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

The largest insider transaction on today’s list comes in a Form 4 filing from Steven J. McLaughlin of fintech-focused investment banking firm FT Partners.

McLaughlin revealed a purchase of $2.9 million in Expensify Inc $EXFY.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

It's been slim pickings with regard to stocks to trade, as the indices are in a holding pattern.

I'm sure they'll pick a direction soon.

As we know, August is typically a bumpy month, as is September.

Over the past few weeks we've been positioning ourselves for a Regime Change.

It's not so much the end of the world that's coming, as it is just healthy, normal sector rotation.

See: If not Tech, then What?

The most important chart that helps to explain what's going on is the S&P500 and Nasdaq100.

This is what being stuck below overhead supply looks like:

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

It was a tough day today, with a lot of stop-outs.

The indices are still stuck under their respective resistance zones.

I did come out ahead today by a few points, but it was a struggle.

$LLY saved trading today.

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

Gilbert Gottfried would like this trade.

The famous duck on our television screens that interrupts nearly every commercial break during football season is setting us to pay us back for all those annoying "Aflac!" utterances.

New all-time highs + low volatility sets up my favorite trade.

The largest insider transaction on today’s list comes in a Form 4 filing from the CEO and chief business and strategic operations officer of Cerevel Therapeutics Holdings $CERE.

The two executives reported purchases for a combined amount of $2.5 million.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

Moody’s hampered the mood of the market by downgrading a few of the banks' credit ratings.

Late in the day yesterday, $QQQ started to lift higher, but that's a no-go this morning.

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza.

Welcome back to Under the Hood, where we'll cover all the action for the week ended August 4, 2023. This report is published bi-weekly and rotated with The Minor Leaguers.

What we do here is analyze the most popular stocks during the week and find opportunities to either join in and ride these momentum names higher, or fade the crowd and bet against them.

We use a variety of sources to generate the list of most popular names.

There are so many new data sources available that all we need to do is organize and curate them in a way that shows us exactly what we want: a list of stocks that are seeing an unusual increase in investor interest.

Click here for a behind-the-scenes look at our process.

Whether we’re measuring increasing interest based on large institutional purchases, unusual options activity, or...

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 Kimmy Sokoloff

We have a little bit of a give and take here.

The indices are below their respective resistance levels and, as of now, they're unable to get above them.

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

The stars have not aligned for gold bugs.

Rates and the US dollar are both catching higher – the opposite of what would likely ignite a precious metals rally.

Yet gold continues to hold above its former 2011 highs! 

Despite these setbacks, my bias remains bullish for gold.

But my desire to own the strongest assets is shifting actionable trade setups toward more profitable opportunities…

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

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

The stars have not aligned for gold bugs.

Rates and the US dollar are both catching higher – the opposite of what would likely ignite a precious metals rally.

Yet gold continues to hold above its former 2011 highs! 

Despite these setbacks, my bias remains bullish for gold.

But my desire to own the strongest assets is shifting actionable trade setups toward more profitable opportunities…

Let’s start at the top: the underlying uptrend in interest rates. 

Check out the US 10-year yield:

The 10-year has yet to resolve higher from this basing formation. Nevertheless, the uptrend remains intact as the market has not given investors any reason to bet on lower yields.

As long as yields continue to rise, procyclical areas of the market will offer better returns.

The overlay chart of the 10-year yield and crude oil versus gold tells the story:

Crude oil outperforms gold as rates rise (no wonder I keep finding quality long setups in energy names), while gold shines as rates fall.

Gold can catch higher along with yields. But...

The largest insider transaction on today’s list comes in a Form 4 filing by Karin Rotem-Wildeman, Chief Research & Development Officer for Keurig Dr Pepper $KDP.

Rotem-Wildeman reported a purchase of KDP shares worth roughly $1.8 million.

Remember in the back half of last year, when virtually everything was working EXCEPT for Tech stocks?

Well a funny thing happened early in 2023, money rotated into Tech and other Large-cap Growth.

These Tech stocks did so well, that people who are bad at math convinced themselves, and others around them, that it was only 5 or 7 stocks going up.

That was hilarious.

And while it definitely wasn't just 7 stocks, but thousands of stocks ripping in your face all year, Technology was certainly the leader along the way, particularly on a market-cap weighted basis.

But that relative strength has been rolling over the past few months as momentum has also diverged negatively.

Doesn't that make perfect sense ...

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

Well, late in the afternoon on Friday the markets took a nosedive.

We'll see how we close this week and whether we stay below resistance levels on the indices.