Healthcare is an early leader out of the clubhouse to start the year. We've already seen some big moves in names like Merck, Amgen, and Lilly.

This is a sector rotation that makes sense to us. And for this reason, today's trade is in a name we think will play catchup to these leaders.

But first, lets zoom out to observe this chart of $PFE, highlighting the stock sitting near a level that has acted as strong support for numerous times over the past decade:

It's a new year. But does that mean we need to see new trends?

Well I think we're definitely going to see new trends emerging. But I have a strong suspicion that a lot of the old trends will remain in place as well.

If you recall, back in July we were looking at a bunch of the leading groups running into their former highs from late 2021.

These groups included Industrials, Semiconductors, Homebuilders and Mega-cap Technology.

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Welcome to The Minor Leaguers.

We've had some great trades come out of this small-cap-focused column since we launched it back in 2020 and started rotating it with our flagship bottom-up scan, Under the Hood.

For the first year or so, we focused only on Russell 2000 stocks with a market cap between $1 and $2B.

That was fun, but we wanted to branch out a bit and allow some new stocks to find their way onto our list.

We expanded our universe to include some mid-caps.

To make the cut for our Minor Leaguers list now, a company must have a market cap between $1 and $4B.

And it doesn't have to be a Russell component — it can be any US-listed equity. With participation expanding around the globe, we want all those ADRs in our universe.

The same price and liquidity filters are applied. Then, as always, we sort by proximity to new highs in order to...

This is the video recording of our January 2nd 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.

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...

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

The first day of trading is full of uncertainty and excitement. 

Aren’t they all!

Yet the new year brings one promise: events that have yet to come.

As corny as it sounds, it’s true.

Sure, precious metal bulls see new all-time highs for gold on the horizon.

I’m right there with them.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves on day one.

Instead, let’s start the year with a long-term chart of gold…

2023 turned out to be a great year for investors.

It was really hard not to make a lot of money last year.

And while the trends for stocks and many other risk assets are certainly up, we want to be identifying what the market will have to do for us to position ourselves much more defensively into the new year.

The first warning of a non-so-great market environment would be a breakdown in the Nasdaq100 and Small-cap Russell2000.

Look at those former highs in QQQ from late 2021. If the Nasdaq100 ETF is below 400, that would put it back below those former highs, increasing the vulnerability for further downside, or even a grind sideways.

I just want to take a moment to thank everyone for all the kind words throughout the year.

Your support and this community you helped build is inspiring to us all.

I'm incredibly grateful.

Thank you.

Now let's get into it.

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

I’m not concerned with last year’s winners heading into 2024.

Winners have a miraculous way of taking care of themselves (i.e. cattle, sugar, cocoa.) 

Instead, my focus centers on those markets that failed to launch. Markets like this…

No, I’m not talking about Gold. But it certainly fits the bill.

I’m referring to wheat.

Wheat never produced an explosive rally this year – at least nothing like we saw in 2022. But that could all change in the coming six months.

Check out Chicago wheat futures carving out a potential double-bottom pattern:

Wheat futures are taking the shape of a classic Adam and Eve formation – a sharp sell-off followed by a longer accumulation period.

In addition, the...

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

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, we sort the remaining names by their proximity to new 52-week highs.

This leaves...

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Welcome to The Junior International Hall of Famers.

With the goal of finding more bullish setups, we have decided to expand one of our favorite scans and broaden our regular coverage of the largest US-listed international stocks, or ADRs.

This scan is composed of the next 100 largest stocks by market cap, those that come after the top 100 and are thus covered by the International Hall of Famers universe.

Many of these names will someday graduate and join our original International Hall Of Famers list. The idea here is to catch these big trends as early on as possible.

Let's dive right in and check out what these future big boys are up to.

This is our Junior International Hall of Famers list:

Click table to enlarge view

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

JC asked me how far I thought interest rates would pull back during a recent internal meeting.

The question caught me off guard since I trade bonds, not interest rates. I know my bond trade targets off the top of my head, but not the corresponding rate levels. 

As soon as the call ended, I applied Fibonacci analysis to the 30- and 10-year yields…

The 3.50 level marks a logical area for the 30-year yield to stop falling.

That level coincides with a shelf of former lows and a critical retracement level covering the rally off the 2020 low.

The similar level for the 10-year yield stands at 3.25:

Whether rates pull back to these retracement levels is anyone’s guess. 

One thing is for certain: interest rates have...