From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

I find the general distaste for precious metals amusing.

It cracked me up when a close friend referred to gold as “hot garbage” at the start of the year. The Nasdaq 100 was trading almost 36% off its 2021 zenith. And gold was within striking distance of its former all-time highs.

Yet gold was trash in this investor’s eyes.

That’s information.

Information that got me thinking about a rally in precious metals…

Gold might churn within a range-bound mess over longer to intermediate time frames. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t trade it – or other precious metals. 

In fact, I continue to find fresh levels that define outsized risk-to-reward opportunities.

Here’s the Silver Trust ETF $SLV digging in at a critical shelf of former lows:

As long as SLV is trading above 20.50, I like holding SLV in my portfolio with an upside target of 35 (nice profit potential for a commonly discarded investment). 

Yes, I think silver is heading back to the 2012 peak! 

I highly doubt we’ll witness it tomorrow or even next month. Regardless, I think it...

The fact that Energy hasn't even broken out yet really stands out to me.

Energy, and commodities in general, have been left for dead this year.

Investors have forgotten about that third asset class: Commodities.

It's not just stocks and bonds kids.

There are Commodities too!

Here's the Energy Sector Index, flat over the past 15 years.

It still hasn't even broken out:

The next new position in our Paid-to-Play portfolio is:

The largest insider transaction on today’s list comes in a Form 4 filing by John H. Stone, president and CEO of Allegion plc $ALLE.

Stone revealed a purchase of ALLE shares worth roughly $2 million.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

Futures are up this morning, go figure!

It's like Groundhog Day.

We have another busy earnings week ahead.

Today's trade is inspired by the latest Follow the Flow report. And it's offering up a better than 4-to-1 reward to risk if we nail it.

We're getting long Bausch Health.

Here's the Play:

I still don't think the second half of 2023 is going to look like the first half.

A lot of things could be different.

Let's remember, in the back half of 2022 almost every stock and sector was already going up, EXCEPT for Mega-cap growth.

And then in early January, they got the rotation they were looking for, and it became Tech and Growth as the leaders of this Bull Market.

Now that we're in Month #14 of this Bull Market regime, and we've seen several cycles of rotation already, I think it's time for another one.

First of all, take a look at the Nasdaq100 $QQQ currently running into former resistance from late 2021, that preceded the failed breakout and ensuing collapse:

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.

These are the registration details for our Live Monthly Candlestick Strategy Session for Premium Members of All Star Charts.

This month’s Video Conference Call will be held on Wednesday August 2nd @ 6PM ET. As always, if you cannot make the call live, the video and slides will be archived and published here along with every other live call since 2015.

Here are the details for Wednesday evening:

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

I started at the top last week, laying out my bullish energy thesis with five charts.

Energy commodities are reclaiming critical levels. They’re outperforming their alternatives. And buyers continue to support a healthy demand for crude oil distillates.

What’s not to like?

Today, I’m drilling down to individual stocks, highlighting five trade setups I didn’t cover in last Wednesday’s What the FICC episode…

And these stocks look ready to rip!

First up is oil services. I like this group of stocks because the oil services ETFs $OIH and $XES are the strongest among industry groups.

Here’s Schlumberger LTD. $SLB, the $81B behemoth:

We highlighted SLB in early January in our Hall of Famers column. It's carved out a six-month base below our risk level since.

...

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

It was a nice Friday overall.

It's like yesterday never happened.

I love the base resolution underway in $IBKR and we've got a "hundred-dollar roll" lurking within spitting distance.

A break above $91 would mean fresh all-time highs and coupled with low implied volatility priced into calls options, this sets up my favorite kind of trade.

Let's get after it!

Here's the Play:

The next new position in our Paid-to-Play portfolio is:

The only insider transaction on today’s list comes in a Form 4 filing by Robert W. Stallings, director of Texas Capital Bancshares $TCBI.

Stallings reported a purchase of TCBI shares worth $123,960.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

We have some important economic data coming out this morning.

The market did an about-face turn yesterday and drifted lower.

We'll see if they want to keep everyone happy on a Friday and push the market higher.

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

FOMC meeting?

No worry, beef curry!

The markets barely flinched after the Fed raised interest rates – again. 

Honestly, I didn’t tune in to the press conference. I prefer to focus on the tape.

So you won’t get a rundown of Jerome Powell’s forward guidance, or lack thereof, from me.

I can only relay the information provided by the market.  

Obviously, the rising-rate environment remains intact amid sustained inflationary pressures – “higher for longer.”

We can all agree on that.

The true value from Wednesday’s events resides beneath the headlines…

Investors are adjusting to a new rising-rate regime as they accept the unavoidable: inflation.

The US 10-year breakeven inflation rate is shaping up as a potential “not a top” formation:

I’ve noticed similar patterns across stocks and commodities, especially cyclical value-oriented market areas.

It makes sense. The Fed has yet to emerge as the victor.

And the 10-year...

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

That was a big bounce this morning for the indices...

And then we faded, and gaps are getting filled to the downside.

We all know the market is in need of a breather, but it will do what it wants to do. I did miss some of my own trades today, but traders in the Live Trading Room captured them.

This is the $TGT trade I flubbed. I bought it, I wasn't patient, it ran to my price target, then I bought it back. I told the Live Trading Room it has room to 138!

Today I closed out the $HES shares that I've owned since January. I've bought it and sold it many times throughout the past six months. I can't list all the buys and sells.

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

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

We filter out any laggards that are down -5% or more relative to the...