- that the universe doesn't rotate around Earth -- it humbled humanity.

When Newton discovered that the motion of the celestial bodies followed strict laws of mathematics, it gave a seemingly entropic universe order.

When man landed on the moon, it changed our entire perception of what's possible.

And when the Hubble Space Telescope and the more recently launched JWST send back awe-inspiring images, it gives us a perspective of the cosmos we've never seen before.

You can't overstate what a bully the Dollar has been towards stocks in the U.S. and around the world.

We've talked about new 20 year lows for Japanese Yen, and the recent parity with the Euro, of course.

But now take a look the Emerging Markets Currencies ETF breaking down to new all-time lows:

The S&P 500 just had its worst first half in more than 50 years.

Based on CPI, if you’re in cash, you’re losing 8.5% a year.

This was the worst start to the Bond Market since 1842.

So what do you think gold is doing in that environment?

Down near new 52-week lows...

In bear markets, you're going to find more stocks making new lows than new highs.

That's just basic math.

In bull markets, you'll see the opposite.

Here's what today looks like: 33 consecutive weeks of more stocks hitting new lows than new highs.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza.

Welcome back to our latest Under the Hood report, where we'll cover all the action for the week ended July 8, 2022. This report is published bi-weekly and rotated our Minor Leaguers report.

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.

Watch this video for a behind-the-scenes look at our process.

Whether we’re measuring increasing interest based on large institutional purchases, unusual...

From the desk of Steve Strazza @sstrazza

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 the stock is about to move in...

The market has work to do.

We've been in a Bear Market since February of 2021 when stocks peaked. Since then it's been a slow deterioration ultimately hitting almost every sector, with some areas just getting absolutely destroyed.

But just to keep it simple, the bottom line is we're below overhead supply in almost every case. There are exceptions, but I think the S&P500 shows what's really going on for the average and median stock or sector.

This is a top, and price is below former support:

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 technical...

You hear people talk about Dow Theory all the time don't you?

What you might not know is that there's a lot more to Dow Theory than you think.

In fact, that whole DJ Industrials & Transports confirming or diverging from one another is not even in my top 5 most important Dow Theory Tenets.

You can read about what's actually important about Dow Theory here. Give it a read and then ...

I’ve written in the past about how I had been invited to join a local Improv Comedy group here in Colorado for a one-off show back in May.

While this may sound random, I do actually have some professional improv training. I took a year of classes at Chicago’s famous Second City Theater and then a couple more sessions at Improv Olympic (also in Chicago) back in 2006. It was just for fun. I had no illusions of ever becoming an actor of any kind.

Well, the show I was invited to participate in back in May went off without a hitch. We played in front of a sold-out room (it only seats 110 people) and by all accounts, it was a fantastic success. For me personally, I was just happy I didn’t suck! LOL!

We were eventually invited to come back again and I was once again asked to participate.