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.

The market has work to do.

We've been in a Bear Market since February of 2021 when stocks peaked. Since then it's been a slow deterioration ultimately hitting almost every sector, with some areas just getting absolutely destroyed.

But just to keep it simple, the bottom line is we're below overhead supply in almost every case. There are exceptions, but I think the S&P500 shows what's really going on for the average and median stock or sector.

This is a top, and price is below former support:

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.

You hear people talk about Dow Theory all the time don't you?

What you might not know is that there's a lot more to Dow Theory than you think.

In fact, that whole DJ Industrials & Transports confirming or diverging from one another is not even in my top 5 most important Dow Theory Tenets.

You can read about what's actually important about Dow Theory here. Give it a read and then let me know what you think.

Today, if you don't mind, I'd rather focus on Dow Reality.

I see two very similar scenarios here between the DJ Industrial Average and the DJ Transportation Average.

Let's start with Papa Dow: The Industrials.

I’ve written in the past about how I had been invited to join a local Improv Comedy group here in Colorado for a one-off show back in May.

While this may sound random, I do actually have some professional improv training. I took a year of classes at Chicago’s famous Second City Theater and then a couple more sessions at Improv Olympic (also in Chicago) back in 2006. It was just for fun. I had no illusions of ever becoming an actor of any kind.

Well, the show I was invited to participate in back in May went off without a hitch. We played in front of a sold-out room (it only seats 110 people) and by all accounts, it was a fantastic success. For me personally, I was just happy I didn’t suck! LOL!

We were eventually invited to come back again and I was once again asked to participate.

When you look at as many charts as I do, you quickly start to notice when certain charts just don't look like most of the others.

Healthcare is one of those.

We discussed it all on this week's Live Conference Call. Premium Members click here to watch and download the slides.

And if you're not a Premium Member yet, just give us a call and we'll set you up: (323) 421-7910

The Healthcare conversation we're having is a really important one. Notice how with S&Ps, Nasdaq and other major indexes breaking down and completing tops, Healthcare has just traded sideways.

We call this, "Relative Strength":

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 Ian Culley @IanCulley  

Don’t let the numbers fool you.

Despite positive returns at the index level for Q2, commodities have been in full retreat for the past month or more. We broke the damage down in last week’s post.

However you want to slice it, commodities are under increased selling pressure. The strongest areas aren’t breaking out; they’re trying to hold support.

That’s simply how raw materials are performing in the current environment. Yet we’re still finding levels we want to trade against from the long side.

Believe it or not, one of these situations is popping up in one of our favorite energy contracts…

Natty gas!

Here’s a weekly continuation chart of natural gas futures:

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:

We're going on 32 consecutive weeks of more stocks making new lows than new highs.

In bull markets you see the opposite.

Gold has not been in an uptrend in almost 2 years. I think one day it eventually breaks out. But what's the rush?

Let it break out!

I discussed all of this and more with Charles Payne on Fox Business yesterday.

Here's the full clip:

From the desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

The US dollar has answered any and all questions about its strength over the past few months.

During Tuesday's session, there was no place to hide, as King Dollar continued the Fourth of July celebrations, putting on its own fireworks display. 

It lit up every currency on the board as major forex pairs continue to go down in flames. 

Two that stood out were the EUR/USD and the GBP/USD.

Yes, these crosses have been trending lower since the beginning of the year. But with the critical levels that broke yesterday, we're anticipating fresh downside legs and prolonged dollar dominance.

Let’s take a look.

Here’s a chart of the EUR/USD:

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Welcome to the 2 to 100 Club.

As many of you know, something we've been working on internally is using various bottom-up tools and scans to complement our top-down approach. It's really been working for us!

One way we're doing this is by identifying the strongest growth stocks as they climb the market-cap ladder from small- to mid- to large- and, ultimately, to mega-cap status (over $200B).

Once they graduate from small-cap to mid-cap status (over $2B), they come on our radar. Likewise, when they surpass the roughly $30B mark, they roll off our list.

But the scan doesn't just end there.

We only want to look at the strongest growth industries in the market, as that is typically where these potential 50-baggers come from.