From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

Precious metals bulls have plenty to be excited about.

Major headwinds have abated as rallies cool in real yields and the dollar.

Gold futures are trading above their former commodity supercycle peak.

And the yellow metal is printing new all-time highs priced in every significant currency except the US dollar.

Even mining stock stocks are breaking out!

Check out Alamos Gold $AGI ripping to a new five-month high:

AGI has been on my radar since January. It provided an excellent trade during the spring.

Now, Alamos is flashing another buy signal, reclaiming a critical shelf of former highs outlined last month. 

I like AGI long toward 20 provided it’s trading above 13.

AGI isn’t the only mining stock rewarding buyers right now. It’s just one of the strongest – buy the strongest, sell the weakest.

We’ve also discussed Sandstorm Gold $SAND and Kincross Gold $KGC. Both trades are shaping up well.

SAND is holding above our risk level, while KGC hit a new 52-week high last Friday (I still need to see a decisive close above 5.75 before buying KGC).

...

From the Desk of Steve Strazza and Alfonso Depablos

Today’s largest insider transaction is another Form 4 filing by the CEO and the CFO of Lumen Technologies $LUMN.

Together the two executives bought LUMN shares worth a total of $1,519,450.

A lot has been made about the underperformance from small-cap stocks this year.

The permabears in particular really enjoy using this one as an excuse for missing out on one of the most epic rallies in market history

"But the small-caps"....they cry.

So yes, let's address it. How about those small-caps?

Zoom out. It's a clean series of higher highs and higher lows:

From the Desk of Steve Strazza and Alfonso Depablos

Today’s largest insider transaction is another Form 4 filing by the CEO and the CFO of Lumen Technologies $LUMN.

Together the two executives bought LUMN shares worth a total of $1,519,450.

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 tide is turning for commodities now that the dollar and rates are falling.

Crude oil is relinquishing its leadership role. Gold and silver are catching a bid. And copper is digging in at former support.

But it’s not only base and precious metals bouncing off critical levels…

Check out our Equal-weight Commodity Index refusing to roll over:

Our commodity index, comprised of an equally weighted basket of 33 commodities, is finding support at a shelf of former highs. This is the principle of polarity at its finest – former resistance turning into support.

While it’s still too early to get behind the next broad-based rally in commodities, copper-related mining stocks are following Dr. Copper’s lead...

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

We held our November Monthly Strategy Session Wednesday night. Premium Members can access and rewatch it here.

Non-members can get a quick recap of the call simply by reading this post each month.

By focusing on long-term, monthly charts, the idea is to take a step back and put things into the context of their structural trends. This is easily one of our most valuable exercises as it forces us to put aside the day-to-day noise and simply examine markets from a “big-picture” point of view.

With that as our backdrop, let’s dive right in and discuss three of the most important charts and/or themes from this month’s call.

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 sort the remaining names by their proximity to new 52-week highs.

This leaves us with only...

The "pain trade" is always higher.

I say that often. And its usually true.

And nothing turns the screws harder on bears than rallies in Tesla $TSLA.

So let's get after them with a "double or nothing" bet.

We've adjusted a position in the Paid-to-Play portfolio today:

We had a resting GTC order filled at our profit target in the Paid-to-Play portfolio today:

From the Desk of Steve Strazza and Alfonso Depablos

Today’s largest insider transaction is another Form 4 filing by George A. Borba Jr,, director of CVB Financial Corp $CVBF.

Borba reported a CVBF purchase worth $1.6 million.

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

The market barely reacted Wednesday afternoon following Powell’s remarks, cooking up a big, fat nothing burger for investors.

Market participants took the decision to leave rates untouched in stride. After all, the pause in the hiking cycle was the expected outcome. Since investors already pegged the Fed, the valuable information hung on Powell’s words or forward guidance.

Yet judging by today’s performance, it appears the market just needed a little time to marinate. 

Yesterday’s failed reaction has given way to a delayed response as long-duration bonds scream higher. 

But before we get ahead of ourselves and rush out to buy the bond market bottom, let’s check the charts…

First, the monthly 10-year T-note chart:

JC broke it down last night in his monthly strategy session. Reviewing monthly candlestick charts sits atop our list of best practices, forcing us to reconnect with the underlying...

From the Desk of Steve Strazza and Alfonso Depablos

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JC wanted to put this trade on yesterday (I think he did), but I wanted to wait until after the Fed announcement juuuuuust in case. You never know what shenanigans may take place on binary event risk days.

Well, my patience was rewarded. I am able to put the same delta-neutral credit spread on today at the same premiums that were offered yesterday, but now I don't have to sweat the fed.

Consumer Staples stocks, as a sector, have been displaying relatively high implied volatility in their options and so I wanted a name from this space that was stuck in a range.

The candidate that we all agreed on was Proctor & Gamble $PG:

We've adjusted a position in the Paid-to-Play portfolio today:

From the Desk of Steve Strazza and Alfonso Depablos

Today’s largest insider transaction is another Form 4 filing by Charles Bryan Daniels, director of Fifth Third Bancorp $FITB.

Daniels reported an FITB purchase worth $1,503,495.

From the Desk of Steve Strazza and Alfonso Depablos

Today’s largest insider transaction is another Form 4 filing by Charles Bryan Daniels, director of Fifth Third Bancorp $FITB.

Daniels reported an FITB purchase worth $1,503,495.