The Strazza Letter Articles

The multi-year distribution patterns in energy are failing and hooking higher.

And from what I understand, it’s been confusing for some people.

I get that. If you’re one of them, keep reading; we’ll unpack it all.

But first, here’s something from a note I wrote on energy last month.

“I’m making the bet that crude scoops and scores here. I think it should look a lot more like its derivative plays soon, back in its old range. And I think we can get a fast move back toward the upper bounds from there. I’m talking about a big rally that sends crude back to the 80s or 90s”.

Why in the world was I feeling so warm and fuzzy about crude oil? 

It was just completing a massive top. What a naughty technician I must be. What was I thinking?

One of the top-performing areas of the speculative growth theme has been the “new-school” nuclear trade. 

OKLO already tagged one target, SMR is on its way, and NNE is coiled and wants next. 

Click the link to read our nuclear energy deep dive.

These have been some of the top stocks off the April lows, and now the old-school names like Cameco $CCJ are powering higher too.

What I’m saying is the entire nuclear space is red-hot, and I want more of it.

Here’s the VanEck Uranium & Nuclear ETF $NLR breaking out to its highest level since 2008.

After a 50% move in two months’ time, one might think this trend is extended, but it’s not. 

This is a fresh breakout over longer timeframes, and price should keep climbing...

All things equal, I want the one that shook out the weak hands… before it left the station.

I want the one that bears had a clean chance to bury… but couldn’t.

I want the one that just trapped the shorts… then squeezed higher.

Bull hooks. Bear traps. Scoop ‘n scores. Shakeouts.

These are all powerful patterns, and are all similar because they are centered on the same thing…

Failed moves.

This is when price violates a key level and quickly reverses in the opposite direction.

“From failed moves come fast moves” is how I learned it.

And that’s exactly what is happening with Bitcoin $BTC right now. Here’s a look:

BTC ramped from about 75k to north of 110k in a matter of five weeks off the April lows.

...

We got some nice feedback on our top-down scan from last weekend so I think we’ll make it a regular thing.

This is a clear and simple leadership scan, which is why I like it so much. 

We are drilling down to a trade idea following the traditional top down approach. It doesn’t get any better than that. 

We start with the best sectors, then drill into the subgroups. We pick one, and then take a look at the top stocks in it. 

This week, Materials is the big standout—jumping two spots in our sector rankings. It’s no surprise. Commodities are on a tear and participation is expanding. This means we should expect more materials stocks to start working. And we’re already seeing it. 

Upon digging deeper, we found Metals & Mining stocks have been doing a lot of the heavy lifting for the sector....

This week was all about the bull flags.

Bonds dug in where they needed to recently.

International equities keep grinding higher with broadening participation.

And then we have the US indexes, which have been sideways, in high and tight fashion, since mid-May.

That changed this week…

The bulls got what they needed as a long list of these coils resolved higher.

We’ve been particularly interested in speculative growth, and ARKK is a great example of this bull flag theme, so let’s go there:

This is the same pattern we are seeing all over right now. A big time advance off the April lows into a 3-4 week continuation pattern.

And if there’s one thing we know about continuation patterns it is that their resolution should mark the continuance of the preceding price trend. Well, that...

Two weeks ago, I wrote about the breakout that was brewing in silver. 

And it wasn’t just about the price action in gold.

There were finally other signals emerging and suggesting higher prices for the precious metal. We just needed to see if those trends had legs. 

The silver/gold ratio is everything when it comes to risk appetite. It’s the oldest intermarket indicator in the world of commodities. Here’s what I said about it:

“If I end up being right about silver, we’re going to see the silver/gold ratio fail this breakdown and scoop higher”.

The writing was already on the wall for an epic bear trap, and this week it fired. 

The silver/gold ratio just had one of its best weeks in history and failed this topping pattern with authority. 

The analyst team is serving up all kinds of scans these days. Technical scans, fundamental scans, sentiment scans, a little bit of everything. These guys are really having a blast. 

But they are just trying to make the most out of this bull market. They know how this works.

