From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza.

Welcome to this week's edition of "Under The Hood."

What we do is analyze the most popular stocks over the trailing week and find opportunities to either join in and ride these momentum names higher, or fade the crowd and bet against them.

We are using a variety of new 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.

Whether we're measuring increasing interest based on large institutional purchases, unusual options activity, or simply our proprietary lists of trending tickers... there is a lot of overlap.

The bottom line is there are a million ways to skin the cat. Relying on our entire arsenal of data makes us confident that we're producing the best list each week and gives us more optionality in terms of finding the most favorable trade setups for our clients.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Energy stocks and Crude Oil have been trending in opposite directions over the trailing three months.

We know these kinds of intermarket relationships can dislocate for extended periods of time, but some recent developments in the space have us thinking it may be time for this divergence to correct itself... and it's likely to come in the form of Crude catching down as opposed to stocks catching up.

In this post, we'll reveal this week's Mystery Chart and discuss what the recent action in Oil could mean for Energy stocks in the weeks/months ahead.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

At the beginning of each week, we publish performance tables for a variety of different asset classes and categories along with commentary on each.

Looking at the past helps put the future into context. In this post, we review the relative strength trends at play and preview some of the things we're watching in order to profit in the current market environment.

Last week, we highlighted a number of critical Stock Market Indexes and Sectors, as well as assets in the FICC Markets that were approaching logical levels of overhead supply.

This week, we're going to follow up on this theme and see how some of these charts have reacted to the critical levels we pointed out last week.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza.

Welcome to this week's edition of "Under The Hood."

What we do is analyze the most popular stocks over the trailing week and find opportunities to either join in and ride these momentum names higher, or fade the crowd and bet against them.

We are using a variety of new sources to generate the list of most popular names, which we'll explain more each week as we add new data sets. 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.

Last week, we added some stocks from a list of large institutional purchases we track, and this week we've added some names that experienced unusual options activity.

As we continue to include new sources, the number of potential trade opportunities we can choose from increases and gives us a larger universe of favorable setups to take advantage of.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

The Dow is one of the most important major averages in the world. We monitor it religiously as it has historically been an excellent gauge for the broader market.

This week three old-school Dow stocks- Exxon $XOM, Raytheon $RTX, and Pfizer $PFE, were replaced with some fresh blood from the likes of Salesforce $CRM, Honeywell $HON, and Amgen $AMGN. JC wrote about why the Dow is so important to our process and what these changes could mean earlier this week, which you can read here.

In this post, we'll take a deeper look at the impact of this restructuring by analyzing the relative strength trends of the new and old holdings. We'll also discuss the Apple stock split, as it will also have major implications on the Dow's future composition.

Long story short, we think the recent reconstruction of its constituents leaves the Index in a much stronger position for the future.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Thanks to everyone for the feedback on this week's Mystery Chart. We had a lot of good answers this week. Many respondents were cautious of the waning momentum but on balance, most of you were buyers. We are too.

It was a chart of the iShares MSCI Netherlands ETF $EWN which just broke out of a 13-year base to fresh all-time highs (shown below).

But it's not just the Netherlands making new record highs, the All-Country World Index $ACWI just made new all-time highs as well. There aren't many things more bullish than World Equity Indexes trading at their highest levels in history.

In this post, we'll highlight the positive breadth characteristics we're seeing within Global Equity Markets and outline trade setups in some of the strongest countries around the world- including the Netherlands, as a way to express our bullish thesis.

But first, here's why we're so bullish on International Equities in the first place. Check out these new highs for ACWI.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

New Mystery Chart!

For those new to the exercise, we take a chart of interest and remove the x/y-axes and any other labels that would help identify it. The chart can be any security in any asset class on any timeframe on an absolute or relative basis. Maybe it’s a custom index or inverted, who knows!

We do all this to put aside the biases we have associated with this specific security/the market and come to a conclusion based solely on price.

You can guess what it is if you must, but the real value comes from sharing what you would do right now. Buy, Sell, or Do Nothing?

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

At the beginning of each week, we publish performance tables for a variety of different asset classes and categories along with commentary on each.

Looking at the past helps put the future into context. In this post, we review the relative strength trends at play and preview some of the things we're watching in order to profit in the current market environment.

This week, we're going to highlight a number of critical Stock Market Indexes and Sectors, as well as assets in the FICC Markets that are approaching logical levels of overhead supply and pose the question... "Are risk assets due for some corrective action or consolidation?"

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza.

Welcome to this week's edition of "Under The Hood."

What we do is analyze the most popular stocks over the trailing week and find opportunities to either join in and ride these momentum names higher, or fade the crowd and bet against them.

We have some new additions coming for how we generate the list of most popular names, which we'll explain more each week as we add new data sets. There are so many new data sources popping up that all we need to do is organize them in a way that shows us exactly what we want: A list of stocks that are seeing an unusual increase in investor interest.

The S&P 500 finally achieved new highs this week. The market is clicking on all cylinders as breadth and participation continues to broaden, and favorable risk/reward setups are popping up all over the place. Let's dive into the most popular tickers this week and see what's going on "under the hood" in these hot names.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Thanks to everyone who responded to this week's Mystery Chart. Responses were somewhat mixed. It was a daily chart of the iShares Medical Devices ETF $IHI.

What we really wanted to know is whether or not investors are buying these kinds of bullish continuation patterns right now. Many alluded to the underlying trend being higher but still wanted to wait for the flag pattern to resolve before taking action.

This is a prudent approach and we're looking at the chart in a similar light. With that said, we're also viewing setups like this within the context of what is going on in other areas of the market. In other words, as more and more of these patterns resolve to the upside, which they are, the higher the likelihood is that others will follow their course.

In this post, we'll walk through our top-down approach to highlight why we like Medical Devices right now and then drill into some of our favorite setups as a way to express our bullish thesis.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza.

Last night we held August's Monthly Conference Call which our Premium Members can access and rewatch here.

In this post, we'll provide a summary of the call by highlighting 5 of the most important charts along with JC's commentary on them and a brief explanation for each.

Let's get right to it.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

New Mystery Chart!

For those new to the exercise, we take a chart of interest and remove the x/y-axes and any other labels that would help identify it. The chart can be any security in any asset class on any timeframe on an absolute or relative basis. Maybe it’s a custom index or inverted, who knows!

We do all this to put aside the biases we have associated with this specific security/the market and come to a conclusion based solely on price.

You can guess what it is if you must, but the real value comes from sharing what you would do right now. Buy, Sell, or Do Nothing?