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

Momentum thrusts abound.

The other day on Twitter Spaces, JC made the point that we hadn’t seen many bullish thrusts this year. He was right. There have been a handful of obscure ones, but nothing really stands out. Until now…

Last week, the High-Yield Bond ETF $HYG registered its largest single-day rate of change since spring 2020.

Not bearish, right?

Then, yesterday, copper futures followed this up by rallying over 5% and booking their largest daily gain in almost a decade.

Also, not bearish.

These types of strong momentum thrusts tend to kick off new uptrends.

We just covered the action in HYG and highlighted the major bottoms that formed under similar momentum conditions.

Today, we’re going to review yesterday’s thrust in Dr. Copper and discuss what a sustained rally from here could mean for risk assets.

Let’s dive in!

Here’s a chart of copper futures with a one-day rate of change in the lower pane: 

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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:

*Click to enlarge view

And here’s how we arrived at it:

• We filtered out any stocks that are below their May 10, 2021, high,...

From the desk of Willie Delwiche.

That this is an unfamiliar and uncomfortable environment for many investors goes without saying. It was unforeseen to the extent that it is at odds with recent experience. For passive investors, the past decade (even through COVID) was one of only mild (in terms of degree and duration) interruptions to the underlying upward trend in their portfolios. Through this period, some things that should not have been forgotten were lost. Among these were diversification principles across and within asset classes. Commodity exposure withered to nothing and US investors were rewarded for indulging their home country bias. With the trend in the 60/40 benchmark portfolio now in its most significant downturn since the financial crisis of 2008/09, investor nerves are frayed, the mood is sour and patience is being tested. Adding to this frustration may be the reality that if one was indeed paying attention to expiring breadth thrust regimes, collapsing new high lists and expanding new low lists, some of this year’s roller coaster ride could perhaps have been avoided. 

...

Chemicals and Fertilizing stocks have been among the sectors that seem to be "benefiting" from supply shocks in the system stemming from the war in Ukraine, as well as just general inflation touching the price of everything (except tech stocks, heyooooooooo!)

The team put out a "Trade of the Week" last week in this sector that now has my attention as the stock has held on to recent gains.

Stocks in the right sectors, making multi-year highs are stocks I can't ignore.

This is the video recording of our June 3, 2022, All Star Charts Crypto Weekly Strategy Session.

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

The largest insider buy on today's list is a Form 4 filing by Column Group, which reported the purchase of approximately $5.8 million in NGM Biopharmaceuticals $NGM.

Kevin Riley, the CEO and president of First Interstate BancSystem $FIBK, revealed a purchase of approximately 2,900 shares in the regional bank.

It would be irresponsible of me not to make Small-cap Value today's Chart of the Day.

I mean how can it not be?

(OK, Copper's biggest 1-day move since 2013 was a close 2nd)

But the new 6-week highs in $IWN, which represents Small-cap Value, just cannot be ignored!

If these guys are above their former support levels going all the way back to Q1 2021, then a short position in any of these things is a mistake:

This is the video recording of our June 2nd Monthly Charts Live Strategy Session

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

Back in January, the big story was the yield on the 10-year US Treasury note printing new multi-year highs.

At the time, other benchmark yields worldwide were also resolving higher, completing large bases.

This was confirming evidence that added to our conviction US yields were headed higher and that we were in the early stages of a rising rate environment.

The confirmation from global yields proved valuable information.

Almost six months later, the US benchmark is just below 3.00%. As it pauses below a critical level, we again turn to overseas rates to get a read on the potential near-term direction of the 10-year yield.

And just like earlier in the year, they’re pointing higher.

Let’s take a look.

Here’s a chart of European 10-year yields:  European rates are catching higher.

The yields on 10-year government bonds from France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, and...

From the desk of Willie Delwiche.

Key Takeaway: Risks to the economy are rising, though a recession is not a foregone conclusion at this point. Barring a dramatic and unlikely abatement in inflation pressures, the path of least resistance for interest rates is higher than the market is accounting for at this point. Rally attempts have been volatile but, so far at least, short-lived and as longer-term trends turn lower, many investors are dealing with an unfamiliar (and uncomfortable) environment. While moods have soured, positions are little changed. Overall these are the conditions under which bear markets can die and bull markets be re-born. The evidence at this point does not suggest that turn is at hand.  

