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 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.

Bonds Lead

First bonds, then stocks, and now commodities have rolled over, following the traditional intermarket cycle. If the pattern holds, we should expect bonds to bottom first and eventually lead the way higher. With yields on the rise, there are no signs of this yet, but even a transition to a sideways trend could bring some stability to other asset classes.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

That was a nice range-bound day for the market overall. The consolidation is healthy.

Taking Out The COVID Lows

US industry group trends are at a new low for the year and are approaching washed out levels. Take out the Energy groups and virtually nothing is in an up-trend.  

The Details: The industry group trend indicator looks at 4 weekly trend metrics for each of the 72 industry groups in the S&P 1500 (24 each for small-caps, mid-caps and large-caps). The higher the number, the broader the strength at the industry group level.  

More Context: From an industry group trend perspective, this is as bad as it got during COVID and during the bursting of the Tech Bubble. It was worse than this during the Financial Crisis (both during October 2008, which was not the low and March 2009, which was the low). We cannot know how bad it will get this time and so rather than anticipating a turn higher and improving conditions, I would rather wait for evidence of a turn and follow the trend higher.    

We take a Deeper Look at what would give us confidence...

Our Ian Culley said it best:

Don’t catch falling knives!

It sounds simple enough. But in reality, traders continue to lose fingers as they reach for downtrending assets.

It's true in stocks, it's true in commodities, and it's true in bonds. It's true in any asset class, really.

And the knives keep falling left and right. Let's avoid getting our hands cut and let's just go with the trend, shall we?

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 negative this week as 77% of our list was lower for a median return of -1.07%.
• Lumber $LB was the winner, closing with a 10.86% gain.
• The biggest loser was Silver $SI, with a weekly loss of -10.78%.
• There was a 3% gain in the percentage of assets on our list within 5% of their 52-week highs – currently at 9%.
• Only 11% of our macro list made fresh 4-week highs.
• Meanwhile, 47% of our...

The next new position in our Paid-to-Play portfolio is:

I don't know how you were taught to approach markets.

But I still have Ralph Acampora in my head. I can still hear him yelling, "Don't Fight Papa Dow!!"

He's referring, of course, to the Dow Jones Industrial Average, and respecting the direction of its trend, and its components.

We just saw back to back positive weeks for the Dow Industrials for only the 4th time in 2022. See here.

This weekend I published a note about how underrated I find the Dow Jones Industrial Average to be among traders and investors.

Not sure why people get so upset about the Dow. I find it really valuable and shared some of my favorite hacks here.

The Dow is not something I want to fight. In fact, I was specifically taught not to.

So here's what this looks like. You can see the Pre-Covid highs that were taken out in Q4 2020. And now here we are, back to the scene of the crime.

...

There have been no developments since last Monday, so today's note will be a brief interim update.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

Overnight, the futures held Friday's lows, and now we're back up against resistance.

Not too many names stand out to me right now, I think maybe because they just keep going back and forth.

In a busy morning for oil and gas deals, Continental Resources $CLR announced a merger agreement with the company founder and billionaire Harold Hamm.

Over the weekend, Hamm boosted his original offer from this summer to purchase the existing $4.3 billion worth of shares that he and his family do not already own for $74.28 per share.

Friday morning I was in the city chopping it up with Maria Bartiromo.

She was surprised at what I had to say.

But I think she was intrigued.

Also, huge shoutout to Fox Business on their 15th Anniversary. It's been amazing to watch them continue to dominate financial TV.

Congrats all around.

Check out the full clip from Friday morning:

There is a constant conversation among market participants about which indexes are the better representation of the stock market, particularly in the United States.

While the media often quotes the Dow Jones Industrial Average daily changes, professionals tend to steer towards the S&P500.

The argument normally revolves around the price-weighted nature of the Dow Jones Industrial Average vs the market-cap driven S&P500.

The diversity of 500 stocks in the S&P is also a key point when compared to just 30 stocks for the Dow.

Today, I just wanted to remind everyone why I think the Dow Jones Industrial Average is underrated and why I think it is still one of the most useful indexes for any stock market participant.

First of all, the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P500 have a very high positive correlation to one another.

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.

In yesterday's note we talked about how the Dow Jones Industrial Average went up in price for the 2nd consecutive week. This isn't something we've seen happen too often in 2022.

But what else happened this week?

Well, we got fewer stocks making new 52-week lows on the NYSE. The peak in new lows was back in June, which was 4 months ago.

You can see it in shorter-time horizons as well. Look at the S&P500 new 63 day low list continuing to deteriorate (63 days = 3 months = 1 quarter):

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.

These are the registration details for our live mid-month conference call for Premium Members of All Star Charts.

Our next Live Call will be held on Tuesday October 18th at 6PM ET. As always, if you cannot make the call live, the video and slides will be archived and published here along with every other live call since 2015.

Here are the details for Tuesday night:

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza and Alfonso Depablos @AlfCharts

Our International Hall of Famers list is composed of the 100 largest US-listed international stocks, or ADRs. We’ve also sprinkled in some of the largest ADRs from countries that did not make the market cap cut. 

These stocks range from some well-known mega-cap multinationals such as Toyota Motor and Royal Dutch Shell to some large-cap global disruptors such as Sea Ltd and Shopify.

It’s got all the big names and more--but only those that are based outside the US. You can find all the largest US stocks on our original Hall of Famers list.

The beauty of these scans is really in their simplicity.

We take the largest names each week and then apply technical filters in a way that the strongest stocks with the most momentum rise to the top.

Based on the market environment, we can also flip the scan on its head and filter for weakness.

Let’s dive in and take a look at some of the most important stocks from around the world.

Here’s this week’s list:

...

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

The commodity markets never lack action. 

Since it’s such a diverse asset class, we’ll always have contracts we want to buy, some that we want to short, and others we want to avoid.

Today, I’m going to outline one of each. Let’s dive in!

The Breakout

According to the latest reports, Hurricane Ian (strong name, terrible storm) may have cut the Florida orange crop in half.

Whether it’s true doesn’t matter. I’m more concerned with a well-defined level to trade against. Check out the daily chart of orange juice futures:

The chart looks good to me! A five-month base breakout to fresh five-year highs is the kind of strength I like to buy.

The line in the sand is 191. You can get long above this level with an initial target of 220 and a secondary objective of 242.50.

Remember, OJ futures are thinly traded. You need to adjust your...

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

It's like Thursday never happened.

I was looking for a consolidation, with a possibility of $SPY 364 to hold roughly.

That was not the case.