The S&P 500 has rallied off of its October and December lows, but the 200-day average, which rolled over in April 2022, continues to fall.

More Context: Price trends matter. Over the past 2+ decades, all of the net gains for the S&P 500 have come when the index’s 200-day average has been rising. When the trend has been falling, the index has struggled to keep its head above water. While stocks have begun 2023 in rally mode, they are still fighting a downtrend. Stocks can rally within persistent downtrends. But if stocks keep rallying, down-trends cannot persist. The math just doesn’t work. While we are seeing evidence of a tactically more constructive environment, the longer-term trend backdrop remains challenging. The recent strength has a better shot at being sustained if it can flip some of the longer-term trend indicators to a bullish setting.           

In our Market Notes, we take a closer look at longer-term price trends, recent breadth improvements and paradigm shifts that are...

The Bull has been rolling. Have you noticed? Judging by the response I got from an innocent little bullish tweet last week during the midst of a mild pullback for stocks, you'd think I'm insane for thinking stocks have a chance to go up.

So many angry people looking for lower prices.

Maybe they'll be right someday? Chances aren't zero.

Meanwhile, I'll just keep paying attention to price and relative strength which is an excellent guide to point me into winning trades in any direction.

So for today's trade, we're going to ignore the digital assaults on our senses by the angry bears and get analog in our approach to riding this bullish wave.

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

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

Gold is running into supply.

Whether the former 2011 highs still hold any psychological significance doesn’t matter.

Gold bulls continue to find an overwhelming amount of sellers at that level. This will remain the case until demand absorbs supply.

How long will that take? It’s anyone’s guess – maybe weeks, perhaps even months or quarters.

The point is, gold needs time.

Meanwhile, silver futures are coiling within a tight range…

Check out the daily chart of gold’s crazy cousin:

At first glance, the current consolidation appears to be a bull flag or pennant.

But, in their classic “Technical Analysis of Stock Trends,” Edwards and Magee issue a clear and present warning: “A pattern of this type that extends beyond three weeks should be watched with suspicion.”

Since the silver chart is working on the fifth week of contracting, the bull flag interpretation is losing credibility.

That doesn’t mean silver futures can’t rip higher here, of course. If they do, I’m buying strength above 24.80 with a tactical target of 27.50.

And if silver is trading above 25,...

There's a high degree of momentum driving the market.

Last week, we saw a continuation of this bullish action, with Bitcoin and altcoins taking out local resistance levels.

This comes as little surprise, considering the trends are now unequivocally higher.

The largest insider transaction on today’s list is a Form 4 filing by Ares Management LLC.

The hedge fund reported an additional purchase worth roughly $1.3 million in Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings $CCO, increasing its total stake to 10.5%.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

It looks like $SPY has a date with 400, as long as 392.75 holds.

That was a powerful day on Friday. The buyers stepped in.

It's not a secret around here that Energy stocks have been doing well.

No one here cares that some investors got caught holding the bag in those growthy tech stocks, and didn't have anywhere near enough energy exposure over the past couple of years.

It's not my fault that the S&P500 was only 2% Energy but 26% Technology.

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.

After a very strong 4th quarter for stocks, it looks like 2023 is getting started right where they left off.

But this time, it's the Nasdaq that's leading the way.

So far this year, the Nasdaq100 is up every single week.

It's largest components are driving the overall market higher.

It's the weekly commodity edition of What the FICC?

Every day we have the choice to either follow the news or follow trends. I choose the latter...

Check it out!

Inflation has peaked!

Or so I’ve been told… 

Rates are rolling over, undercutting their June highs from last year. High-yield debt, including emerging-market bonds, is catching a bid.

And major commodity indexes are on the verge of breaking down.

That all sounds logical to me.

But just because inflation might begin to ease doesn’t mean I’m taking a bearish stance on inflationary assets, especially commodities.

As crazy as that may seem,  these next four charts support my case…

Check out the long-term chart of gold futures overlaid with copper:

These metals are in the process of carving out decade-long bases.

Based on Friday’s intraday action, gold is trading above its prior commodity supercycle peak at approximately 1,924, while copper is holding less than 50 cents...

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

Risk appetite is returning to markets as breadth expands beneath the surface for US and international equities.

Insiders are getting more active and more aggressive, and the number of bullish opportunities from our Inside Scoop universe continues to increase gradually.

We think the coming months and quarters will be a favorable environment for those looking to buy stocks.

With that said, we have a handful of bullish setups today. Let's dive right in.

What do the movies The Wizard of Oz and The Matrix have in common? The answer is that they both are stories about artificial intelligence.  The Wizard of Oz is one of the earliest examples of this in popular culture, with the philosophical question of what types of AI matter most - was it the Scarecrow, who needed brains (computational power), or the Tin Man, who needed heart (the emotional intelligence to understand us)? 

Thanks to the efforts of early pioneers in the field like Alan Turing in the 1950s, who helped address and begin work on these problems, we can fast forward 70 years and marvel at contemporary companies like OpenAI, that have solved many of those initial challenges.  

Here at All Star Charts, we’re more old school – but we’re not outdated.  We know that the foundations of technical analysis are predicated on the study of behavioral science, and how biases like price anchoring, fear, and greed create repeatable patterns we can take advantage of. 

And since we’re on the subject, it turns out that investors, computers, whoever or whatever is driving the market moves we’re seeing today; they’re paying attention heavily to...

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

This is the third Friday in a row that we've had a melt-up.

We closed the gaps on the indices, and away we went.

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:

...

This is the video recording of our January 20, 2023, All Star Charts Crypto Weekly Strategy Session.

From the Desk of Willie Delwiche.

Firms are still hiring but with average weekly hours being curtailed, aggregate hours worked appear to have peaked in Q4.

Why It Matters: Talk of a soft landing has intensified, but the data paint a different picture. Real spending peaked in Q1. Housing starts in Q2. Industrial production in Q3. Payrolls are still expanding and layoffs are near historically low levels. Given the structural imbalance between unfilled jobs and unemployed workers, those metrics are unlikely to be useful indicators of what lies ahead for the economy. Don’t even start with the unemployment rate, which has long been considered a lagging indicator. Rather than firing workers who were hard to hire in the first place, firms are keeping their payrolls largely intact. They are responding to softening demand by curtailing hours worked. Payrolls and initial jobless claims are noise in this environment. The news is that the economy is weakening, inflation is lingering, and the Fed is still raising rates.       

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

Me and Strazza did The Flow show earlier in the week, and one of the names we discussed as being a possible trade to get into has finally popped its head above the trigger I was waiting for.

This one has the potential to be a quick mover, so let's get right to it!