From the desk of Steven Strazza @Sstrazza

*** Click here to read the reveal post for this Mystery Chart ***

Check out our latest Mystery Chart!

What we do here is take a chart that’s captured our attention, and remove the x and y axes as well as any other labels that could help identify it.

This chart can be of any security, in any asset class, on any timeframe. Sometimes it’s an absolute price chart, other times it’s on a relative basis.

It might be a ratio, a custom index, or maybe the price is inverted. It could be all three!

The point is, when we aren’t able to recognize what’s in front of us, we put aside any biases we may have and scrutinize the price behavior objectively.

While you can try to guess the chart, the point is to make a decision…

So, let us know what it is… Buy, Sell, or Do Nothing?

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Welcome to our latest Minor Leaguers report.

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

We recently decided to expand our universe to include some mid-caps…

For about a year now, we’ve focused only on Russell 2000 stocks with a market cap between $1 and $2B. That was fun, but it’s time we branch out a bit and allow some new stocks to find their way onto our list.

The way we’re doing this is simple…

To make the cut for our new Minor Leaguers list, 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...

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...

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.

It’s Time To Look Outside The US

The same areas of the market that are starting to drive the rotation from growth to value are also likely to drive rotation between US and ex-US stocks. The reason for this is simple. International stocks tend to have a high relative weighting toward value, while the US has one of the highest allocations to tech and growth of any country. While we’re still seeing very little evidence of a trend reversal in our ratio charts of international vs US stocks, we are starting to see more and more breakouts from international indexes and ETFs on absolute terms. Fresh legs higher from these diversified global indexes and individual country ETFs could be what sparks a turnaround in the relative trends. We want to keep a close eye on value-heavy countries such as Canada, Australia, and various areas of developed Europe. One area that is standing out recently is the Eurozone and the UK in...

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 flat this week as 53% of our list closed higher with a median return of 0.06%.
• Oil $CL was the winner this week, closing with a 6.24% gain.
• The biggest loser was Dow Jones Transports $DJT, with a weekly loss of -2.24%.
• There was a 4% gain in the percentage of assets on our list within 5% of their 52-week highs – currently at 55%.
• 30% of our macro list made fresh 4-week highs, 17% made new 13...

Over the last few weeks, our patient approach to the market following December's volatility has continued to pay off.

In last week's report, we outlined how we're viewing this recent dip as yet another low-conviction dip-buy, and why we anticipate messy and whipsaw-prone price action before a tradable bottom is found.

There's little to update on since that report.

Spot flows have been neither bullish nor bearish, but neutral. We need to see demand come in from investors to form a tradable bottom. The market appears to be in oversold conditions, making this a logical place for this to happen.

Elevated leverage in the derivative markets has made futures the dominant force on price action. There are early signs of a short squeeze developing, but we need to see investor demand support it.

Apart from a few exceptions, we're sitting out most of the action in the alts for now.

The market has been different over the past two weeks compared to the past two months. We're seeing a resumption in trend in several sectors and today Fertilizers are in focus.

Let's take a look at the trade for this week!

We retired our "Five Bull Market Barometers" in 2020 to make room for a new weekly post that's focused on the three most important charts for the week ahead.

This is that post, so let's jump into this week's edition.

Some people think that Small-cap stocks underperformed last year.

But those are probably the ones left holding the bag in small-cap growth stocks.

You see, Small-cap Value stocks did great!

One for the record books, in fact.

This is our ASC Research Q1 2022 Playbook.

With the current market environment giving us many mixed messages, what better time to dive in and see what's happening underneath the surface?

• Stocks (International & U.S.)
• U.S. Sectors & Industries
• Market Breadth & Sentiment
• Commodities
• Currencies
• Intermarket Analysis
• Crypto Currencies
• New Trade Ideas
• Overall Strategy

These are the registration details for our live monthly conference call for Premium Members of All Star Charts India.

This month’s Conference Call will be held on Wednesday, January 19th at 7 PM IST. 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 our launch.

Here are the details for Wednesday:

Have you noticed the sense of entitlement from investors left holding the bag in these growth stocks?

Why is that our problem?

The rest of the planet doesn't care about your obsession with U.S. growth stocks. It's a much bigger world out there.

Oh, you fell for that narrative about a female rock star portfolio manager?

Too bad.

Oh, you decided to buy stocks that historically do poorly in rising rate environments, during a rising rate environment?

Too bad.

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 January 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:

It's Saturday Morning Chartoons time. 

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.

You can find the whole list of trades here.

Below you'll find the full PDF of this week's charts:

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

Commodities are making a fresh leg higher, and energy is leading the way.

Crude oil is back above our risk level around 76. And the energy-heavy CRB Index is at its highest level in more than seven years.

But it’s not just energy contracts that are working right now. We’re seeing strength across all areas of the commodity complex.

This broadening participation is evident in our equal-weight commodity index, which just hit new highs after consolidating for the past two quarters.

This chart shows the CRB Index and our equal-weight index side by side:

Both are printing new highs after some consolidation and corrective action last year. You can see the bullish continuation pattern very clearly in the equal-weight index.

Also, notice how both of these charts are sporting strong...

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 which you can check out here.

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:

And here’s how we arrived at it:

• Filter out any stocks that are below their May 10, 2021 high, which is when new...

From the desk of Willie Delwiche.

Two weeks into 2022 and EEM (Emerging Markets) has a 500 basis point YTD lead over SPY (S&P 500). Emerging markets are up more than 2% and the S&P 500 is down more than 2%. Short-term charts can make this look like a significant shift in leadership. While it may turn into that, at this point it looks like a premature conclusion. My guess is that we are in the early stages of a shift away from the US and toward global equity market leadership, including emerging markets. But two weeks of outperformance after a decade of relative weakness is not much of a signal. 

If we look at the history, all of the net gains in EEM over the past nearly two decades have come when the ratio between EEM and SPY has been above its 200-day average. The ratio is rising and the 200-day average is falling, so there is convergence. But there has not yet been a crossover. That’s the signal I want to see before getting too excited about the strength we are seeing from EEM. 

It’s certainly something to watch, but we want to watch with a bit of perspective.

...

From the desk of Willie Delwiche.

It was Bucks vs Warriors in Milwaukee last night. Giannis vs Curry. A marquee January matchup for the NBA. 

The game got away from Golden State early and they were down 48-24 with about 8 minutes to go in the first half. When the final buzzer sounded, it was a 118-99 Bucks win. Curry, who has been averaging 35 minutes per game this season, was only in for 29 last night. In fact, no starter on either team played more than 30 minutes.

Turns out a blowout in January is a great time for players (even the stars) to get some rest. It's a long season and when the must-win playoff games come around, coaches are going to want their players as fresh as possible.

One of the processes we absolutely love to follow is the Top/Down Analysis approach. In this process, we identify the larger trend and then zoom in and analyse the characteristics that stand out. We look at the asset classes, identify the strongest one, and then deep dive. Next, we look at sectors and identify the pockets of outperformance. Finally, we take a look at an actionable trade that suits our risk and reward parameters.

So let's see what we have this time around!

This is the video recording of our January 14, 2022, All Star Charts Crypto Weekly Strategy Session.

This is the video recording of the January 13th Weekly Town Hall w/ Willie Delwiche & JC Parets

01/13/22 2:00 PM ET