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 context of the big picture 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 turned things around this week as 81% of our list closed higher this week with a median return of 0.94%
• Procyclical Commodities led the bounce as Copper and Crude Oil were the week’s biggest winners up 4.39% and 4.31%, respectively 
• New highs have increased over last week’s dismal performance
• And 74% of the assets on our list are within...

From the desk of Steve Strazza @sstrazza

This is one of our favorite bottoms-up scans: Follow The Flow. In this note, what we do is simply create a universe of stocks that experienced the most unusual options activity - either bullish or bearish... but NOT both.

What we mean by this is that we have options experts, both internally and through our partnerships with TheTradeXchange, whereby we do all the digging through the level 2 details and do all the work upfront for our clients, in order to isolate only those options market splashes that represent levered and high-conviction, directional bets.

We weed out all the noise for you in terms of hedging activity and ensure there are no offsetting trades that either neutralize or cap the risk on these unusual options trades. What this leaves us with 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 the stock is about to move in their...

I can't begin to tell you how many people have approached me in recent weeks laughing about how they're happy I'm back on the Gold train.

Why wouldn't I be? Our gold trades are working.

One thing I learned the hard way in this business is to do less of what's not working and do more of what is.

It sounds too simple but I can't emphasize enough just how important this concept is.

This isn't like a Roulette wheel of randomness. Markets trend. That's why Technical Analysis works, because we're looking for trends.

One thing we know about new lows is that they are not a characteristic of uptrends.

We know this.

So here's an update on that whole Growth vs Value thing: New Monthly closing lows all the way down the cap scale.

This week we're looking at one long setup in Cement. Commodities and Infrastructure are bouncing from crucial levels. We'd like to look at a name from this segment.

What if these consolidations in Financials and Materials do NOT resolve higher?

What then?

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Earlier in the week, we held our May Monthly Conference Call, which Premium Members can access and rewatch here.

In this post, we’ll do our best to summarize it by highlighting 5 of the most important charts and/or themes we covered, along with commentary on each.

Let’s get right into it!

Do you see something else here?

Massive tops? Check.

Lower lows? Check.

Lower Highs? Check.

We're back to share with you, what we love to do and that is the Top/Down approach. At All Star Charts we're big fans of the weight of the evidence. The market tells us where it's going, and we listen. It's pretty simple really.

Over the past couple of weeks, we've noticed the PSU banks bouncing off their support and actually displaying some strength.

So today, let's take a look at what this particular sector is hinting at.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Welcome to the 2 to 100 Club.

Something we’ve been working on internally this year is using various bottoms-up tools and scans to complement our top-down approach. One way we’re doing this is by identifying stocks as they climb the market-cap ladder from small, to mid, to large, and ultimately to mega-cap status (over $200B).

Once they graduate from small-cap to mid-cap status (over $2B) they come on our radar. Likewise, when they surpass the roughly $30B mark, they roll off our list.

But the scan doesn’t just end there. We only want to look at the strongest growth industries in the market as that is typically where these potential 50-baggers come from.

Some of the best performers in recent decades – stocks like Priceline, Amazon, Netflix, and Salesforce, to a myriad of others… all would have been on this list at some point during their journey to becoming the market behemoths they are today.

When you look at the stocks in our table you will notice we...

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.