From the desk of Steve Strazza @sstrazza

Welcome to our latest RPP Report, where we publish return tables for a variety of different asset classes and categories along with commentary on each.

Looking at the past helps put the future into context. In this post, we review the absolute and relative trends at play and preview some of the things we’re watching to profit in the weeks and months ahead.

We consider this our weekly state of the union address as we break down and reiterate both our tactical and structural outlook on various asset classes and discuss the most important themes and developments currently playing out in markets all around the world.

And at present, markets are a total mess and full of mixed messages as most major stock market indexes continue to churn sideways in consolidation patterns, while many risk-on commodities are in corrective phases.

While the weight of the evidence still remains in the bullish camp, bears seem to add to their list of talking points with every passing week. We believe the highest probability outcome over the coming weeks to...

Humans are hardwired to find patterns where they don't exist.

Back in the day, it was beneficial for our ancestors to picture predators hiding among the leaves, even when they really weren't there. This Pareidolia kept them safe. Thousands of years on, it makes us terribly susceptible to chart crimes.

One such crime plaguing the Crypto landscape is this idea that "Bitcoin is correlated."

People argue that these digital assets are having a real consequence on the macro environment.

But the reality is that Bitcoin is far too small a market to have any intermarket relationships at all.

We debuted a new scan recently which goes by the name- All Star Momentum.

All Star Momentum is a brand new scan that pinpoints the very best stocks in the market. This time around, we have incorporated our stock universe of Nifty 500 as the base. Among the 500 stocks that we follow, this scan will pump out names that are most likely to generate great returns.

While we go through our lists of sectors and stocks on a weekly basis, we thought of launching a product that would highlight the names that are the strongest performers in our universe and those that are primed for an explosive move.

Just like The Outperformers scan, this is a list of stocks belonging to the sectors that display relative strength in the market at any given point in time. Since sector rotation is the lifeblood of a bull market, we will be ahead of the curve before the gears keep shifting.

From the desk of Willie Delwiche.

Key takeaway: From a breadth perspective, the market is challenged right now by a scarcity of new highs. From a sentiment perspective, it has to contend with a scarcity of bears. Options data shows complacency even as risk appetites remain diminished. Bears on both the II and AAII surveys are near their lowest levels since 2018 and ETF inflows remain elevated. The household equity allocation tilt (versus bonds) is its most extreme since 1972. Stocks are loved, bonds are hated. All of this is very well summarized by our chart of the week from the Bank of America Fund Manager Survey which shows virtually no one is expecting (or prepared for) market volatility in the months ahead.

Sentiment Report Chart of the Week: Missing Bears 

It takes bulls to make a bull market, but it takes bears to help sustain it. The Bank of America Fund Managers Survey found only 2% expect a correction >20% in the next six months, emphasizing...

From the desk of Steven Strazza @Sstrazza 

Check out our latest Mystery Chart!

What we do here is take a chart that’s captured our attention, and remove the x and y-axes as well as any other labels that could help identify it.

This chart can be of any security, in any asset class, on any timeframe. Sometimes it’s an absolute price chart, other times it’s on a relative basis.

It might be a ratio, a custom index, or maybe the price is inverted. It could be all three!

The point is, when we aren’t able to recognize what’s in front of us, we put aside any biases we may have and scrutinize the price behavior objectively.

While you can try to guess the chart, the point is to make a decision…

So, let us know what it is… Buy, Sell, or Do Nothing?

From the desk of Steve Strazza @sstrazza

This is one of our favorite bottoms-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 stock is about to move in...

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza and Ian Culley @Ianculley

The US Dollar trading at key levels against a significant amount of Developed and Emerging Market currencies is the major theme in Currency Markets right now. 

The GBP/USD is challenging an area of resistance that acted as support for over two decades but has been a barrier for prices since the Brexit vote almost 5 years ago.

The USD/CHF is on the verge of completing a massive 9-year top.

The USD/ZAR just violated critical support at a decade-long trend line.

And USD/CAD is currently attempting to complete a 5-year double top... with a pattern that looks strikingly similar to that of the DXY Index itself.

These crazy Bitcoin "HODL'ers" and "Laser Eyes" people must be going nuts right now.

Apart from a few exceptions in shorter time frames, there's been a painful lack of real opportunities floating around in this space recently, both on the long and short sides.

Breakouts are failing, and breakdowns aren't doing much either.

Legendary trader Paul Tudor Jones once said that "Markets only trend about 15% of the time, the rest of the time they move sideways."

As aggressive as trends can be in Crypto, we need to respect that markets simply need to repair their damages and reload for the next move.

In the context of Bitcoin's 200-day moving average, once price slips below it, it tends to stay below for some time - especially after prolonged periods of it remaining above.

The market has a mind of its own. Who would've thought that Reliance Industries would break out on a messy market day?

If you've been in the market a while, then you know that Reliance can single-handedly decide the direction of the market. Such is the power of this stock!

So what do we have here? Well, after a considerable bounce over the past month and a half, Reliance has managed to breach an area of resistance. And we're here to talk about the implications of that.

From the desk of Willie Delwiche.

Key Takeaway: Index level highs lack support beneath the surface. Bonds rally in the wake of hot inflation data. Households own relatively few bonds, the Fed has never owned more Treasuries.

