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Volatility is sweeping across markets. The dollar is catching a defensive bid. And the major averages continue their downward trajectory as investors desperately look for signs of a bottom.
Yet, despite the bearish action gripping markets, we’re still finding bases we want to buy.
And, to no surprise, many of those smiley faces are in the commodities market.
That’s where we want to focus our attention.
Today, we'll highlight the wheat complex, outlining some tactical setups that complement our bullish structural outlook for commodities and grains.
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.
From the desk of Steven Strazza @Sstrazza and Grant Hawkridge @granthawkridge
Defense wins championships.
It’s important to remind ourselves of this as risk continues to come off the table.
The largest stocks in the world are losing critical support levels, and even the leaders are coming under pressure. Bonds are catching a defensive bid, credit spreads are as wide as they’ve been in years, and investors are fleeing to the dollar for safety.
Meanwhile, the classic risk barometer – the AUD/JPY – is breaking to fresh lows.
There are always some groups of stocks that are doing better than the others. Whether that means going up in price faster, or going down in price slower.
In some cases, like more recently, some stocks do well on an absolute basis well others lose value altogether.
This year we've seen the largest dispersion of returns among US Sectors in over 20 years. The difference in returns between Energy and some of the Growth areas like Communications or Tech have been historic across the board.
Here's Energy relative to Technology, as well as Energy relative to the overall market, as defined by the S&P500:
From the desk of Steven Strazza @Sstrazza and Ian Culley @Ianculley
Credit spreads are widening to their highest levels since late 2020.
If it feels like we just mentioned spreads and the falling HYG/IEI ratio, it’s because we did – and for good reason! They provide valuable insight into the overall health of the market.
We’ve been closely following the HYG/IEI ratio for months as it repeatedly tests the lower bounds of its range. It broke down to fresh lows in March, only to bounce higher with many risk assets.
Two months later, this crucial risk ratio is printing fresh 52-week lows again. The main difference is that the overall market environment has drastically changed since the last time we were at these levels.
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.
But yeah, it certainly feels like it when seemingly every "relief rally" is met with fierce selling.
In our morning analyst meeting today, the team was lamenting the fact that it seems any levels of support that might seem obvious are proving to be nothing more than mirages. Levels are getting taken out everywhere.
This makes it increasingly frustrating to put on any kind of range-bound delta neutral plays. Yes, volatility is high and its very tempting to put Iron Condors or Strangles on here. But if we're looking for instruments that are likely to stay within a certain range, we just don't have any confidence right now in any levels on our screens.
The last few days have seen one of the largest unwinds and destruction of wealth in crypto history.
By historical standards, the collapse in the Terra ecosystem will go down as some of the most wide-reaching, systemic stress the asset class has endured.
We want to dedicate a good portion of this week's crypto letter to why UST failed, how it impacted other assets, and our outlook following this event.