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

The US dollar is on the ropes as global currencies bounce back.

After failing to hold its breakout earlier in the month, the USD looks vulnerable against a growing number of currencies.

The pound and euro are catching higher. The Swiss franc is rebounding off its recent lows. And the commodity-centric Australian and Canadian dollars remain resilient.

We can add the Mexican peso to this list, as the USD/MXN cross broke down to fresh 52-week lows yesterday. This breakdown supports the near-term bearish argument for the dollar.

And it also offers a great trade setup. 

Let’s take a look.

Here’s a chart of the USD/MXN pair:

While the Mexican peso has chopped sideways since late 2020, we believe the trend is shifting to the downside.

Last week, prices punctured the range lows as the USD/MXN hit...

Key Takeaway:

• After bounce, trend environment still trying.
• Health of the economy hinges on the desire and ability of consumers to spend.
• Risk On case needs to prove its point.

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 Thursday June 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 Thursday evening:

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

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

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

Last week, George Soros filed a 13G revealing the purchase of 9,425,000 shares of the small-cap automotive semiconductor company indie Semiconductor $INDI.

This brings Soros Fund Management's total interest to 9.20%, making it the largest shareholder of the company.

The magazine cover on the left, describing how Bitcoin was "Storming Wall Street" came just a few weeks before Bitcoin put in a historic top in late 2017. Immediately after this cover story, Bitcoin went on to have one of the most epic crashes of all time.

Investors got wiped out right after the one on the left.

And now here we are after Bitcoin got cut in half, and many of the altcoins are down 70-80% if not more.

There's no denying that the market action over the last month has been hectic.

From the collapse of Terra $LUNA to the crash in governance tokens, not to mention the macro headwinds that have played their role in crypto markets.

With all this noise, let's zoom out and focus on how we're viewing the current situation.

Nifty Auto has been gaining strength over the past week. We're seeing some follow-through there and hence, today's post will discuss a stock from the same sector.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza.

Welcome back to our latest Under the Hood column, where we'll cover all the action for the week ended May 27, 2022. This report is published bi-weekly and rotated 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...

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.

They’re doing so for one reason only: because they think the stock is about to move in their...

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Our Top 10 Charts 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.

Major Levels

The Dollar Index and rates are the two most important charts on the planet right now, and they’re both rolling over. If these two critical areas of the market catch lower, it should provide a much-needed boost to a stock market still grappling with selling pressure. A weaker dollar lifts all risk assets, while lower rates should impact the most beaten down areas, primarily tech. If these tops resolve lower and stocks don’t catch a bid, it raises an important question: What will it take for stocks to rally?

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.

Macro Universe:

• Our macro universe bounced back this week as 91% of our list closed higher with a median return of 3.34%.
• S&P 500 Quality $SPHQ was the winner this week, closing with a 7.65% gain.
• The biggest loser was the Volatility Index $VIX, with a weekly loss of -12.61%.
• There was a 2% gain in the percentage of assets on our list within 5% of their 52-week highs – currently at 11%.
• 66% of our macro list made fresh 4-week...

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 Steven Strazza @Sstrazza and Ian Culley @Ianculley

Not all indexes are created equal… But, some are equal-weighted.

We like to use the equal-weight versions as they level the playing field among components and give us a more accurate view of the participation within a given universe.

This balanced approach adds a crucial layer to our analysis. 

Friday, we highlighted our custom commodity index which assigns the same weighting to thirty-three individual contracts. As we would expect, it’s moving in lockstep with the 10-yr breakeven inflation rate. Both are rolling over in the near term.

Interestingly, the energy-heavy CRB index is not following the same path. It's trading at new highs.

Which one should we trust?

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

While we managed to string together a handful of up-days at the end of last week, markets have been selling off aggressively since April. Sellers remain in full control as the list of indexes resolving lower from distribution patterns continues to grow.

Finding favorable long setups in this tape hasn’t been easy. And because Inside Scoop is a “long-only” scan, there’s been little for us to do in the current environment.

Despite this, insiders have been very active in recent weeks as we continue to see more and more come out to buy the dip.

Many of the names seeing insider interest are in severe downtrends and have already endured significant technical damage.

With that said, there are still long opportunities. We just have to look a little harder, and get a bit more creative.

Today, we have a long-term base breakout as well as a short-term mean-reversion setup. While these are very different, both offer significant upside potential with limited risk.

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.

Remember this chart from earlier in the month?

It was comparing the current circumstances to what happened in 2010.

If you recall, the stock market ripped off those March 2009 lows, then in 2010 looked like it was completing a major top, but didn't, and then prices exploded higher instead:

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.

It's been about over a week that the market has churned sideways. In every sideways market move, there are some areas of strengths and weaknesses.

Currently, we're looking at a minor strength coming through in the Auto index. There have been some signs of this strength off late. But we're going to focus on just a few charts here to communicate what we're referring to here.

The Auto index has been moving sideways for longer, compared to the broader market. Presently, the index just about marked a new high since February this year.

We can see in the chart below that 10,400 has been a crucial support zone for the index. Bouncing off the same level, the price is now making a move towards its resistance near 12,130. In this move, certain stocks have displayed strength in the current market environment.

We're here to share those stocks with you!

Click on the chart to zoom in.

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

Nobody likes inflation.

The costs of day-to-day necessities rise. Long-forgotten and disliked sectors of the market start to outperform. And many of the cool tech names that were a must-own for every portfolio turn into a pile of hot garbage.

Now that everyone – even the Fed – agrees the current inflationary environment isn’t transitory, cries of a near-term top in inflation have emerged. 

Yes, breakevens and inflation expectations have peaked and are beginning to roll over. Whether this will turn into a substantial downturn in the coming weeks and months is anyone’s guess.

Instead of playing the guessing game, we’re focused on commodities – the assets that benefit most from inflationary pressures. 

Here’s what we’re seeing.

This is a chart of our equal weight commodity index overlaid with the 10-year breakeven inflation rate:

These charts look incredibly similar...