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.

We publish...

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

Benchmark rates around the world have been rolling over as uncertainty sweeps across markets.

Despite the growing pessimism among investors, global yields are digging in at critical levels and bouncing higher in recent sessions. 

We discussed how international yields – particularly those in developed Europe – confirmed the new highs in US rates earlier in the year. 

Today, we’re going to check in on some of those same yields and see if this is still a piece of confirming evidence for rates here in the US.

With the US 10-year hovering around its breakout level at last year’s highs we’re looking for any clues we can get for whether or not these new highs are here to stay.

If the new highs in global yields are holding, that would go a long way in supporting the upside resolution in the US 10-Year.

On the other hand, if we start to see more and more yields around the world fail and roll over, the US will likely follow.

Let’s start with the US 10-year yield:

...

We’re probably not going to follow Nancy Pelosi into American Express $AXP or PayPal $PYPL.

And Warren Buffett’s recent purchase of a large stake in Occidental Petroleum $OXY doesn’t necessarily indicate an opportunity for us, either.

Moves by these big names are just good information.

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

US dollar strength is broadening as global currencies lose critical levels against it.

Last week, we outlined crucial support levels in the EUR/USD pair. Those levels have since given way, as sellers have taken control of this major forex cross.

Today, we’re going to highlight two other USD pairs that recently sliced through key levels, further paving a path of least resistance that favors the US dollar.

First up is the British pound, GBP/USD:

The pound has been carving out a distribution pattern for the past year.

Yesterday, it completed that pattern by violating a key level of former resistance turned support found at the 2021 lows around 1.32.

Momentum is also registering overbought conditions, confirming the recent breakdown.

As long as it’s below those former lows, we...

We don’t typically track small transactions by members of Congress, those in the $1,000-to-$15,000 range.

But a recent move by Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Greene, a Republican from Georgia, is worth noting.

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 March 4, 2022. This report is published biweekly 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.

Watch this video for a behind-the-scenes look at our process.

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

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

We held our March Monthly Strategy Session last Tuesday. Premium Members can click here to review the video recording and download the slide deck.

Non-members can see some highlights from the call by reading this post each month.

By focusing on long-term, monthly charts, the idea is to take a step back and put things into the context of their structural trends.

This is easily one of our most valuable exercises as it forces us to put aside the day-to-day noise and simply examine markets from a “big-picture” point of view.

With that as our backdrop, let’s dive right in and discuss three of the most important charts and/or themes from this month’s call.

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.

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 the stock is about to move...

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Our Top 10 Charts Report was just published.

In this weekly note, we highlight 10 of the most important charts or themes we're currently seeing in asset classes around the world.

Is This The Beginning Or The End?

Not only did commodities have their best week in more than fifty years, but Copper and Gold broke to new highs – Copper to new all-time highs and Gold to fresh 52-week highs. And similar to the bullish momentum thrust in the BCOM index, when we zoom out on these charts we get the sense we’re at the beginning of a major trend -- not the end of one. Both Copper and Gold are just beginning to break out of decade-long bases. The last time they broke out of similar basing patterns these metals, and commodities as a whole rallied for almost a decade. If these breakouts are valid and we continue to see broad strength among commodity contracts, these raw materials could provide monster returns for years to come.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Check out this week's Momentum Report, our weekly summation of all the major indexes at a Macro, International, Sector, and Industry Group level.

By analyzing the short-term data in these reports, we get a more tactical view of the current state of markets. This information then helps us put near-term developments into the big picture context and provides insights regarding the structural trends at play.

Let's jump right into it with some of the major takeaways from this week's report:

* ASC Plus Members can access the Momentum Report by clicking the link at the bottom of this post.

Macro Universe:

• Our macro universe was red this week as 60% of our list closed lower with a median return of -1.27%.
• This week, Oil $CL was the winner, closing with a massive 26.30% gain.
• The biggest loser was US 10-Year Yield $TNX, with a weekly loss of -13.19%.
• There was a 4% gain in the percentage of assets on our list within 5% of their 52-week highs – currently at 30%.
• 38% of our macro list made fresh 4-week highs, 23% made...

Warren Buffett is making his first appearance on The Hot List, as Berkshire Hathaway $BRK.A purchased more than 90,000,000 shares of Occidental Petroleum $OXY last week.

OXY explores for and produces crude oil and natural gas. It’s actually the largest producer of natural gas liquids in the United States.

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

Commodities are having their best week since 1970. And if you don't know what happened after that, let's just say it was a good decade for them as a group.

The CRB Index is up more than 13%. Crude oil is trading above 100. Wheat futures opened limit up last night, “dotting the chart.” Base metals such as aluminum and tin continue to print all-time highs.

And even precious metals have joined the party! 

Could it get any more bullish?

As it turns out, it can…

After almost a year of sideways action, Dr. Copper looks ready for a fresh leg higher, as it just closed the week at new all-time highs!

Here's a close-up look at the continuation pattern copper has been consolidating in since May of last year:

Digesting its gains following such an explosive move off the 2020 lows is constructive and has set the stage for a new rally.

While the past few weeks’ action in some commodities may suggest otherwise, charts don’t move in a straight...