The question we're asking ourselves today is a big one.

Is the US Dollar breaking down from a multi-year consolidation?

With the dollar rangebound all year, we haven’t experienced a trending currency market. 

When the dollar is trending higher or lower, we have a good idea of the impact it is likely to have on other markets.

However, when it is trendless, the dollar is neither a headwind nor a tailwind for risk assets.

We think that could be changing.

Here's a weekly line chart showing the U.S. Dollar Index making new year-to-date lows:

As you can see, the US dollar bears have taken control and resolved this multi-year consolidation to the downside.

Here's another way to look at it.

We're just one week away from the earnings report for one of the most important companies in the world.

We will be LIVE Streaming the earnings call and trading any opportunities that may come from the volatility after the earnings release.

This Live Trading Stream will be on Wednesday August 28th @ 3:45PM ET. 

I find myself saying this a lot these days....

But again, Mathematically, you cannot have a bear market, or a correction of any kind, without the prices of stocks falling.

And so if we know that, then shouldn't we monitor how many stocks are actually falling in price?

This is just common sense isn't it?

Well, where are the new lows?

They're non-existent...

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza.

Welcome back to Under the Hood, where we'll cover all the action for the two weeks ended August 16, 2024. This report is published bi-weekly, in rotation with The Minor Leaguers.

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.

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

It’s good to be a gold bug.

New all-time highs and fresh breakouts are dotting the charts. Buy signals are flashing left and right. And even the laggards – Palladium and Platinum – are refusing to break down. 

Best of all, Gold has a one-track mind: up and to the right!

This is the video recording of the August 2024 Mid-month Conference Call.

In today's Flow Show, Steve Strazza and I assess the current market environment, post- whatever the hell we're calling what happened a couple weeks ago (Volmageddon 2?, Yen YoYo? The Carry Drop?).

It feels more and more like that was merely a footnote to an otherwise pretty robust bull market. We'll see.

Regardless, we're looking for bullish setups in this tape and an online retailer out of South Korea has our attention.

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 Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

The price action from commodities has been lackluster, at best, this year. Our equal-weight commodity index is at its lowest level since early 2021.

Despite the broad weakness, gold continues to shine. The 79th element closed this week at its highest price in history.

Here’s a look at gold futures, trading at our first objective measured from the multi-decade base that resolved higher back in Q1:

As long as this breakout sticks, the bias remains higher for the yellow metal. 

On a more tactical note, gold has just completed a multi-month continuation pattern and is in the early stages of a fresh leg up:

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:

Toronto is such a great town.

I hadn't been here since 2019.

It's fun seeing all the ADRs in the wild - Bank of Montreal $BMO, Canadian Pacific $CP, Royal Bank of Canada $RBC and so many others!

Also, the conversations I'm overhearing in the hotel lobby have been about the S&P500 and earnings. You don't hear talk like that in many other cities.

It's not surprising, as we all know Toronto is a big financial hub for Canada. But it's reassuring to experience it and watch it thrive.

The TSX is hitting new all-time highs eh!

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

The US Dollar Index $DXY is finishing the day relatively unchanged.

Today’s much anticipated CPI print failed to move the needle for the greenback.

On the flip side, $DXY’s most significant component – the euro – is ripping toward a new year-to-date high.

Check out the EUR/USD pair completing a seven-month bullish reversal pattern, retesting its January high:

The path of least resistance now leads higher.

I like buying the euro against the 1.0958 breakout level, targeting 1.1250. But I'm out if the EUR/USD slips into its prior range.

A pop in the euro tends to weaken DXY since it makes up 56.7% of the index, acting as a bullish catalyst for stocks. 

Yet the dollar continues to hold above last Monday’s low.