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.

This is the video recording of today's LIVE Short Squeeze Video Special.

We walk through every single one of our favorite most shorted stocks, including entry points and targets.

These are the exact names we want to buy in THIS particular market environment.

It's a can't miss video:

Did you see what the haters over at The Economist published last week?

Most of you have been around for a while so you already know.

But if you're new here to Allstarcharts, let's just say we do very well consistently taking the other side of this publication.

Few contrarian indicators are as reliable as The Economist:

It's the weekly commodity edition of What the FICC?

I want to share with you a trade idea I wouldn’t have considered a year ago...

Check it out!

Remember last year when everyone was bearish?

And I mean everyone!

It was funny, there I was telling people it was a new bull market, because we actually do the work around here, but investors weren't buying it.

In fact, we saw 44 consecutive weeks of more bears than bulls among individual investors. This was an even longer streak than we saw during the Financial crisis. Longer than COVID.

People were really angry.

You can see the AAII Bulls and Bears, along with their consecutive streaks plotted below:

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 and Alfonso Depablos @AlfCharts

Our Hall of Famers list is composed of the 150 largest US-based stocks.

These stocks range from the mega-cap growth behemoths like Apple and Microsoft – with market caps in excess of $2T – to some of the new-age large-cap disruptors such as Moderna, Square, and Snap.

It has all the big names and more.

It doesn’t include ADRs or any stock not domiciled in the US. But don’t worry; we developed a separate universe for that which you can check out here.

The Hall of Famers is simple.

We take our list of 150 names and then apply our technical filters so the strongest stocks with the most momentum rise to the top.

Let’s dive right in and check out what these big boys are up to.

Here’s this week’s list:

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

I want to share with you a trade idea I wouldn’t have considered a year ago.

I balked at first. This trade’s simply not in my wheelhouse. But I’ve learned so much here at All Star Charts over the past three years.

And "to be open-minded" has been one of the most impactful lessons. 

Now, this setup has my full attention. Risk is well-defined, and the upside potential is heavily skewed in our favor.

I can see the spin on the pitch.

I’m talking about natural gas…

Before I lay out the levels, let’s step back and look at the big picture.

Natural gas stocks, represented by the Natural Gas ETF $FCG, haven't experienced the same extreme sell-off as natural gas futures $NGF:

It's the weekly bond edition of What the FICC?

I thought it was odd bonds didn't react to last week's rate hike. Regardless, the lack of volatility represents a positive development for risk assets, especially stocks.

Check it out!

I’ve been enjoying a (new to me) book recently. Today, I came across this passage that stopped me in my tracks:

Trading is a journey, not a destination. So you’re a trader. Now what? Trading is a constant process of intellectual and emotional growth, and people who trade for twenty years are still learning what to do and who to be when they finally hang it up.

From Street Freak, A Memoir of Money and Madness, by Jared Dillian.

It was almost like Jared was staring at me when he typed those words.

They hit home.

I’ve been in this game for over 20 years now. This coming summer will be the start of my 25th year!

From the Desk of Ian Culley 

Markets don’t always trend higher or lower. In fact, traders often deal with churn – which sometimes is nothing more than a range-bound mess.

"Sideways" is a trend that's all too easy to forget after last year’s historic volatility. Even bonds became risk assets in 2022!

I found it odd when bonds failed to react to last week’s rate hike along with other long-duration assets.

But the lack of bond market volatility might be exactly what risk assets, especially stocks, need right now.

Check out the chart of the US 10-year yield:

The US benchmark rate continues to hold above 3.40%. This has been our line in the sand for months, coinciding with the June pivot highs from last year.

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

As our Premium Members already know, we have a laundry list of scans that we run internally on an almost daily basis.

Different market environments, naturally, are more conducive to certain scans and less so to others.

We think our Freshly Squeezed scan is perfect for the current market. In fact, we wrote our initial report in December just to be sure we wouldn’t miss the moves that have taken place in recent weeks. We’re confident there is more to come.

With so many individual issues in massive drawdowns as the broader market begins to turn a corner, we’re witnessing some serious short-covering rallies in some of the most beaten-down names.

In fact, it’s already starting to happen. Bed, Bath & Beyond $BBBY was up by almost 100% the other day. It’s very likely they’re going bankrupt. But that’s just the kind of market we’re in.