This is the video recording of the June 2nd Weekly Town Hall w/ Willie Delwiche.

06/02/22 2:00 PM ET

The bears are getting creative with their theories.

You notice?

And there are a lot of bears out there. More than we've seen in a long, long time depending on how exactly you're counting them.

So the big question is whether we've seen A bottom or if we've seen THE bottom.

And the truth is no one knows until after the fact.

All we can do is continue to collect the data as it comes in and make the best decisions with incomplete information.

The first thing that needs to happen before stocks can go up, is that they need to stop going down.

That's just math.

And what's interesting is that with lower lows in the price of most major U.S. Indexes a couple of weeks ago, fewer stocks were actually able to make new lows....

Mea Culpa --- I'm letting this post stand because it offers two good lessons for traders:

1. The risk management laid out below is how I manage long calls heading into expiration. So anyone holding a similar position will benefit from this or a similar risk management plan.

2. It offers a lesson on keeping good records. I messed up. For ASO subscribers, we're actually in the September calls, NOT JUNE CALLS. We have plenty of time until our position expires and therefore we actually don't need to do anything here yet but enjoy our #FreeRide. The confusion for me is that I also have June calls on in my personal portfolio and I did not take careful notes in my personal spreadsheet. And when reviewing, I accidentally confused these June calls as part of the position we put on for ASO. So, yes, I personally will be exiting my June calls soon (as laid out below). But for those of you who followed me into our September calls trade, we've got time. 

Sorry about the confusion.

Hello everyone! It's the beginning of the month and during this time, I always review any open...

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

Director Meridee Moore of Rayonier $RYN reported a purchase of 12,000 shares of her company's stock in a Form 4 filing.

The CEOs of Solo Brands $DTC, American Assets Trust $AAT, OPKO Health $OPK, SoFi Technologies $SOFI, and Doximity $DOCS all filed Form 4s reporting small purchases of their own stocks.

A funny thing can happen when you don't have any exposure to Technology stocks....

And that's precisely what's taking place in the United Kingdom.

How many countries around the world are pushing up against new all-time highs?

From the desk of Louis Sykes @haumicharts

The beauty of trading and analyzing crypto is the level of transparency of the data.

This is put on full display when it comes to the sprouting industry of on-chain analytics, but the same principles apply when evaluating money flow as a collective.

Not only does crypto host its own exclusive metrics that aren't available in traditional markets, but traditional indicators like the topic of today's post often have additional nuances involved.

This enables us to gain even more insight than what is possible in other asset classes.

Today, we wanted to explore how we use open interest in our crypto process to supplement our traditional technical analysis research.

We debuted a new scan recently- The Outperformers.

The Outperformers is our newest scan that pinpoints the very best stocks in the market. It’s the fastest, easiest way to find quality names that are primed for major moves.

The goal is that as the market rally progresses, the sector rotation within the market will reflect in this scan. So while our Top/Down Analysis helps us with the broader view of the market, this Bottom/Up scan makes sure that we catch the slightest change in sentiment.

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'll publish this...

From the desk of Willie Delwiche.

Key Takeaway: Investor moods will change as prices fluctuate but they seemed to follow word with deed in May. The AAII asset allocation survey showed them lightening up (perhaps only briefly and modestly) on their equity exposure. By month-end, we had evidence that the $4.5 trillion in money market funds (more of a molehill than a mountain when adjusted for total market value) was being put to work in both stocks and bonds. Bearish investors are not so much disgruntled with stocks, but disgusted by the price action they have experienced this year. It didn’t take much of a move off the lows for optimism to start building again. Rallies that are initially despised (or at least viewed skeptically) are more likely to have staying power than those that are quickly embraced. Sentiment is at levels from which rallies tend to emerge - positioning, however, is not.

Sentiment Report Chart of the Week: Investors Take Some Action

AAII asset allocation data shows that investors trimmed their...