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From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

Our precious metals index is hitting fresh 52-week highs despite the waning strength in gold and silver.

Only three markets comprise the index. That leaves only one possible culprit – platinum!

First palladium, now platinum?

It doesn’t matter whether you consider platinum or palladium true precious metals. The industrious side of the family is chipping in, supporting a new structural uptrend for the entire space. 

Let’s check it out!

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 Ian Culley @IanCulley

The increased selling pressure across grain markets might not be on your radar. 

But pay close attention: The soybean complex, corn, and wheat are edging toward their respective year-to-date lows as demand wanes. 

Even if you don’t trade these ag contracts, fresh multi-month lows – especially in wheat – carry broad implications for equities and cyclical assets. (Hint: It has to do with crude oil.) 

That’s why I’m on high alert for a potential breakdown in Chicago wheat…

Wheat has been in a strong downtrend since its March 2022 peak, entering a bearish momentum regime last summer.

Notice it's currently carving out a potential multi-month reversal pattern below a significant polarity zone.

But the bulls have their work cut out for them, as the bearish momentum profile suggests sellers are still in control of the market. 

When I take a closer look, I see a...

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...

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

What caught my attention following the SVB collapse wasn’t the headlines so much as how the markets handled the news and the stress that followed.

It’s difficult to find the silver lining of one of the largest bank failures since the financial crisis. But I’m more of a glass-half-full kind of guy.

Despite the relentless barrage of negative headlines, it’s undeniable that risks have been contained, and the markets have weathered the storm – at least for now.

Investors ditched equities and ran to the safety of US Treasury bonds as the saga unfolded. It was like the good old days when stocks were risk assets, and bonds acted like – well, bonds!

Now that the dust has settled, I believe the renewed classic intermarket relationship between stocks and bonds and the familiar patterns of risk-on/risk-off behavior bodes well for the overall market.

Especially when you consider easing volatility…

Here’s an overlay chart of the Bond Volatility Index $MOVE and the S&P 500 Volatility Index $...

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

A weaker dollar remains a key ingredient for a risk-on rally. Yet, like interest rates, the buck refuses to roll over.

The US Dollar Index $DXY continues to hover well below last year’s peak, holding within a tight range for the past four months.

Today, we’ll review critical levels for DXY as this trendless action defines the chart.

We’ll also look beneath the surface for signs of broad strength or weakness and revisit a binding intermarket relationship for clues regarding the dollar’s next major move.

First, let’s define the critical boundaries of DXY’s multi-month range:

The 105 level has proven a significant area of resistance. 

On the flip side, the February pivot lows at approximately 101 mark the lower boundary of the year-to-date range. That’s where we find DXY today.

If and when the dollar index undercuts these pivot lows, a broad risk-on rally likely ensues,...

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

In a market overrun with whipsaws and failed moves, our gold mining trades are holding their breakouts and reaching our initial targets. Not many market areas can make that claim.

Today, I outline multiple mining stocks and highlight critical levels of potential resistance for gold and silver.

Check it out!

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 Steve Strazza @Sstrazza.

Welcome back to Under the Hood, where we'll cover all the action for the week ended April 14, 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 that are 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...

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

Gold mining stocks are the play.

Why?

Because they’re working!

In a market overrun with whipsaws and failed moves, our gold mining trades are holding their breakouts and reaching our initial targets. Not many market areas can make that claim.

And when you consider they’re outperforming the S&P 500 and the physical metals, it’s hard not to like these names.

Especially as gold and silver run into logical levels of resistance…