From the desk of Steven Strazza @Sstrazza and Ian Culley @Ianculley

A couple weeks ago we pointed out that the stock market was questioning the rise in rates.

Defensive areas we would expect to underperform in the current environment such as utilities and REITs are actually outperforming.

And the names we would expect to do well – specifically banks – can’t seem to catch a bid on either absolute or relative terms.

This is concerning from a broader intermarket perspective. But it’s not the complete story.

While our stock market ratios are not supportive of higher rates, when we look within the bond market, we’re seeing the opposite.

Not only is there a synchronized global rally in interest rates, but the intermarket evidence from our bond market ratios supports this action and indicates a healthy degree of risk appetite. 

Today we're going to highlight one of those bond market ratios – high-yield vs. investment-grade debt.

Let’s take a look.

This is our ASC Research Q2 2022 Playbook.

With the current market environment giving us many mixed messages, what better time to dive in and see what's happening underneath the surface?

• Stocks (International & U.S.)
• U.S. Sectors & Industries
• Market Breadth & Sentiment
• Commodities
• Currencies
• Intermarket Analysis
• Cryptocurrencies
• New Trade Ideas
• Overall Strategy

From the desk of Louis Sykes @haumicharts

If you've ever been deep in the trenches slinging cryptocurrencies, chances are you're well aware of the infamous liquidation cascade.

For some traders, the thought will send shivers down their backs.

To others, it represents one of the most profitable asymmetries in supply and demand.

What's a Liquidation Cascade?

The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) is the largest and most sophisticated derivatives exchange for several traditional financial instruments and Bitcoin futures contracts. But there are stringent rules bounding these contracts:

• Each contract is 5 BTC (currently just over $200,000).
• The market is only open Monday through Friday.
• Clients tend to have a good relationship with a broker that's allowed to trade on the CME.

These rules are essentially a risk-mitigation strategy.

In the case of liquidations, if the account reaches negative equity before the liquidation is finished, the trader is liable for the negative amount.

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 of time identifying and writing about leading stocks every week, via multiple reports. Now, we're also highlighting lagging stocks on a recurring basis.

Welcome to the Short Report.

For this week's trade, buying $XLI January 130 calls for 35 cents or cheaper.

Get the full details, risk management procedures and targets for this trade here:

Investor sentiment is bad. Historically bad.

Don't take my word for it. Check it out for yourself.

Sentiment has only been this bearish four times over the last 40 years: Coming out of rampant 1970's inflation, the Savings & Loan crisis of the early 90's, the Great Financial Crisis of 2008-09, and the "Fiscal Cliff" circa 2012.

Do you remember those times?

And you see what happened in the S&P 500 after, right?

Is history going to repeat itself? And if so, how do we protect ourselves and our portfolios from the "risk" of being underinvested if that happens?

From the desk of Steven Strazza @Sstrazza and Ian Culley @IanCulley

The US Dollar Index $DXY resumes its relentless march higher.

But the full story surrounding the dollar’s dominance is a bit more complicated.

Lately, we’ve been pounding the table about the narrow scope of the DXY, as 83% of its weightings come from just three currencies – the yen, the pound, and the euro.

All three continue to lose ground versus the dollar, and this is exactly what's driving the rally at the index level.

On the other hand, the USD has not performed as well against other currencies – especially emerging markets and commodity-centric ones. 

While this remains the case, we’re starting to see USD strength expand beyond the major components of the DXY. We're also seeing some nice long-term patterns materialize that favor the US dollar.

A great example is the rounding bottom in the US dollar-Korean won cross – USD/KRW.

This is the video recording of the April 2022 Mid-month Conference Call.

We discussed:

• The Major U.S. Indexes and Current Technical Analysis
• Commodities making multi-year highs vs Stocks
• Our Sentiment Composite Indicator shows excess Pessimism
• Value Stocks continue to lead vs Growth Stocks
• Energy Stocks and Commodities Trades
• Agriculture Stocks and Commodities
• Base Metals & Precious Metals
• The US Dollar vs US Dollar Index are very different
• Global Markets: Pockets of Strength & Weakness
• Bonds Yields and Yield Curves
• What To Do With These Beat Up Growth Stocks
• Bitcoin Correlations & New Crypto Trade Ideas

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza.

Welcome back to our latest Under the Hood column, where we'll cover all the action for the week ended April 15, 2022. This report is published bi-weekly and rotated with our Minor Leaguers column.

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 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.

Just to be clear, I'm no expert when it comes to NFTs.

Later this week I'll publish the latest podcast with Justin Paterno, Portfolio Manager of the new NFT fund by OSPREY that I'm an investor in.

But today I wanted to share some of my recent experiences with the new STEPN App and NFT.

I'm earning GST Coin to go running. In fact I've made about $150 worth of this Utility Coin in the past 3 days alone. That's one hundred fifty United States Dollars!

You can see the price of the STEPN coin here since the new issue last month:

I was at a family get together this weekend filled with Easter egg hunts, good wine and some great eats.

It was my wife's side of the family and some of them are familiar with what I do.

"So what are we doing about this upcoming recession, JC?"

"It's quite obvious a recession is coming..."

I responded with a question,

"How much of all that is already priced into the market?"