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

We’ve been loud about energy lately. And how can we not be?

Energy stocks were the most resilient during the H1 selloff and are by far the best-performing sector off the 2020 lows. Every afternoon, energy quietly leads the pack into the close, whether the market is green or red on the day.

But the recent rally in stocks has started to fizzle. And even energy is beginning to feel the downside pressure.

While everyone scrambles to label the recent rally, gearing up for the next leg higher, or preparing for the world's end, we want to focus on the leaders – energy!

If this leadership group starts to fall, it could be an early warning sign of broad selling on the horizon.

And, with Labor Day upon us, it just so happens the energy sector ETF $XLE is retesting a critical shelf of former highs.

Here’s a chart of XLE:

Like many cyclical areas of the market, XLE reclaimed its prior-cycle highs during the...

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

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:

...

Today, it looked like the market wanted to continue yesterday afternoon's powerful late rally.

Well, it was not to be, as stocks have broadly declined since lunchtime and indices are in the red as I type this.

For me, this offers yet another opportunity to sell some delta-neutral options premium to continue providing some ballast to the directional bets in my portfolio.

So let's get right to it...

From the desk of Willie Delwiche.

The late-July breadth thrust provides a breadth thrust regime that lasts for a year (or more if we get additional breadth thrusts between now and mid-2023). In such an environment, near-term oversold conditions tend not to persist and, in fact, reverse quite quickly. One way of measuring this is to look at the percentage of world markets trading above their 50-day average. Anything above 70% is pretty good participation, whether we are in a bullish breadth thrust regime or not. Below 40% is a different story. Without a breadth thrust as support, the S&P 500 struggles to make headway when the percentage of world markets above their 50-day average collapses. But within breadth thrust regimes, it signals an oversold condition that leads to strength. 

The percentage of world markets above their 50-day average was at 90% in mid-August and is now down to just 25%. The recent breadth thrust suggests that rather than a red light arguing for caution, the signal now is a greenlight encouraging exposure.  

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

This is the video recording of our September 2, 2022, All Star Charts Crypto Weekly Strategy Session.

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

Bryant R. Riley, chairman and CEO of B. Riley Financial Inc $RILY, and director Randall E. Paulson both filed Form 4s reporting purchases for a combined $3.7 million. Both executives have been frequent buyers all year.

Arthur Laffer, the former Reagan administration economic adviser known for the Laffer Curve, filed a Form 4 revealing a share purchase in NexPoint Residential Trust $NXRT.

From the Desk of Ian Culley @Ianculley

Heading into Q3, we wanted to play a mean-reversion bounce in US treasury bonds. A long list of reasons supported this position:

• US Treasuries experienced their worst H1 in history (or close to it).
• Bonds were finding support at their previous-cycle lows from 2018.
• Commodities and inflation expectations peaked earlier in the spring.
• Assets that benefit from rising rates (financials) were making fresh lows.
• Global yields were pulling back.

And, quite frankly, our risk was well-defined. We can’t ask for much more. For us, the greater risk was not taking a swing at this trade in the event bonds ripped higher…

Two months later, bonds across the curve are taking out their 2018 lows. The market has proven our mean-reversion thesis wrong. But we can live that because we manage risk responsibly.

It’s the most important part of playing this game.

Easily, the second-most important is to remain flexible.

As investors and traders, we have to be able to change our opinion on any given...

This is the video recording of the September 1st, 2022, Weekly Town Hall w/ Willie Delwiche.

09/01/22 2:00 PM ET

From the desk of Willie Delwiche.

The first eight months of the year have been a grind. 

A mid-month reversal in August took the S&P 500 from a 4% gain to 4% loss for the month and the early breadth and momentum thrusts now seem like a distant memory. Two-thirds of the way through the year and we are on track for the fewest days of more new highs than new lows observed in the past two decades, and 2022 is just ahead of 2020 (and lagging only 2009) in terms of daily swings of 1% or more on the S&P 500. Weakness in stocks this year has been exacerbated by weakness in bonds, as yields have climbed to new multi-year highs. The 60/40 stock/bond benchmark portfolio is down 14% through August.

Welcome to September. If you haven’t heard, it’s the worst month of the year for stocks. Since 1950, only two months (February and September) have been down on average. This is a case were we don’t really need to focus on the exact numbers – the large red bar for September says it all:

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza 

Regardless of the time frame, we continue to see leadership and relative strength from energy stocks.

Outside of utilities, it is the only sector flaunting positive returns on a year-to-date basis.

Even over the past several weeks, with the broader market coming under increasing pressure, energy stands out as the most resilient group.

When we look at the structural trend for energy stocks, this makes a lot more sense.

While most sectors and indexes are facing downward sloping or sideways 200-day moving averages, indicating that the path of least resistance is lower, energy stocks remain in a strong primary uptrend.

While the corrective action of the past few days has not left energy unscathed, the Energy Sector SPDR $XLE remains above our risk level of 79.

As long as this is the case, the bias is higher for energy, and we want to be looking for the strongest stocks to buy as a way to express our bullish thesis.

This brings us to today...

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

Getting a fresh batch of monthly candlesticks has to be one of our favorite elements in our process.

Being forced to zoom out provides us with the insightful context of what truly matters -- the primary trend.

Remember, a lot of the work we do is simple trend identification. Instead of trying to catch the uncertain market top/bottom, we're always looking to position ourselves in the path of least resistance.

Trying to catch and time market extremes is difficult and it comes with a great deal of uncertainty.

Understanding market structure, on the other hand, will give you a great deal of conviction in your overall outlook.

The largest insider transaction on today's list is a Form 4 filing by Cevian Capital II GP LTD.

The hedge fund reported a purchase of roughly $9.1 million in the automotive safety supplier Autoliv $ALV. It now has a total stake of 10%.

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Welcome to the 2 to 100 Club.

As many of you know, something we've been working on internally is using various bottom-up tools and scans to complement our top-down approach. It's really been working for us!

One way we're doing this is by identifying the strongest growth stocks as they climb the market-cap ladder from small- to mid- to large- and, ultimately, to mega-cap status (over $200B).

Once they graduate from small-cap to mid-cap status (over $2B), they come on our radar. Likewise, when they surpass the roughly $30B mark, they roll off our list.

But the scan doesn't just end there.

We only want to look at the strongest growth industries in the market, as that is typically where these potential 50-baggers come from.

Some of the best performers in recent decades – stocks like Priceline, Amazon, Netflix, Salesforce, and myriad others – would have been on this list at some point during their journey...

From the desk of Willie Delwiche.

Key Takeaway: In July, consumer expectations for stocks dropped to their lowest level since March 2009.  Excessive optimism is clearly not an issue for stocks right here. But bulls need to be resilient if the market is going to move higher. Recent breadth and momentum thrusts are fodder for optimism, but the persistent downtrend in stocks is dampening rally attempts. The latest numbers from AAII, II and NAAIM suggest questions about bullish resolve are well-founded. All have rolled over and are showing increased caution. If that continues, a broader re-set becomes more likely - one in which positioning (which has been resilient) gets more in line with sentiment.

Sentiment Report Chart of the Week: Expectations For Stocks Have Tanked

Among the questions asked in the University of Michigan Survey of Consumers is one regarding expectations about the direction of stocks over the coming year. Specifically it asks about the perceived likelihood that stocks will rise over the...

This is the video recording of our August 31, 2022, Inside Scoop Weekly Strategy Session.