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

I’ve had the pleasure of driving cross country multiple times, covering every inch of I-10. 

I made so many memorable moments on those drives …

I pushed through white-out conditions in Kansas. (My brother had an appointment with the State Department in Washington D.C., and we couldn’t stop.)

I "accidentally" crossed into Juarez, Mexico, which turned into one helluva time!

And I picked up more than one speeding ticket on the reservation (highway patrol doesn’t play in Navajo country).

I somehow made it coast to coast every time.

While many details of those treks slip away with the years, I’ll always remember the Alamo.

I know, it’s funny. I didn't even go inside.

To be clear, my memory of the Alamo has nothing to do with the historic battle or the revisionist histories that have been written and rewritten since.

Instead, I picture a meager fort in the twilight – nothing more. A truly humble beacon of strength.

The understated image resurfaces in my mind's eye this week as I plan and plot the best way to trade gold.

As gold meets increased...

With stocks selling off this quarter, the bears are back.

Could you imagine still telling yourself that the rally we got in equities over the past year was a bear market?

What kind of serial killer thinks like that?

A 3-5% correction in some of the major Indexes can cause people to lose their minds.

Heck, you may be wondering yourself if this is the beginning of a huge move lower for stock prices. I certainly am.

Remember, every big move starts with a small one. But not every small move turns into a big one.

That's where Credit Spreads come in. If there is real stress in the market, you're going to see it in credit.

But as stock prices corrected this month, Credit Spreads only got more narrow.

Here's an easy way to view that, comparing the prices of High Yield Bonds vs US Treasury Bonds:

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 Steve Strazza @Sstrazza and Alfonso Depablos @AlfCharts

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-...

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley 

“Looks like cocoa and sugar are poised to break out.” 

That’s the first message I saw on my phone this morning as traders across the US were preparing for the upcoming session.

But I wasn’t ready to get behind a tactical move in either cocoa or sugar.

Instead, my full attention rests with one commodity on the precipice of an explosive rally…

Cotton.

Check out the weekly continuation chart of cotton futures:

My eyes have been fixated on cotton since early February.

Buyers were challenging a critical retracement level at approximately 89 to open the year. And they continue to do so, slowly absorbing overhead supply as momentum steadily improves.

Prolonged periods of contraction often lead to explosive expansions in price. Cotton is in the midst of the contraction phase. 

So when will...

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

I bought bonds last December and again in March.

I thought it was time to bring these beaten-down assets back into the fold as US Treasuries printed fresh six-month highs.

But I was wrong. 

Fast-forward to today, and the downtrend for bonds remains intact.

And those false breakouts last spring have led to fresh breakdowns as we head into the fall.

The 10- and 30-year futures are flashing sell signals as they undercut their respective March pivot lows.

Now, the shorter end of the curve is doing the same.

Here’s the two-year Treasury note completing a bearish continuation pattern:

The...

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza and Alfonso Depablos @AlfCharts

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

The most important groups of stocks are stuck below overhead supply.

That's not usually a characteristic of strong uptrends where investors are consistently rewarded for owning stocks. That was the first half of this year.

Today, it's almost the exact opposite.

In this type of environment, investors are rewarded for selling volatility and collecting income. Investors also tend to be rewarded for avoiding these types of sectors and looking for opportunities elsewhere, in less correlated areas.

Here are 4 of the most important groups of stocks all stuck below their prior cycle's peaks:

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...

This is the video recording of the August 2023 Mid-month Conference Call.

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

The US dollar sits atop the heap.

Major global currencies, including the Australian dollar, the New Zealand dollar, the Japanese yen, the Canadian dollar, and the Singapore dollar, are limping lower against the greenback.

The long list could grow in coming sessions as momentum builds behind a sustained USD advance.

While the evidence suggests we lean in that direction, I always prepare to take the other side of a trade if and when the data changes.

So, what’s the best way to play a falling dollar?

Before I share my favorite trade setup, let’s look at the US Dollar Index $DXY: 

DXY is finding resistance at the July pivot highs and a downtrend line originating with the March peak.

It makes sense for the dollar advance to pause at this level. And it has.

If DXY absorbs the overhead supply and rips above 1.0350...