During our morning Analyst meeting today, the team was looking across a variety of asset classes and sectors to identify the current leaders, and those likely to continue tracking higher if the broader stock market rally is for real.

One sector that stood out starkly was Big Pharma.

There are some monster bases in the process of resolving higher here.

From the Desk of Louis Sykes @haumicharts

One of the common criticisms of technical analysis is that it's all self-fulfilling prophecy.

Its proponents argue that technical analysis doesn't work by understanding underlying supply and demand dynamics.

Rather, it operates on a single dimension, where market events are caused either directly or indirectly by a preceding prediction by technician that it was going to perform a certain way.

An intuitive example of the self-fulfilling prophecy hypothesis (SFP) is the classic technical analysis principle of support and resistance.

Those who favor SFP argue that markets only sell off at resistance and bottom at support because other traders identified these levels and acted according to technical analysis principles.

After all, a self-fulfilling prophecy is defined as a person or a group's expectation for the behavior of another group bringing about the expected behavior.

Within the industry, arguments like these tend to get hyperpolarized and over-divisive. That's not surprising considering there's still a cohort of investors that argues technical analysis is like...

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

Last night we held our August Mid-month Conference Call. This is when we discuss our tactical view of the market and look for any signs of change in the short-term trend.

Let's go through some of the most important charts to track as this month progresses.

The most significant insider transaction on today’s list comes in a 13D from Carl Icahn.

Icahn increased his ownership stake in the natural gas services company Southwest Gas Holdings $SWX from 7.6% to 8.7%.

My friend Patrick just invited me to talk markets on his Trendlines Over Headlines video series.

I had a blast chatting about some of my favorite charts and what we’re seeing in crypto, the major averages, small-caps, crude, and a lot more. We covered a lot of ground, hitting on some of the most important market themes right now.

You can watch it here:

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Dividend Aristocrats are easily some of the most desirable investments on Wall Street.

These are the names that have increased dividends for at least 25 years, providing steadily increasing income to long-term-minded shareholders.

As you can imagine, the companies making up this prestigious list are some of the most recognizable brands in the world. Coca-Cola, Walmart, and Johnson & Johnson are just a few of the household names making the cut.

Here at All Star Charts, we like to stay ahead of the curve. That's why we're turning our attention to the future aristocrats.

In an effort to seek out the next generation of the cream-of-the-crop dividend plays, we're curating a list of stocks that have raised their payouts every year for five to nine years.

We call them the Young Aristocrats, and the idea is that these are "stocks that pay you to make money."

Imagine if years of consistent dividend growth and high momentum and relative strength had a baby, leaving you with the best of the emerging dividend giants that are outperforming the averages.

By adding our...

The stock making its way to today's post is part of the Defense sector that has been performing well for a while now.

And guess what? We have a breakout! Do you know which stock we're talking about?

We retired our "Five Bull Market Barometers" in 2020 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.

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

As I scrolled through my currency charts this weekend, the same three-word phrase kept popping to mind: "Can’t be short!"

Whether it’s the Swiss franc, the British pound, or the Thai baht, we can’t be short most global currencies against the US dollar. Not at current levels.

There is one major exception. It’s the euro.

From the desk of Willie Delwiche.

Breadth is improving and our bull market re-born checklist has satisfied two more of its criteria. We are moving off the sidelines and getting more involved, increasing equity exposure in both the Cyclical and Tactical Portfolios and staying in harmony with current leadership trends.

From the desk of Willie Delwiche.

Key Takeaways:

• Breadth thrusts and global strength have fueled the market in the past
• Price patterns are consistent but participation is stronger now than in 2008
• If June low was important, remainder of 2022 could see less volatility and more strength

The first half of 2022 was a great time to be on the sidelines, letting the bulls and bears bloody themselves in the market. Last year saw the previous breadth thrust regime expire in June and by November more stocks were making new lows than new highs. As 2021 turned to 2022, fewer and fewer world markets were showing any strength. The second half of the year is shaping up to be a different story, with a breadth thrust in July and a sharp expansion in the percentage of world markets trading above their 50-day averages, the conditions that have fueled all of the net gains in the S&P 500 in the past 40+ years are now present. 

We have compared the market action over the first half of 2022 to the behavior of the market following the peak in Q4...

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

From the Desk of Louis Sykes @haumicharts

There's lots of chatter about the Ethereum $ETH merge, and rightfully so.

It's a significant development for the entire space and is paving an ideological divide in the community from proponents of proof-of-work (PoW) to that of proof-of-stake (PoS).

But when it comes to our job as technicians -- that is, following money flow -- we like to sweep the narrative aside and see what's really happening.

And we like to tell it like it is.

Elliott Management is at it again.

Following the revelation of large stakes in Paypal $PYPL and Pinterest $PINS just last month, the activist fund was in the news again on Monday.

This time it’s targeting the healthcare space, with a large investment in Cardinal Health $CAH.

If it walks like a duck and quacks like duck, then it's probably not a chicken.

That's how I look at what is potentially year 3 of a new bull market.

Look at all the most important cycle bottoms in stock market history.

You'll notice the powerful thrust in year 1, followed by a messy digestion of those gains in year 2. And then all those bull markets resumed in year 3:

This is the video recording of the August 2022 Mid-month Conference Call.

We discussed:

• Seasonally, this is the time to buy stocks
• S&P500 above key support
• More new highs than new lows for the first time in 2022
• Is Year 3 about to get started? What do other Year 3s look like?
• Average NYSE stock is up 33%, average Nasdaq stock is up 42%
• Financials Bounce Off Pre-GFC highs
• Russell2000 & Nasdaq100 above AVWAP off Covid lows
• Gold & Silver Miners down near multi-year relative lows
• A little Dollar weakness sparked a huge risk-on rally
• New multi-month highs for Discretionary vs Staples
• Apple highest S&P500 weighting of any stock ever
• Free ride in Facebook through the end of the year
• Healthcare plans setting up: $UNH $HUM $CNC $CI
• Breadth Expansion in Industrials
• Indian Banks are the leaders in Banking
• Energy stocks below overhead supply - work to do
• Which coal stocks are we buying
• Lithium continues to act strong, in US and outside US
• Defensive Sectors...

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Welcome to our latest Minor Leaguers report.

We've had some great trades come out of this small-cap-focused column since we launched it back in 2020 and started rotating it with our flagship bottom-up scan, Under the Hood.

For the first year or so, we focused only on Russell 2000 stocks with a market cap between $1 and $2B.

That was fun, but we wanted to branch out a bit and allow some new stocks to find their way onto our list.

We expanded our universe to include some mid-caps.

To make the cut for our Minor Leaguers list, a company must have a market cap between $1 and $4B.

And it doesn't have to be a Russell component — it can be any US-listed equity. With participation expanding around the globe, we want all those ADRs in our universe.

The same price and liquidity filters are applied. Then, as always, we sort by proximity to...

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @sstrazza

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 the stock is about to move in...

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 big picture context 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.