From the Desk of Steve Strazza

The largest insider transaction on today’s list comes in a Form 4 filed by Lloyd M. Yates, director, president and CEO of NiSource Inc $NI.

Yates reported a purchase of 40,000 shares of NI, equivalent to $1,057,600.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

It’s the last week of August, and the market had a nice recovery on Friday.

We’ll see if $SPY 440 holds for a move back to 444 or not.

This is the weekly post that aggregates all the charts we put together throughout the week and organizes them all into one, easy to flip through deck.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza and Alfonso Depablos @AlfCharts

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. Click here to check it out.

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 table to enlarge view

We filter out any laggards that are down -5% or more relative to the S&P 500 over the trailing month.

Then, we sort the remaining names by their proximity to new 52-...

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

It was a very volatile Friday -- up, down, and all around.

That makes for tough trading, and I told the people in the Live Trading Room the best you can do is to NOT trade today.

That being said...

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley 

“Looks like cocoa and sugar are poised to break out.” 

That’s the first message I saw on my phone this morning as traders across the US were preparing for the upcoming session.

But I wasn’t ready to get behind a tactical move in either cocoa or sugar.

Instead, my full attention rests with one commodity on the precipice of an explosive rally…

Cotton.

Check out the weekly continuation chart of cotton futures:

My eyes have been fixated on cotton since early February.

Buyers were challenging a critical retracement level at approximately 89 to open the year. And they continue to do so, slowly absorbing overhead supply as momentum steadily improves.

Prolonged periods of contraction often lead to explosive expansions in price. Cotton is in the midst of the contraction phase. 

So when will...

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

I bought bonds last December and again in March.

I thought it was time to bring these beaten-down assets back into the fold as US Treasuries printed fresh six-month highs.

But I was wrong. 

Fast-forward to today, and the downtrend for bonds remains intact.

And those false breakouts last spring have led to fresh breakdowns as we head into the fall.

The 10- and 30-year futures are flashing sell signals as they undercut their respective March pivot lows.

Now, the shorter end of the curve is doing the same.

Here’s the two-year Treasury note completing a bearish continuation pattern:

The...

Today's trade was crowdsourced in the All Star Options Telegram chat. Thanks to those of you who brainstormed with me.

As you know, I'm on the hunt for rangebound instruments to sell delta-neutral premiums in. The problem is -- it's getting harder to find charts that check all the boxes. I find myself having to make compromises. I can either find good premiums (often at the risk of an earnings event on the horizon), or I can find a stock in a good range. But it's getting harder to find both.

We had a resting GTC order filled at our profit target in the Paid-to-Play portfolio today:

We've adjusted a position in the Paid-to-Play portfolio today:

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza and Alfonso Depablos @AlfCharts

Welcome to The Junior International Hall of Famers.

With the goal of finding more bullish setups, we have decided to expand one of our favorite scans and broaden our regular coverage of the largest US-listed international stocks, or ADRs.

This scan is composed of the next 100 largest stocks by market cap, those that come after the top 100 and are thus covered by the International Hall of Famers universe.

Many of these names will someday graduate and join our original International Hall Of Famers list. The idea here is to catch these big trends as early on as possible.

Let's dive right in and check out what these future big boys are up to.

This is our Junior International Hall of Famers list:

Click table to enlarge view

The largest insider transaction on today’s list comes in a Form 4 filed by Sanford Robertson, director of Cassava Sciences $SAVA.

Robertson reported a purchase of SAVA shares in the amount of $523,500.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

Happy Friday!

We can expect some volatility today, starting pretty early, due to Jerome Powell speaking at the Fed Symposium in Jackson Hole.

If the market likes what the Fed Chair has to say, $SPY could push above 440.20. If not, we can potentially see 432.

Might be hard to get movement early this morning.

The most important groups of stocks are stuck below overhead supply.

That's not usually a characteristic of strong uptrends where investors are consistently rewarded for owning stocks. That was the first half of this year.

Today, it's almost the exact opposite.

In this type of environment, investors are rewarded for selling volatility and collecting income. Investors also tend to be rewarded for avoiding these types of sectors and looking for opportunities elsewhere, in less correlated areas.

Here are 4 of the most important groups of stocks all stuck below their prior cycle's peaks:

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

It was a steady decline most of the day.

We hit resistance on the indices, and they all reversed.

We had a resting GTC order filled at our profit target in the Paid-to-Play portfolio today:

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

We had a resting GTC order filled in the Paid-to-Play portfolio yesterday:

The largest insider transaction on today’s list comes in a Form 4 filed by Sylebra Capital Ltd.

The hedge fund reported an additional purchase of $2.8 million in Impinj $PI.

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...