From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

Stocks aren’t the only risk assets falling this week.

Rebar, Corn, and Cotton are posting multi-year lows. Dr.Copper is slipping below four bucks. And our short cattle trades are working.  

But as most commodities slide, one area (aside from precious metals) is finding its feet.

Notice the CRB Index is carving out a two-year base while our equal-weight index hits its lowest level since early 2021:

The disparity between the two indexes comes down to their construction. 

We weigh 33 commodities equally for our index, so rebar futures carry the same weight as crude oil. 

On the other hand, crude comprises almost a quarter of the CRB Index.

These stark contrasts reveal two pertinent themes: broadening weakness among commodities and emerging relative strength from energy.

Our index captures the failed breakouts and fresh breakdowns in grains, livestock, and base and industrial metals.

Perhaps Dr.Copper had it right all along.

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Stocks aren’t the only risk assets falling this week.

Rebar, Corn, and Cotton are posting multi-year lows. Dr.Copper is slipping below four bucks. And our short cattle trades are working.  

But as most commodities slide, one area (aside from precious metals) is finding its feet.

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 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 ServiceNow, Palantir, and MercadoLibre.

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...

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

We love our bottoms-up scans here at All Star Charts. We tend to get really creative when making new universes as we want to be sure they will deliver us the best opportunities the market has to offer.

However, when it comes to this one, it couldn't be any simpler!

With the goal of finding more bullish setups, we have decided to expand one of our favorite scans and broaden our regular coverage of the largest US stocks.

Welcome to The Junior Hall of Famers.

This scan is composed of the next 150 largest stocks by market cap, those that come after the top 150 and are thus covered by the Hall of Famers universe. Many of these names will someday graduate and join our original Hall Of Famers list. The idea here is to catch these big trends as early on as possible.

There is no need to overcomplicate things. Market cap is a quality filter at the end of the day. It only grows if price is rising. That's good enough for us.

The bottom line is it is a bull market. We want as many vehicles and options to express...

It's fashionable in certain circles to talk about having a Canadian escape plan if shit gets too weird here in the United States.

I'm not one of those. Though I love Canada, having grown up across the border in Buffalo, NY.

There were many times in my younger days, while spending a day across the border, where I'd find myself short on cash and I'd have to hit an ATM to get some loonies! And most often, those ATMs were run by CIBC.

So maybe I should attempt to earn back some of those ATM fees (plus interest!).

In today’s Daily Digest, we’ll review the following:

1. New position in XRT.
2. No adjustments are needed today.
3. No exits since the last report.
4. Current status of open campaigns.

Let’s dig in!

Today’s most significant insider transaction comes in a Form 4 filing by Block $SQ director Roelof Botha.

Botha reported a $25 million purchase of SQ shares.

Artisan Partners Limited Partnership filed a 13G for Smith Douglas Homes Corp $SDHC revealing an initial stake of 10.50%.

Here’s The Hot Corner, with data from August 8, 2024:

In another Form 4, the chief operating officer of MP Materials Corp $MP, Michael Stuart Rosenthal, revealed an acquisition of 30,000 shares.

There was also insider activity in O-I Glass $OI, AGCO Corporation $AGCO, and Byline Bancorp Inc $BY.

SQ has been working on a reversal basing pattern since 2022.

Accumulation patterns like this tend to take time, as the trend gradually shifts from down to sideways to higher.

While the bulls have work to do, we prefer to wait...

Bitcoin's back above all that broken support with a vengeance.

And what better time to do it when everyone's panicking and the futures market has been absolutely decimated.

As we walked through in this week's video, a great deal of the longs in the derivative markets have completely thrown in the towel.

They've given up, and they don't want anything to do with crypto anymore.

Now, the market is up and recovering rather nicely.

Seems like a hell of a bear trap to me...

Here's this week's crypto roundup. It's an opportunity for us to take a step back, set aside the distractions, and delve into the key charts shaping the crypto complex.

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

Let everyone grumble over the Japanese yen.

I get it. The yen was cast as the villain decades ago, and something or someone must take the blame for the VIX hitting 65 earlier this week.

While I prefer to point my finger at the preceding low-volatility environment, the November election, and potential rate cuts, the yen certainly played a part. 

But the real question isn’t who, what, when, where, or why. 

Instead, every investor wants to know…Was that it? 

Is the selloff over?

I think the worst is behind us. 

Here’s why…

Check out the USD/JPY chart with a 200-day simple moving average in bright blue (with the percentage above or below the long-term average in the lower pane):

In many ways the yen carry trade is a play on interest rates.

Notice the USD/JPY rocketed higher as the current hiking cycle began, rising with the widening spread between the Japan and US overnight rates. Powell’s war on inflation and Japan’s Yield Curve...

A surprising outcome for some of my defined-risk long delta trades this week is that my losses weren’t as pronounced as I would’ve expected given the vicious sell-off we’ve seen in many tech names.

Why?

One thing that isn’t often discussed about being long options premium when expressing bullish or bearish bets is that owning long options (calls or puts) also means we’re long volatility.

In situations like these where we saw VIX briefly with a 65-handle, the rapid rise in options premiums put a floor in many of the calls I had long positions in. So while many bullish positions in my portfolio were losing money, the losses were rather pedestrian relative to what others who were holding long stock or futures positions were likely experiencing.

It’s not a win, but it felt like one this week.

We discuss this and a whole lot more in this week’s Options Jam Session:

BlackRock just filed for a "Nasdaq Top 30" Stocks" ETF.

That's the top

This is the company that runs the iShares ETFs.

NOW is when they want to launch a vehicle for investors to buy ONLY the top 30 Nasdaq stocks?

Now?

Where was this 10 years ago?

To me, this type of sentiment is just further evidence that Technology has peaked as a percentage of total market cap in the stock market.

This sort of top-heavy hype is confirming what price is already suggesting.

Look at Technology hitting new 10-month lows today relative to the S&P500:

In today’s Daily Digest, we’ll review the following:

1. No new positions today.
2. Adjustment to XHB position.
3. No exits since the last report.
4. Current status of open campaigns.

Let’s dig in!

The most significant insider buy on today’s list comes via a Form 4 filing by Blue Star Exploration Corp, which purchased $21 million worth of Comstock Resources $CRK.

Control Empresarial de Capitales S.A. continues to buy shares of PBF Energy Inc $PBF and Talos Energy Inc $TALO.

Here’s The Hot Corner, with data from August 7, 2024:

The CEOs of Intel Corporation $INTC and Vimeo Inc $VMEO both filed Form 4s revealing purchases of their own stock.

Impactive Capital filed a 13D for Marriott Vacations Worldwide Corporation $VAC revealing an increase in ownership from 7.42% to 8.60%.

Director Pauline Richards bought 2,351 shares in Apollo Global Management $APO.

APO has entered a corrective phase, falling almost 25% off its highs in the last few weeks.

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...