So, we’ve been scanning for speculative growth, international leadership, mega trends, rotation extremes, fading analysts and short-sellers,… we’ve even been running scans on warrants.

We’re going to keep sharing more and more of them each week.

But the scan of the week has to be the Matt Warder-inspired Metals, Mining & Minerals Leaderboard.

Matt has become a dear friend of All Star Charts over the years and was just with us a few weeks ago out in New Orleans. We are truly blessed as Matt has some of the deepest knowledge of natural resource stocks of anyone in the business, with a focus on minerals. 

When he came on the Morning Show the other day, he dropped as much alpha in 30 minutes as any guest ever has. We must...

From the desk of Steve Strazza

Have you ever heard of the Nokkie-Stokkie?

It’s forex trader lingo for the Norwegian Krone/Swedish Krona… and right now this obscure cross is setting up for a classic failed breakdown.

After undercutting key support in early May, it’s snapping back toward this level now. And with each passing day, it’s looking more and more like a bear trap.

We’re not just writing about this unheard-of FX pair to amuse you. Believe it or not, the currency pair carries valuable insights.

It’s one of our most trusted intermarket energy whisperers.

So it's no surprise the scoop-n-score setup in the NOK/SEK looks almost identical to the one in Crude Oil Futures:

Crude is working on its own bear trap — carving out a tactical reversal pattern just below a shelf of former support.

...

The way I learned it is that gold moves first. 

And then copper. 

And finally crude oil. 

That’s the intermarket theory and order I’m familiar with for commodities. 

Jason and the guys at Gold Rush do a great job of covering intermarket relationships and what they all mean. 

They’ve been all over these commodity trends all year. Some have been great, like gold. Others are messy, like copper. And some downright bad, like crude. It’s been a mixed bag to say the least. 

But today, all the buzz is about silver. It’s having its best day of the year as it rips higher out of a bull flag. 

Our volatility squeeze indicator suggests a big move is brewing, and there is plenty of runway considering the pattern hasn’t even broken out yet. 35.25...

One thing I’m looking to do more of here at ASC is share some of the scans we’re running internally each week.

Our roots are in top down technical analysis. We do it better than anyone. And we share a lot of it, but we don’t share enough.

We’re literally running hundreds of ad-hoc scans each week. And we’re going to start giving one away every weekend.

This one is a clear and simple leadership scan, which is why I like it so much. This is the textbook top down approach. It doesn’t get any better.

We start with the best sectors, drill into the best subgroups, pick one, and then find the top stocks.

This week, Industrials stand out as a clear leader—second only to Tech, up nearly 9% in May, and the first sector to complete the V-shaped recovery and retest all-time highs.

Within Industrials, the...

One of the things I love most about bull markets is how they try to include everyone.

Everyone is making money. 

Whether it’s growth stocks or value stocks. US stocks or international stocks. Gold or bitcoin. 

It’s all working and we’re all happy. The parties are better. You get the picture. 

And the reason this is true is because most risk assets participate in bull markets. 

Even the bad ones join the party eventually. 

And of course, we can always find bad stocks that are bucking the trend and falling, but I’m talking about subgroups and thematics. Most areas end up working.

At the end of a sustained bull market, the list of groups that didn’t go up will be very short. 

It’s a hallmark characteristic of the good times....

I have to admit I’ve been thinking a lot about bonds lately. 

Like way more than usual. 

It’s because I think this is a critical time and place for treasuries. 

The 30-year US yield $TYX is backing off after testing its cycle highs. Meanwhile, the popular iShares long-term treasury fund $TLT is rebounding off a big shelf of support. 

If these key levels break— so TLT to the downside and TYX to the upside— we’re talking about major pattern resolutions. 

Major pattern resolutions tend to be followed by significant reaction legs. 

What I’m saying is bonds are at risk of tanking lower if this scenario were to play out. 

And have you noticed how stocks have felt about bond market volatility lately?

I’ve overlaid ARKK with the inverted MOVE index to answer that...