Today's trade has me thinking of this classic corny joke from Pulp Fiction:

One of the strongest sectors out there right now is banking. Particularly regional banks. And as we head into year-end, the catch-up trade is real and money managers chasing alpha are looking into some beaten-up names in the regional banks to get the juice they need to make their year.

This plays in favor of today's trade which has a yawning gap to fill which is likely to overshoot on the upside if a broader market melt-up is in the cards (narrator: we think it is).

Check out this chart of KeyCorp $KEY:

From the Desk of Steve Strazza and Alfonso Depablos

The largest insider buy on today’s list comes in a Form 4 filing by Cormorant Asset Management.

The investment firm reported a purchase of $41,874,150 in EyePoint Pharmaceuticals $EYPT.

In today's Daily Digest, we'll review:

1. No new position today.
2. Defensive adjustment in IWM.
3. No exits since the last report.
4. Current status of open campaigns.

Let's dig in!

From the Desk of Steve Strazza and Alfonso Depablos

The largest insider buy on today’s list comes in a Form 4 filing by Verve Therapeutics Inc $VERV director Krishna Yeshwant.

Yeshwant reported an $18 million purchase of VERV shares.

The inflows into Money Market Funds continue.

Another $73 Billion came in last week, as investors decide they would rather sit in cash collecting an inflation-adjusted, after tax profit of around 1%.

Meanwhile, the Nasdaq is up 50% from the October lows last year. The S&P500 is up a humble 30%.

Technology stocks are up 60%.

Bitcoin is up 160% this year.

But investors are deciding to close their eyes to the current market trends and, for some reason, hoping it goes away.

From the Desk of Steve Strazza and Alfonso Depablos

The largest insider buy on today’s list comes in a Form 4 filing by Verve Therapeutics Inc $VERV director Krishna Yeshwant.

Yeshwant reported an $18 million purchase of VERV shares.

In today's Daily Digest, we'll review:

1. No new position today.
2. Defensive adjustment in TLT.
3. No exits since the last report.
4. Current status of open campaigns.

Let's dig in!

From the Desk of Steve Strazza and Alfonso Depablos

The largest insider buy on today’s list comes in a Form 4 filing by Pulse Biosciences Inc $PLSE director Robert W. Duggan.

Duggan reported a purchase of $PLSE shares worth $1,385,672.

Sector rotation is the lifeblood of a bull market.

I would encourage you to go back and study every bull market in history. Do you know what you'll find?

Sectors rotating.

And this bull market is no different.

This is the video recording of our December 4th Monthly Charts Live Strategy Session

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Welcome to The Minor Leaguers.

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

For the first year or so, we focused only on Russell 2000 stocks with a market cap between $1 and $2B.

That was fun, but we wanted to branch out a bit and allow some new stocks to find their way onto our list.

We expanded our universe to include some mid-caps.

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

The same price and liquidity filters are applied. Then, as always, we sort by proximity to new highs in order to...

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @sstrazza and Alfonso Depablos @Alfcharts

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 reason only: because they think...

From the Desk of Louis Sykes @haumicharts

We've been all over this one.

Two weeks ago, we couldn't help but discuss the impressive move out of the silver/gold ratio, pointing to risk appetite in the precious metals space.

Now, gold's crazy little cousin is pressing up against new 52-week highs.

I'm beginning to sound like a broken record regarding "hard trades," but they just keep working. Look at COIN and UBER as examples.

Today's trade is in a software name that has two things going for it right now:

1. it's hard.
2. it's a potential "catch up" trade.

From the Desk of Steve Strazza and Alfonso Depablos

The largest insider buy on today’s list comes in a Form 4 filing by Pulse Biosciences Inc $PLSE director Robert W. Duggan.

Duggan reported a purchase of $PLSE shares worth $1,385,672.

In today's Daily Digest, we'll review:

1. No new position today.
2. Defensive adjustment in ITB.
3. No exits since the last report.
4. Current status of open campaigns.

Let's dig in!

From the Desk of Louis Sykes @haumicharts

We’ve been all over this one.

Two weeks ago, we couldn’t help but discuss the impressive move out of the silver/gold ratio, pointing to risk appetite in the precious metals space.

Now, gold’s crazy little cousin is pressing up against new 52-week highs.

Just check out the chart of BlackRock’s Silver ETF $SLV rallying into this key inflection point near 23:

Not only does this level coincide with the 52-week highs proceeding a seven-month consolidation, it also represents the 62% Fibonacci retracement of this three-year range.

Make no bones about it, this is a critical level we’re watching in silver right now.

Should we see buyers continue to push the metal higher above this level, it would confirm a breakout.

Above 23.10, we like SLV long with a target at the former highs of 27.40.

But it doesn’t just stop there; let’s plan ahead into the future.

With gold again flirting with all-time highs, we’re on the cusp of a new bull market in precious metals.

In a world where silver goes on to hit our initial target of 27.40, we’ll like the setup even more than we do...