There are a lot of intermarket relationships that have blown up in 2024 -- and that makes the job of a technical analyst and intermarket analyst harder than normal We rely heavily on high probability intermarket correlations, both positive and negative. But many that have worked consistently on an historical basis are breaking away from normality. There is a high negative correlation between the U.S. Dollar Index and bitcoin, gold, silver, and emerging markets. Yet since the beginning of 2023, these common relationships just aren't working. Gold took off in late 2022 as the USD was correcting. But as the greenback flattened in early 2023, gold kept rising. Even with the dollar pop over the last month, gold has continued to make all-time highs on a consistent basis. Silver traced out a bullish base from August 2020 until May 2024, a period when the dollar rose sharply, knocking silver down to $18. However, the greenback has been going sideways for almost two years, while silver busted its base and broke out on October 18. That was concurrent with dollar strength. Bitcoin has rallied since October 10, while EEM has been strong since September 10 -- and both include periods of dollar strength. Of note, the EEM (and especially Chinese ETFs and stocks) rally can be attributed to the monetary stimulus announcement by China. Finally, the usually reliable COT data has been extremely bearish for the metals, but that has fallen on its head as the smart money have missed this strength in gold and silver. Don't argue with price! (Mark Arbeter, CMT)

Occidental Petroleum is an independent exploration and production company with operations in the United States, Latin America, and the Middle East. At the end of 2023, the company reported net proved reserves of nearly 4 billion barrels of oil equivalent. Net production averaged 1,234 thousand barrels of oil equivalent per day in 2023 at a ratio of roughly 50% oil and natural gas liquids and 50% natural gas.

Newmont is the world's largest gold miner. It bought Goldcorp in 2019, combined its Nevada mines in a joint venture with competitor Barrick later that year, and also purchased competitor Newcrest in November 2023. Its portfolio includes 17 wholly or majority owned mines and interests in two joint ventures in the Americas, Africa, Australia and Papua New Guinea. The company is expected to produce roughly 7.3 million ounces of gold in 2023 pro forma for Newcrest on an annualized basis. Newmont also produces material amounts of copper, silver, zinc, and lead as byproducts from its various gold mines. It had about two decades of gold reserves along with significant byproduct reserves after acquiring Newcrest.

Founded in 1984 and based in the Netherlands, ASML is the market share leader in photolithography systems used in the manufacturing of semiconductors. Photolithography is the process in which a light source is used to expose circuit patterns from a photomask onto a semiconductor wafer. The latest technological advances in this segment allow chipmakers to continually increase the number of transistors on the same area of silicon, with lithography historically representing a meaningful portion of the cost of making cutting-edge chips. Chipmakers require next-generation EUV lithography tools to continue past the 5-nanometer process node, which only ASML can provide. ASML's products are used at every major semiconductor manufacturer, including Intel, Samsung, and TSMC.