From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

Precious metals represent an opportunity cost.

The entire complex – gold, silver, platinum, and palladium – has gone nowhere for the past few years.

Yet I can’t overlook the resilience of gold and silver as interest rates and the US dollar rise – two significant headwinds for these shiny rocks. 

Perhaps they deserve the benefit of the doubt.  

I believe they do.

But extending these lackluster metals with a favorable outlook does not equate to taking a long position.

It’s far from it.

Price must prove buying precious metals offers a rewarding proposition.

The following two intermarket ratios will undoubtedly rise if and when it does.

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza.

Welcome back to Under the Hood, where we'll cover all the action for the week ended September 15, 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,...

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 Kimmy Sokoloff

This is a very choppy market.

$SPY bumped up to resistance at 445 then dropped lower.

We can stay volatile this whole week.

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

From the Desk of Steve Strazza

The largest insider buy on today’s list comes in a Form 4 filing by Thurman John Rodgers, director of Enphase Energy Inc $ENPH.

Rodgers reported a purchase of $4 million in ENPH.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

The indices are stuck under their respective moving averages.

This is making it harder to find opportunities to trade.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

This is a very choppy market.

$SPY bumped up to resistance at 445 then dropped lower.

We can stay volatile this whole week.

While the stock market continues to digest its recent run and weave through this sideways consolidation, we're starting to get some pretty clear hints on which stocks will likely be leaders if/when the bull market resumes.

Today's trade is an early bullish bet on one of those names.

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

Precious metals represent an opportunity cost.

The entire complex – gold, silver, platinum, and palladium – has gone nowhere for the past few years.

Yet I can’t overlook the resilience of gold and silver as interest rates and the US dollar rise – two significant headwinds for these shiny rocks. 

Perhaps they deserve the benefit of the doubt.  

I believe they do.

But extending these lackluster metals with a favorable outlook does not equate to taking a long position.

It’s far from it.

Price must prove buying precious metals offers a rewarding proposition.

The following two intermarket ratios will undoubtedly rise if and when it does.

I covered these ratio charts in late July as they neared key inflection points or critical former support levels.

Fast-forward to today, and both are bouncing higher after posting fresh lows.

Check out the Gold Miners ETF $GDX versus the S&P 500 ETF $SPY:

Now is the time, and the shelf of former lows marks the place for gold miners to assume a leadership role.

That was the...

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

From the Desk of Steve Strazza and Alfonso Depablos

The most significant insider purchase on today's list comes from Wayne P. Rothbaum, director of Iovance Biotherapeutics $IOVA.

Rothbaum declared a $26.5 million IOVA purchase in a Form 4 filing.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

Let's see what this week brings, as we have the FOMC on Wednesday.

Next support down on $SPY is 440.

The stock market correction continues....

What else would you expect during this seasonally weak period for stocks?

Historically, stocks do very well after mid-term elections. And that's exactly what happened.

Then in Q3 the struggle tends begin for a few months.

And that's precisely what we've seen this year. A perfectly normal market:

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

Let’s see what this week brings, as we have the FOMC on Wednesday.

Next support down on $SPY is 440.

From the Desk of Steve Strazza

The most significant insider purchase on today’s list comes from Wayne P. Rothbaum, director of Iovance Biotherapeutics $IOVA.

Rothbaum declared a $26.5 million IOVA purchase in a Form 4 filing.

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

Stock market bears and tech bros are whining in the corner as energy outperforms.

Haters can hate all they want…

Energy marks the spot when it comes to stocks.

Spencer and I discussed it on Wednesday’s “What the FICC?” episode, highlighting the absolute and relative uptrends across the space.

Energy is clearly resuming a leadership role in stock and commodity markets. But crude oil isn’t the only commodity exhibiting strength.

Cattle are ripping higher, too!

Check out the daily chart of live cattle futures:

Live cattle are breaking out of a multi-month consolidation, printing new all-time highs.

The path of least resistance leads higher toward 202 as long as price holds above 184.

I highlight longer-term upside objectives in today’s...

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

Our International Hall of Famers list is composed of the 100 largest US-listed international stocks, or ADRs.

We've also sprinkled in some of the largest ADRs from countries that did not make the market cap cut. 

These stocks range from some well-known mega-cap multinationals such as Toyota Motor and Royal Dutch Shell to some large-cap global disruptors such as Sea Ltd and Shopify.

It's got all the big names and more–but only those that are based outside the US. You can find all the largest US stocks on our original Hall of Famers list.

The beauty of these scans is really in their simplicity.

We take the largest names each week and then apply technical filters in a way that the strongest stocks with the most momentum rise to the top.

Based on the market environment, we can also flip the scan on its head and filter for weakness.

Let's dive in and take a look at some of the most important stocks from around the world.

Here's this week's list:

...

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

Markets fluctuate to a relentless beat driven by fear, greed, and an incessant newsfeed.

Sometimes, they trend. 

But, more often than not, they churn sideways.

Unsurprisingly, “sideways” best describes most markets today.

The S&P 500, the Nasdaq 100, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average have gone nowhere in three months. 

Regardless, one uptrend remains intact…

The coordinated rise in the US dollar and interest rates.

Check out the overlay chart of the 10-year US Treasury yield $TNX and the US Dollar Index $DXY with a 21-day rolling correlation in the lower pane:

US yields and the dollar have been in near-perfect harmony since the Fed began raising interest rates last year.

Sure, they briefly fell out of step. But the two found their groove in early July.

The DXY challenges its year-to-date highs while the 10-year yield closes on its highest print in over a decade.

The result: Bonds continue to break down. Global currencies...