From the desk of Steve Strazza @sstrazza and Louis Sykes @haumicharts

The same strong rotational currents that have been in place in the US since last summer have finally begun to spill over to International stocks... but, not all of them.

For the first time in about a decade, evidence suggests that stock markets around the world have finally built a strong foundation relative to their US counterparts, and might just be ready for a sustained period of outperformance.

How big the move will be and how long it will last are always some of the most difficult variables to predict. We can merely position ourselves accordingly based on the information we do have, and then be keenly aware of new data points as they come in, and constantly re-evaluate and adjust our outlook as appropriate.

As for the potential structural bull-to-bear reversal in the long-running trend of outperformance from US stocks... the seeds have definitely been planted for such a development to occur.

In the latest episode of The Money Game, Phil and I talk about the old cliché, 'Everything happens for a reason'.

It's funny because it doesn't. Not everything happens for a reason. What's the reason?

It's hard for humans to accept the element of randomness. Sure, good things can happen after a tough breakup or losing your job. Like you can meet your future wife or start a successful business, all after what seemed like a negative event in your life. But connecting the 2 dots is silly.

Now, it's perfectly natural for us as humans to want to do that, but it doesn't make it right.

We inherently want to learn, and how I see, the best ways to learn are from experiences. Some of the most important lessons I've learned came the hard way, for sure. And I can think back to those moments and I'm now thankful for them. But they certainly didn't happen specifically so I could use that information to my advantage today. They were just events that happened, that fortunately I learned from.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza.

Welcome back to our “latest Under The Hood” column for the week ended March 19, 2021. As a reminder, this column will be published bi-weekly moving forward, and rotated on-and-off with our new Minor Leaguers column.

In this column, we 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.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

What's the FIRST question investors should ask themselves and have a clear and concrete answer to before putting money in the market?

It is literally step one. The cornerstone of any strategy or trading plan...

What is my objective?

Every investor should examine this thoughtfully and keep it top of mind to ensure that their investment decisions are aligned with their investment goals.

Usually, the answer is pretty simple and comes down to maximizing returns, or more importantly minimizing losses, in a way that fits within each individual's unique preferences.

But as we'll explore in this post, this isn't always the case, and sometimes it can be a bit nuanced - as is the case with Environmental, Social, and Governance investment strategies.

So as an exercise let's put ourselves in the shoes of ESG investors and ask a few simple questions...

One of the charts that stood out the most to me during last week's Conference Call was the relative strength in Communications. While Tech and Discretionary corrected over the prior month, Communications marched on:

We saw that relative strength once again this week with Communications up and the Nasdaq down yet again.

And we're not just seeing new all-time highs on an absolute basis either. Relative to the S&P500, this thing continues to run:

In case you hadn't heard, Commodity prices are soaring. The CRB Commodities Index has practically doubled over the past year.

And while sure, many assets are up a lot over the past 12 months, it's the fact that the Commodities Index is above the 2016 lows that makes it a big deal for me. Same with interest rates. If the US 10yr Yield and CRB Index are above those lows, then inflation is here baby!

Get used to it.

We're seeing it across the intermarket landscape.

And speaking of landscape, did you see the Global Timber & Forestry Index breaking out to new all-time highs?

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza and Ian Culley @IanCulley

Overall, Commodities came under pressure this past week.

We noticed many markets running into resistance at former highs, and this was most prevalent in the Energy sector, with the exception of Ethanol.

Other areas of the Commodity space like Grains and Softs also showed short-term weakness. However, there were still some bright spots as usual.

Two of the markets that really stood out were Lean Hogs and Palladium.

First up, Lean Hogs broke out of a 6.5-year base, clearing its pivotal 2019 highs.

You know when Livestock futures are breaking out of half-decade long bases that Commodities are most likely in a bull market.

I believe the saying goes, "the bigger the base the higher in space."

Most arguments about the market would never even take place if investors would just acknowledge that they have different time horizons.

"JC, what do you think of Amazon here?"

"JC, what's your favorite stock right now?"

"JC, should we buy this pullback?"

These are all completely irrelevant questions if you haven't first identified your time horizon.

Two things we've been pointing to this week are the potential failed breakouts in Small-caps and Micro-cap stocks, which would confirm a series of bearish momentum divergences. And also the relative strength out of Consumer Staples throughout March, which is something we haven't seen in a long long time....

Remember, Consumer Staples outperforming is consistent with a market environment where stocks are under pressure.

Here's that chart showing Staples potentially confirming a rare "Diamond" reversal pattern relative to the S&P500:

The latest All Star Charts Monthly Conference Call (subscriber link) is in the books and no doubt JC and the team had to chug a pot (or two) of coffee to get through that blizzard of charts.

Judging by the performance of the publicly traded Starbucks stock, our team are clearly not the only investors who rely on a caffeine boost to perform our best.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza and Ian Culley @Ianculley.

We recently held March’s Monthly Conference Call which our Premium Members can access and rewatch here.

In this post, we’ll provide a summary of the call by highlighting 5 of the most important charts/topics we covered along with commentary on each.

Let’s dive into it.

One thing we want to watch out for is this recent relative strength in Consumer Staples. I don't think it's necessarily time to sound the alarm just yet, but continued relative strength out of this group is not consistent with higher stock prices.

Now, a couple of weeks doesn't make a trend. But it is curious to see this one not confirming the new lows that the rest of them are putting in: