From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

We held our February Monthly Strategy Session last week. ASC Premium Members can click here to watch the replay and download the chartbook.

Non-members can get a quick recap of the call simply by reading this post each month.

By focusing on long-term, monthly charts, the idea is to take a step back and put things into the context of their structural trends.

This is easily one of our most valuable exercises as it forces us to put aside the day-to-day noise and simply examine markets from a “big-picture” point of view.

With that as our backdrop, let’s dive right in and discuss three of the most important charts and/or themes from this month’s call.

From the Desk of Alfonso Depablos @Alfcharts

As we exit the best three-month period for the stock market, we're looking to our risk appetite indicators to help us determine the next directional move.

The charts below are all excellent tools for helping identify what kind of environment we are in.

During bull markets, investors embrace risk. In bear markets, they reduce their risk.

Understanding and analyzing the balance between defensive and offensive assets helps keep us on the right side of the trend.

Let's get into it:

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @sstrazza and Alfonso Depablos @Alfcharts

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.

From the Desk of Alfonso Depablos @AlfCharts

In today's post, we’ll discuss the importance of four key indexes and what they can tell us about the future direction of the overall market.

All these groups provide an excellent overview of the current market environment and risk appetite. 

If you want to know where the broader market is headed, these are the charts to watch.

Here they are:

From the Desk of Alfonso Depablos @AlfCharts

When we talk about market bellwethers, we are referring to large-cap equities that indicate the broader market's future direction.

These stocks often have a heavy weighting in the most important sectors and indexes, as well as a notable economic impact due to their size and influence.

The world's largest bank and financial institution, JPMorgan Chase $JPM checks all these boxes and more.

For that reason, we treat JPM as an index itself. Basically, as JPMorgan goes, the market goes.

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

Breadth is expanding to a growing list of sectors and industry groups as the current bull market continues to broaden in scope and participation.

Naturally, this phenomenon is not limited to the US. We’re also seeing more and more countries and regions around the world join in on the party.

As the dominance from mega-cap growth fades, and cyclical and value stocks assume leadership roles, the stage is finally set for international outperformance.

In fact, despite how good US stocks were in 2023, they were not the best.

Today, we’re going to talk about Latin America. They were last year’s global leader, and we think the region is poised for more outperformance in the future.

First, with all the buzz about US stocks this past year, you’d think they were the leader. They weren’t.

Here is a 2023 performance chart of international indexes by region:

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @sstrazza and Alfonso Depablos @Alfcharts

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.

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @sstrazza and Alfonso Depablos @Alfcharts

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.

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @sstrazza and Alfonso Depablos @Alfcharts

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.

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @sstrazza and Alfonso Depablos @Alfcharts

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.

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @sstrazza and Alfonso Depablos @Alfcharts

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.

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @sstrazza and Alfonso Depablos @Alfcharts

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.