• Health Care moved up three spots in this week’s relative strength rankings, but has yet to crack the leadership group. Industrials sector continues to slip in terms of relative strength.
• Both our sector and industry group relative strength studies show Energy and Real Estate as areas of emerging leadership across the size spectrum.
• With Consumer Staples and Utilities still near the bottom of the rankings, it’s hard to make the case for a decisive shift toward defensive leadership in the equity markets.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza.

Welcome back to our latest "Under The Hood” column for the week ended June 13, 2021. This report is published bi-weekly and rotated on-and-off with our "Minor Leaguers" column.

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.

Watch this video for a "behind the scenes" look at our process.

Whether we’re measuring increasing interest based on large institutional purchases, unusual options activity,...

The latest Young Aristocrats report is out and as always, there are some great opportunities setting up there. These are stocks with tremendous dividend growth consistency that are also setting up for bullish price action. How can investors not love these setups? Win from the price appreciation, and get paid while you wait in the form of dividends. Yes, please!

The opportunity that best caught my attention today is an all-time high breakout in a niche corner of the market.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Check out this week’s Momentum Report, our weekly summation of all the major indexes at a Macro, International, Sector, and Industry Group level.

By analyzing the short-term data in these reports, we get a more tactical view of the current state of markets. This information then helps us put near-term developments into the context of the big picture and provides insights regarding the structural trends at play.

Let’s jump right into it with some of the major takeaways from this week’s report:

* ASC Plus Members can access the Momentum Report by clicking the link at the bottom of this post.

Macro Universe:

• Our Macro Universe was mixed this week as only 51% of our list closed higher with a median return of 0.05%.
• Small-Caps was the strongest, closing out the week with a 1.89% gain and a fresh 4-week high.
• The biggest loser of the week was the Lumber losing a massive 17%
• US indices like the S&P 500, Russell 3000 & Russell 1000 closed the week out at...

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Our Top 10 report was just published. In this weekly note, we highlight 10 of the most important charts or themes we're currently seeing in asset classes around the world.

Outlook For Yields Turns Lower

Despite a historic CPI print, yields are unanimously pointing lower, including other vital metrics from different asset classes. Both the Copper/Gold and Regional Bank/REIT ratios have been pointing down for some time, and the all-important High Yield/Treasury Bond spread is shifting to a more bearish tilt for risk assets. It’s pretty clear right now that either the Bond market disagrees that long-term inflation is here to stick around or disagrees with the stock and commodity market on how it’ll affect.

This is where a lot of our mixed signals are coming from right now. Risk assets and commodities, particularly Crude Oil, are pointing to further upside for risk, while the Bond market is beginning to raise some alarm bells. And if we know anything about the Bond market, we consider it smart money. Watch this space...

...

Altcoins are NOT leading this recent bounce.

If (and this is a big if) this is a tradable low for the Cryptocurrency space, this is a critical time and place for us to see new leadership emerge. So far, it's certainly not coming from down the cap scale.

We shared this chart in one of last week's notes, mentioning that:

Throughout Bitcoin’s rebound in the previous few days, the leadership has not been in the Altcoins.

Apart from a few exceptions, most Altcoins have been flat since Bitcoin’s recovered from its crash lows.

Nearly a week since and the same still holds true:

This week we're looking for a long setup in the Pharmaceutical sector. Historical highs are being clocked on both index and stock levels, and one name pops right up.

We retired our "Five Bull Market Barometers" in mid-July to make room for a new weekly post that's focused on the three most important charts for the week ahead.

This is that post, so let's jump into this week's edition.

It's Saturday Morning Chartoons time. You can read more about the reasoning behind this post here. 

We're just interested in aggregating all of the charts we put together throughout the week and organizing them all into one, easy to flip through deck.

One thing that stood out to me this week is the lack of deterioration underneath the surface.

We're just not getting an expansion in new lows.

Fewer new highs? Yes definitely. For a while now.

But more new lows? 

Not broadly speaking yet, no.

For the indexes to go lower, you need more and more stocks going lower. It's just math. 

And even if you look at short-term new lows, we're not seeing expansion yet either:

So for me, that's what I'm watching.

Is the market vulnerable for a correction? Yes.

But without an expansion in new lows, it's...

Early in February, we had published a post discussing the Adani Group and its targets as well as risk management levels. We published a follow-up post with revised targets and risk management levels in April this year.

Well, it's that time again where we update the levels and see what's in store for this group.

Here's to more rotations and revolutions in this particular solar system. Off we go on our rocket ship to see what the charts have to say!

We created a Custom index of Equally weighted Adani Group stocks. As you can see, this particular line chart only requires an extension in the headspace area. Keeps moving higher and higher.

Click on chart to enlarge view.

Now let’s take a look at individual stocks and where they stand at present.

From the desk of Steven Strazza @Sstrazza and Ian Culley @Ianculley

Softs are an area of the commodity space that hasn’t received much attention over the past several months, and for good reason.

As the rest of the commodities complex has been on fire, the action from this group has been muted as they’ve underperformed their peers significantly since last year.

Besides Sugar reaching our initial objective last month and Coffee breaking out of a 4-year bottom, Softs have been a real snooze fest.

Cotton continues to chop within a broad range. Cocoa is well below overhead supply. And OJ grinds sideways as it builds a 3-year base.

But it looks like Orange Juice futures are poised to break free to the upside.

Let’s take a closer look at this favorable risk/reward opportunity in OJ and lay out a potential trade setup to get long this base breakout, if and when it comes...

Here’s the weekly chart of Orange Juice futures:

...