From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza 

Check out this week’s Momentum Report, our weekly summation of all the major indexes at a Macro, International, Sector, and Industry Group level.

By analyzing the short-term data in these reports, we get a more tactical view of the current state of markets. This information then helps us put near-term developments into the context of the big picture and provides insights regarding the structural trends at play.

Let’s jump right into it with some of the major takeaways from this week’s report:

* ASC Plus Members can access the Momentum Report by clicking the link at the bottom of this post.

Macro Universe:

• Our Macro universe turned things around this week as 81% of our list closed higher this week with a median return of 0.94%
• Procyclical Commodities led the bounce as Copper and Crude Oil were the week’s biggest winners up 4.39% and 4.31%, respectively 
• New highs have increased over last week’s dismal performance
• And 74% of the assets on our list are within...

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

We’ve recently pointed out the possible double tops in the Dollar index and the USD/CAD, along with our overall outlook for further weakness from king dollar.

But can we find other areas of the market that could provide further insight into the US Dollar’s direction?

After all, many market participants are fixated on the direction of the US Dollar right now as it approaches its key mutlti-year lows.

Why does the Dollar matter so much to investors?

Firs of all, USD and risk assets have had a very strong negative correlation over the last several years. The USD Index bottomed in early 2018 as stock markets around the world peaked. Conversely, the dollar topped during the Covid sell-off when stocks bottomed out at their March 2020 lows.

To gain a clearer picture of the USD, we need to go beyond the Dollar Index and developed currencies.

Let’s look at a couple of charts of emerging currencies as they provide valuable information on broad USD performance, as well as...

This is the video recording of the May 2021 Conference Call.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Check out this week’s Momentum Report, our weekly summation of all the major indexes at a Macro, International, Sector, and Industry Group level.

By analyzing the short-term data in these reports, we get a more tactical view of the current state of markets. This information then helps us put near-term developments into the context of the big picture and provides insights regarding the structural trends at play.

Let’s jump right into it with some of the major takeaways from this week’s report:

* ASC Plus Members can access the Momentum Report by clicking the link at the bottom of this post.

Macro Universe:

• Our Macro Universe continued its weakness this week as over 60% of our list closed lower with a median return of -0.18%.
• Procyclical Commodities were the weakest this week.
• Copper was down 3.73% remains in a bullish regime.
• Lumber was the hardest hit again this week, dropping over 7.22%.
•  The biggest winner of the week was the Volatility index again gaining over 7%
•  New highs have...

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

One of the most frustrating questions plaguing investors at the moment is... "How long will this choppy environment last?"

And one question we’re asking internally is… “What is with all these mixed signals!?”

Once the latter clears itself up, we'll have our answer to the former... But not until then.

When the outlook becomes increasingly murky, the best action is to take a step back, let the smoke clear, and weigh each new piece of evidence as it becomes available.

For now, the most important evidence we have is our list of risk-on commodities and equity indexes testing critical levels of interest grows larger by the day.

There seems to be no end in sight. Complicating matters further, we’re actually seeing this kind of price action throughout the risk asset landscape. It's not isolated to a single asset class or region. We're seeing it in Stocks, Bonds, Commodities, and even Currency Markets... and not just in the US, but also abroad.

There are ...

From the desk of Steve Strazza @sstrazza

Welcome to our latest RPP Report, where we publish return tables for a variety of different asset classes and categories along with commentary on each.

Looking at the past helps put the future into context. In this post, we review the absolute and relative trends at play and preview some of the things we’re watching to profit in the weeks and months ahead.

You can consider this our weekly state of the union address as we break down and reiterate both our tactical and structural outlook on various asset classes as well as discuss the most important themes and developments taking place in markets all around the world.

While the weight of the evidence remains in the bull's favor, we continue to see more data arrive that suggests the environment could be shifting toward one that is less conducive to risk assets, at least over shorter timeframes.

In fact, we'd argue that bears have more talking points today than they've had at any time over the trailing year. With each passing week, data continues to suggest a more cautionary approach is appropriate...

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Check out this week's Momentum Report, our weekly summation of all the major indexes at a Macro, International, Sector, and Industry Group level.

By analyzing the short-term data in these reports, we get a more tactical view of the current state of markets. We can then put these near-term developments into the context of the big picture and glean insights into the structural trends at play.

Let's jump right into it with some of the major takeaways from this week's report:

* ASC Plus Members can access the Momentum Report by clicking the link at the bottom of this post.

• Procyclical Commodities gave back some of their recent gains this week.
  • Copper was down over 2.34%. However, the primary trend remains intact with momentum in a bullish regime.
  • Lumber was the hardest hit this week, dropping over 7% reversing its extreme momentum reading from last week to 64 this week.
• New short-term lows across the board in many US equity indexes, from the S&P to Dow Utilities, and even SMIDs...

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

Is the US Dollar Index $DXY on the brink of completing a massive reversal pattern to the downside? 

As more evidence comes into the picture, it's looking increasingly dire for the dollar. In fact, we're seeing it trend lower across all timeframes against almost all of its peers.

And this action has only gained steam over the last week as DXY has plunged to fresh multi-month lows.

Dollar weakness has been a nice tailwind for risk assets since its peak in March of last year. Any additional downside pressure in the coming weeks, months, and even quarters would not surprise us... especially if this daunting double-top pattern breaks lower. If and when this happens, further weakness from both a tactical and structural standpoint is exactly the bet we'll be making.

Let's dig deeper and look at what actually drives the DXY. By looking at the various crosses that make up the index, we gain insight in terms of building a directional bias for DXY. This process also provides a weight of the evidence...

This is a fun one. I got to sit down with Paul Ciana to talk about all things Fixed Income, Commodities and Currencies. Paul is now the Chief Global FICC Technical Strategist and Director of Research at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. But in the early days, him and I used to study for our CMTs together back in 2006.

What's nice about this is that in his current position, and for 10 years at Bloomberg prior to his 5 years at BofA, he's had the opportunity to speak to many of the largest portfolio managers in the world. I want to know what he's learned from all those conversations!

Paul always gives great perspective and as you know, the macro view carries a big weighting throughout our process. So this episode really hit home.

I took advantage and just hit him with all my favorite questions and topics in the FICC world. And he just chuckled and happily answered most of them.

This was great! I hope you enjoy...

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Check out this week's Momentum Report, our weekly summation of all the major indexes at a Macro, International, Sector, and Industry Group level.

By analyzing the short-term data in these reports, we get a more tactical view of the current state of markets. We can then put these near-term developments into the context of the big picture and glean insights into the structural trends at play.

Let's jump right into it with some of the major takeaways from this week's report:

* ASC Plus Members can access the Momentum Report by clicking the link at the bottom of this post.

• Procyclical Commodities led again this week.
  • Copper was up over 6.41% and closed the week at fresh all-time highs.
  • Lumber had another monster week, gaining over 12% but is at an extreme daily momentum reading of 91.
• The biggest loser of the week was the Volatility index falling over 10%
• New highs continue to be the theme across all timeframes, particularly from...

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

We held our May Monthly Strategy Session Monday night which Premium Members can access and rewatch here.

For these calls, we really take a step back and put things in the context of their structural trends by focusing only on Monthly charts. This is easily one of our most valuable exercises.

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