From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

We held our November Monthly Strategy Session Wednesday night. Premium Members can access and rewatch it here.

Non-members can get a quick recap of the call simply by reading this post each month.

By focusing on long-term, monthly charts, the idea is to take a step back and put things into the context of their structural trends. This is easily one of our most valuable exercises as it forces us to put aside the day-to-day noise and simply examine markets from a “big-picture” point of view.

With that as our backdrop, let’s dive right in and discuss three of the most important charts and/or themes from this month’s call.

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 us with only...

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

The market barely reacted Wednesday afternoon following Powell’s remarks, cooking up a big, fat nothing burger for investors.

Market participants took the decision to leave rates untouched in stride. After all, the pause in the hiking cycle was the expected outcome. Since investors already pegged the Fed, the valuable information hung on Powell’s words or forward guidance.

Yet judging by today’s performance, it appears the market just needed a little time to marinate. 

Yesterday’s failed reaction has given way to a delayed response as long-duration bonds scream higher. 

But before we get ahead of ourselves and rush out to buy the bond market bottom, let’s check the charts…

First, the monthly 10-year T-note chart:

JC broke it down last night in his monthly strategy session. Reviewing monthly candlestick charts sits atop our list of best practices, forcing us to reconnect with the underlying...

JC wanted to put this trade on yesterday (I think he did), but I wanted to wait until after the Fed announcement juuuuuust in case. You never know what shenanigans may take place on binary event risk days.

Well, my patience was rewarded. I am able to put the same delta-neutral credit spread on today at the same premiums that were offered yesterday, but now I don't have to sweat the fed.

Consumer Staples stocks, as a sector, have been displaying relatively high implied volatility in their options and so I wanted a name from this space that was stuck in a range.

The candidate that we all agreed on was Proctor & Gamble $PG:

This is the video recording of our November 1st Monthly Charts Live Strategy Session

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

When investing in the stock market, we always want to approach it as "a market of stocks."

Regardless of the environment, there are always stocks showing leadership and trending higher.

We may have to look harder to identify them depending on current market conditions. But there are always stocks that are going up.

The same can be said for weak stocks. Regardless of the environment, there are always stocks that are going down, too. 

We already have multiple scans focusing on stocks making all-time highs, such as Hall of Famers, Minor Leaguers, and the 2 to 100 Club.

We filter these universes for stocks that are exhibiting the best momentum and relative strength characteristics. 

Clearly, we spend a lot of time identifying and writing about leading stocks every week, via multiple reports.

Now, we're also highlighting lagging stocks on a recurring basis.

Welcome to the Short Report.

We...

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

The Bank of Japan is loosening its grip on the Japanese benchmark yield.

And the dollar, the euro, and the pound are ripping to fresh highs versus the yen.

Yes, the USD/JPY is off to the races – again.

But where can we define the next logical upside objectives?

Let’s dive in…

Before tackling our targets for the dollar-yen pair, check out the Japanese 10-year yield:

The BoJ’s yield curve control policy has, in large part, capped the USD/JPY rate as traders and policymakers play a game of chicken. Traders drive the dollar-yen pair higher, challenging the Japanese central bank's hold on interest rates.

Meanwhile, the BoJ steps in with policy decisions supportive of the yen.   

Market participants were expecting the move from the BoJ today – which it did by loosening its grip to 1.00% as an upper bound for the 10-year yield.

But it wasn’t enough in the eyes of the market as the EUR...

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza.

Welcome back to Under the Hood, where we'll cover all the action for the week ended October 27, 2023. This report is published bi-weekly and rotated with The Minor Leaguers.

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 seeing an unusual increase in investor interest.

Click here for a behind-the-scenes look at our process.

Whether we’re measuring increasing interest based on large institutional purchases, unusual options activity, or simply...

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

Investors love a good gold debate.

"Is it a commodity, or is it a currency?"

I’d argue it's both.

But, today, I want to focus on gold as a currency in light of a series of new all-time highs versus fiat overseas.

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.