Stock markets all over the world are parading to fresh highs. From Europe to Asia, the world’s major benchmarks sit at – or within a stone’s throw of – all-time or cycle highs.

Stateside, the Nasdaq 100 printed a new all-time high, and the S&P 500 followed a few days after. 

Leadership groups are breaking out in unison. Down the risk curve, speculative growth is screaming and semis are back in the driver’s seat. 

One bull flag after another keeps resolving higher. 

And most importantly for today's note— the laggards keep catching up to the leaders.

But there’s one group that just hasn't shown up yet… and quite frankly, the bull market can’t rage on without them. I’m talking about a group of stocks SO important, they literally have to join the party. Otherwise, it throws a wrench in the entire bullish thesis.

It’s Homebuilders.

...

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Welcome to The 2 to 100 Club.

In this scan, we look to identify the strongest growth stocks as they climb the market-cap ladder from small- to mid- to large- and, ultimately, to mega cap status (over $200B).

Once they graduate from small-cap to mid-cap status (over $2B), they come on our radar. Likewise, when they surpass the roughly $30B mark, they roll off our list.

But the scan doesn't just end there.

We only want to look at the strongest growth industries in the market, as that is typically where these potential 50-baggers come from.

Some of the best performers in recent decades – stocks like Priceline, Amazon, Netflix, Salesforce, and myriad others – would have been on this list at some point during their journey to becoming the market behemoths they are today.

When you look at the stocks in our table, you'll notice we're only focused on Technology and Growth industry groups such as Software, Semiconductors, Online...

You have probably heard me talk about the Three B’s before.

It stands for banks, biotechs, and builders, and is a fun and convenient acronym I use when discussing the most interest rate-sensitive stocks.

These groups could not be more different, but they share a key similarity in the sense that they all move in synchrony with the bond market.

Biotechs are some of the longest-duration equities, so lower rates boost their valuations. It also allows these chronic cash-burners to access capital cheaply.

Builders sell houses, and lower rates are the key demand driver, so that one is obvious.

And banks are new to the lower rates list. 

We used to say banks want higher rates, or a higher spread—it’s how they make money. However, that changed recently as asset-liability matching issues arose from lending operations during the last rate-...

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza and Ricardo Sarraf @nullcharts

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...

Welcome back for another Top Down Trade of the Week. 

This is a classic leadership scan.

We start with the best sectors, then drill into the subgroups. We pick one, and then take a look at the top stocks in it. 

This week, Financials is the big standout—climbing five spots in our sector rankings.

While Technology holds the top spot, it’s worth highlighting Financials this week. 

The consolidation in the Financial Sector SPDR $XLF is likely to resolve higher soon- just like Technology $XLK, Communications $XLC, and Industrials $XLI did this week. 

These are all very different sectors, but they share one critical thing in common. These groups all represent risk appetite. 

The market is on offense right now, so we’re going to keep fishing in risk-on areas. 

...

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...

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

And here’s how we arrived at it…

We removed laggards which are down 5% or more relative to the ACWI Ex. U.S. Index $ACWX over the trailing...

If you see a bull flag… Buy it. 

It’s what we’ve been telling our clients, and it’s been our mantra internally.

This has been the top pattern to profit from lately. Period.

It’s simple, reliable, and works best in bullish environments like this one.

I’ve been putting more and more money behind these patterns over the past few weeks. Not only do they keep resolving higher, but the reaction legs have been fierce— some going flat-out vertical.

Here are two recent examples to illustrate how I trade this formation.

First up: Micron Technologies $MU.

After a strong leg higher, $MU formed a textbook bull flag. I bought the $MU 7/18 $120 calls...

The team and I have been digging through our currency charts today, trying to figure out if we should trust these new lows in the Dollar Index.

And the truth is, there is plenty we could say about dollars right now, but I don’t think it would help.

The Dollar Index is going to go in the opposite direction of these bull flags in EUR and GBP.

It’s really that simple. 

And as far as other currencies go, I think we can expect them to follow the majors. Some of them are already breaking out. 

Remember, the major developed currencies started trending well against the dollar first, and then emerging currencies gradually followed. 

I expect that intermarket cadence will continue during the next wave of dollar weakness.

And it looks like it already is. Here’s the Euro and Pound resolving their coils higher against USD:

Both of these currencies ramped to fresh multi-year highs in April and have been consolidating in continuation patterns ever since.

This action reminds me of some of the ...

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Welcome to The 2 to 100 Club.

In this scan, we look to identify the strongest growth stocks as they climb the market-cap ladder from small- to mid- to large- and, ultimately, to mega cap status (over $200B).

Once they graduate from small-cap to mid-cap status (over $2B), they come on our radar. Likewise, when they surpass the roughly $30B mark, they roll off our list.

But the scan doesn't just end there.

We only want to look at the strongest growth industries in the market, as that is typically where these potential 50-baggers come from.

Some of the best performers in recent decades – stocks like Priceline, Amazon, Netflix, Salesforce, and myriad others – would have been on this list at some point during their journey to becoming the market behemoths they are today.

When you look at the stocks in our table, you'll notice we're only focused on Technology and Growth industry groups such as Software, Semiconductors, Online...

There comes a time in every bull market cycle when the worst companies are the best stocks.

And this is a feature as far as I’m concerned… not a bug. 

It speaks to the offensive nature of the market. 

We call it bullish risk appetite, and it’s happening now.

If you know what to do with this kind of market, you can make a killing renting the right stocks at the right time. 

I did a livestream with my friend Herb Greenberg today, and we caught up afterward. I always love hearing his perspective on the stocks we’re trading.

It’s tough to be bearish on some of these speculative growth names in an environment where shorts are getting squeezed, but Herb is the best in the business when it comes to flagging bad actors, so I had to ask him...

“What do you know about this...