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

We love our bottoms-up scans here at All Star Charts. We tend to get really creative when making new universes as we want to be sure they will deliver us the best opportunities the market has to offer.

However, when it comes to our latest project, it couldn’t be any simpler!

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 stocks.

Welcome to The Junior Hall of Famers.

This scan is composed of the next 150 largest stocks by market cap, those that come after the top 150 and are thus covered by the Hall of Famers universe. Many of these names will someday graduate and join our original Hall Of Famers list. The idea here is to catch these big trends as early on as possible.

There is no need to overcomplicate things. Market cap is a quality filter at the end of the day. It only grows if price is rising. That’s good enough for us.

The bottom line is it is a bull market. We...

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Welcome to The 2 to 100 Club.

As many of you know, something we've been working on internally is using various bottom-up tools and scans to complement our top-down approach.

It's really been working for us!

One way we're doing this is by identifying 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...

For me, this is what we want to watch.

Are you wondering whether this correction in the stock market can turn into something much more severe?

I certainly am.

As thrilled as we are to see some of these Tech and Growth stocks get hammered, the question is whether this aggressive selling will spill into other more value-oriented areas.

There are 3 main charts that we have on our radar.

The first one is in credit. If we're entering into a new bear market, or an aggressive period of high volatility, you are likely to see that stress in the bond market. If Treasuries begin to outperform High yield, it's evidence of that stress.

The next one is in High Beta vs Low Volatility stocks. This ratio tends to move very closely with the averages. If you start to see a bid in Low Volatility stocks relative to High Beta, then this correction is likely to be more severe.

As is common when the stock market is moving lower, we're seeing rising options premiums. We aren't seeing any big volatility spikes yet, and $VIX is still relatively muted, but the recent rise coupled with setups that appear to be ripe for some sideways action in the coming weeks and months has me on the hunt for delta-neutral premium selling opportunities.

Today's trade is in a metals and materials stock that appears to be stuck in a year-long range that we're betting on continuing.

Check out this chart of Freeport McMoran $FCX for a visual of what we're seeing:

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

When it rains, it pours.

Markets chop sideways most of the time. This has been the reality for forex markets for much of the year.

But that’s starting to change as numerous US dollar pairs reach new 10-month highs. The dollar is taking down crucial levels while the US Dollar Index $DXY retests a year-to-date downtrend line and key former highs.

The peculiar coincidence sets up some potentially critical resolutions for these USD pairs.

If they fail, the dollar rally is likely over. 

If they hold and additional USD breakouts materialize, selling pressure will intensify for many risk assets.

As of today, quite a few forex pairs are on the verge of supporting a sustained US dollar rally…

Let’s start with the second largest component of the DXY (13.6%), the US dollar-Japanese yen:

The USD/JPY is completing a six-week base as it breaks to its highest level since November.

Is now the time to get long equities?

If you kept up with the headlines and what the sell side analysts have to say, you'd think it would be.

Fortunately we try to stay ahead of the curve around here.

Yesterday we discussed the recent sentiment shift among permabears, wall street analysts, hedge funds and financial media.

You can read that again here.

To add to that sentiment shift, here is the our internal sentiment composite which includes data from Individual Investors, Advisories, Active Investment Managers, Volatility and the Options Market.

As you can see last year saw some of the most pessimistic levels in history, giving us one of the greatest buying opportunities we've ever seen.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Welcome to our latest Minor Leaguers report.

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, 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...

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

One of my favorite scenes from "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" is when we get to meet the in-house surf instructor, played by Paul Rudd.

Rudd’s character, Chuck, a transplant local, imparts sage advice, “When life gives you lemons, just say f@&k the lemons and bail!”

I always laugh at that one, even as I write this note.

That’s probably because  I’ve spent the better part of the past twenty years chasing waves – but I don’t share this Hollywood version of a stoner-surfer ethos regarding life.

But I do follow this mindset when it comes to markets…

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...

The Nasdaq100 is already down 4.5% this month. Technology as a sector is down almost 6.5% for August.

But corrections are a choice, not a requirement.

As an investor, you make the choice and decide which assets you want to own and which you do not.

Remember, "Passive Investing" is a lie. There's no such thing. All investors are active. The difference is whether you choose your portfolio holdings, or you let some random index providers make those decisions for you.

But we're all active investors, whether we like it or not. Don't forget that.

So even thought the indexes are messy this quarter, take a look at Energy hitting new 6-month highs this week:

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Dividend Aristocrats are easily some of the most desirable investments on Wall Street. These are the names that have increased dividends for at least 25 years, providing steadily increasing income to long-term-minded shareholders.

As you can imagine, the companies making up this prestigious list are some of the most recognizable brands in the world. Coca-Cola, Walmart, and Johnson & Johnson are just a few of the household names making the cut.

Here at All Star Charts, we like to stay ahead of the curve. That's why we're turning our attention to the future aristocrats. In an effort to seek out the next generation of the cream-of-the-crop dividend plays, we're curating a list of stocks that have raised their payouts every year for five to nine years.

We call them the Young Aristocrats, and the idea is that these are "stocks that pay you to make money." Imagine if years of consistent dividend growth and high momentum and relative strength had a baby, leaving you with the best of the emerging dividend giants that are outperforming the averages.

By adding our technical analysis to the mix, the Young...