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.

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.

What remains is a list of stocks that large financial institutions are putting big money behind.

And they’re doing so for one reason only: because they think...

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

If it wasn't at the very top of the list, the Japanese yen was certainly among the best shorts of 2022.

But the times they are a-changin’.

King Dollar has ducked down a dark alley.

And it doesn't take a weatherman to tell us to buy the yen.

Here are Japanese yen futures carving out a year-long base following fresh 30-year lows:

I like buying strength on a breakout of this bottoming formation. But the yen has quite a way to travel before completing this possible double bottom. 

I don’t want to miss those potential gains, so let’s get tactical by taking a closer look… 

Check out the daily chart with a Fibonacci retracement framing the 2023 decline:

I’m long Japanese yen futures against 0.7075 (the 38....

During bull markets, the leading stocks tend to remain leaders longer than most investors can fathom.

That's just how markets work.

This cycle Nvidia has been a big winner. It was one of the first to break out to new all-time highs. And it's been one of the best performers, despite its massive $1.2 Trillion market cap.

That's the exact definition of a market leader. And our bet is that it continues to hold that title:

This is the video recording of the December 2023 Mid-month Conference Call.

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Welcome to The Minor Leaguers.

We've had some great trades come out of this small-cap-focused column since we launched it back in 2020 and started rotating it with our flagship bottom-up scan, Under the Hood.

For the first year or so, we focused only on Russell 2000 stocks with a market cap between $1 and $2B.

That was fun, but we wanted to branch out a bit and allow some new stocks to find their way onto our list.

We expanded our universe to include some mid-caps.

To make the cut for our Minor Leaguers list now, a company must have a market cap between $1 and $4B.

And it doesn't have to be a Russell component — it can be any US-listed equity. With participation expanding around the globe, we want all those ADRs in our universe.

The same price and liquidity filters are applied. Then, as always, we sort by proximity to new highs in order to...

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

I’ve had palladium on my mind for a while – long before gold posted a new all-time high.

Why palladium?

It all started with an extreme Commitment of Traders (COT) profile…

As we always like to say around here, it's a market of stocks.

When we refer to "the stock market", let's remember that there are 500, or so, stocks in the S&P500. There are 3000 stocks in the Russell3000.

It's a market of stocks.

That's how we knew the market started to improve 18 months ago, because the list of stocks making new lows peaked in June 2022.

Even in the most recent correction in Q3 this year, the new lows list peaked on October 3rd.

On the other side of that formula is the list of stocks making new highs.

The list of stocks on the NYSE making new highs is the longest its been in over 30 months.

The list of stocks making new highs keeps getting longer. The list of...

I've been getting emails and messages all year about how it's possible that Wall Street could have gotten this year so wrong.

The financial media with all their gloom and doom has missed the entire bull market.

How could they be so dumb? How could they have been so wrong?

Let me be clear: They are not dumb. They are not trying to avoid being wrong.

It's malicious.

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

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 names by their proximity to new 52-week highs.

This leaves...

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

Metals are beginning to shine.

Gold’s new all-time high has captivated the masses. But all that glitters isn’t gold.

In fact, base and industrial metals are also providing ample trading opportunities.

Check out ol’ Dr. Copper challenging near-term resistance:

A decisive close above 3.91 set the path of least resistance toward the year-to-date highs at approximately 4.25.

It’s difficult to imagine a more bullish scenario for global equities aside from a continued expansion in the new highs list.

As much as I enjoy trading futures, I can’t ignore the money flowing into stocks.

If the expansion in new highs isn’t enough, stocks outperforming commodities should grab your attention.

With that in...

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

The bond market is turning the page. 

Our long US Treasury trades are finally working. And investors are reaching for high-yield debt.

On the surface, it’s a positive shift for the hardest-hit markets in 2022. 

But it also sends a clear message to stock market investors…

Buy!

Credit spreads are contracting as the iShares High Yield Corporate Bond ETF $HYG trades at fresh 52-week highs relative to the iShares 3-7yr Treasury Bond ETF $IEI:

It’s classic bull market behavior.

But that’s not all…

The newest junk bonds to hit the street are catching higher on an absolute basis. 

Check out the Fallen Angel High Yield Bond ETF $ANGL:

Stocks have a strong tendency for positive gains when investors are...