From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

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. Click here to check it out.

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:

*Click table to enlarge view

We filter out any laggards that are down -5% or more relative to the S&P 500 over the trailing month.

Then, we sort the remaining...

It's not just 7 stocks that are going up.

The S&P500 just made new all-time highs again today. But so did the Mid-caps.

Here is the S&P400 Mid-cap Index, which by definition includes only stocks that are NOT in the S&P500, hitting new all-time highs.

Meanwhile, the S&P600 Small-cap Index, is only 0.4% from a new 52-week high and only 2.5% from a new All-time high, which would finally get it to exceed its 2021 cycle peak.

It's a bull market.

And so we're acting accordingly.

We're in Chicago for our 2-day Portfolio Accelerator and this was one of the important topics of discussion that we covered in Day 1. 

How should we act?

What should we do with our time?

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.

By...

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Welcome to The 2 to 100 Club.

In this scan, we look to identify 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.

Some of the best performers in recent decades – stocks like Priceline, Amazon, Netflix, Salesforce, and myriad others – would have been on this list at some point during their journey to becoming the market behemoths they are today.

When you look at the stocks in our table, you'll notice we're only focused on Technology and Growth industry groups such as Software, Semiconductors, Online...

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

When investing in the stock market, we always want to approach it as "a market of stocks."

Regardless of the environment, there are always stocks showing leadership and trending higher.

We may have to look harder to identify them depending on current market conditions. But there are always stocks that are going up.

The same can be said for weak stocks. Regardless of the environment, there are always stocks that are going down, too. 

We already have multiple scans focusing on stocks making all-time highs, such as Hall of Famers, Minor Leaguers, and the 2 to 100 Club.

We filter these universes for stocks that are exhibiting the best momentum and relative strength characteristics. 

Clearly, we spend a lot...

I like to think that I work hard.

I put in the time. 

But not because I have to. It's because I want to.

There's a difference.

But I'm taking a break out here in Newport Beach, Ca for a few days, at what has become, the #1 Conference in all of Finance.

It's not even close.

I couldn't tell you what the 2nd best was. That's how dominant this is.

Sunday afternoon I walked up to the booth in Huntington Beach to get my badge and bag of goodies and they had pins representing whether it was your 1st year at FuturePtoof, your 2nd year attending or if it was your 3rd.

I smiled and said, "This is my 3rd year here", and she jumped up with joy and put extra flair on my conference name badge.

I feel like Jennifer Aniston in Office Space with all my flair on right now.

I laugh because of course it's my 3rd year. I want to support my friends.

Even if there was no one here, I would still be here.

But do you know how happy it makes me to see my boys kicking everyone's ass?

Josh Brown and the rest of the Ritholtz Wealth Management team is absolutely crushing it.

...

I'm out in Newport Beach, CA for a few days hanging out at an industry conference called Future Proof. 

I don't even know where to start with these guys.

I've had a front row seat to watch my good friend Josh Brown partner up with Barry Ritholtz, hire Michael Batnick and many others along the way, and turn a small advisory into a $5 Billion AUM firm - one of the fastest growing Financial Advisors in the United States.

It was awesome when they were first coming up and putting on conferences. They were big, but still small and intimate in their own ways.

Now they're just way too successful.

That band that was cool when just a few people knew about them has gone mainstream. 

There are way too many people here. It's absolutely insane.

My friends are rockstars. And I couldn't be happier to see all of their success.

I say there are too many people at this conference as a joke. But I'm not even kidding. There were like 20 open bars at happy hour last night and I still couldn't get a drink. 

It was nuts.

And today is actually the first full day.

I've already run into a bunch of old pals, who many in their...

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 September 14, 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.

Click here for a behind-the-scenes look at our process.

Whether we’re measuring increasing interest based on large institutional...

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.

We've been obnoxiously talking about soft commodities lately.

But, it's for a good reason! And it all comes down to relative strength.

Aside from a few pockets of strength, the trends have been a mess in the broader commodity complex.

Products like Natural gas and precious metals have been hard to ignore if you're involved in the commodities markets.

There's more though. 

Orange Juice futures made a new all-time high this week and look primed to begin a new leg higher.

Let's talk about how we're playing it:

First, some context: 

Like Cocoa, Orange Juice futures have gone wild in recent years. OJ has rallied 450% in the last 5-years, while Cocoa rallied nearly as much in half of the time. 

The momentum behind products like Cocoa and...

ASC Premium Membership is for people who put money to work on a regular basis.

It’s for people who want steady idea flow through the cycle, bull market or bear.

It’s for people who want to navigate the market every day with the help of a team of professionals.

And it now includes our exclusive 12-week ASC Mastermind Course, where we’ll study the foundation of all our research.

Click here to join us RISK FREE.

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All 11 sectors in the S&...

When Junk Bond traders jump ship, I’m out of stocks.

With all the talk about credit spreads “blowing out” since early August, this is an important discussion to have right now.

We always trust the bond market. Throughout history, bonds have done an impeccable job at alerting investors about problems in risk asset markets. 

When there is stress in other markets, it shows up in fixed income first.

However, as technical analysts, we are mindful of the math that is behind some of the relationships we study and give weight to.

What if I told you that industrials have been massive underperformers during this bull market? 

The absolute price chart looks incredible. How could that be?

We call it the denominator fallacy. 

Benchmarked against the S&P 500 or Nasdaq 100, of course they are underperforming. 

We think there is a similar situation playing out for our bond market ratios right now.

The absolute chart up top looks great. The relative trend, down below, not so much.

...