From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

The market took a decent dive early today, but after lunch time we saw a decent bounce. Perhaps it was short covering.

We don't know which way the market will go tomorrow after the Fed's interest rate announcement.

Time will tell.

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

"The bigger the base, the higher in space."

That’s how I learned it from JC.

But he wasn’t the technician who coined the adage. It was actually handed down from Lousie Yamada, who studied under the legendary Alan Shaw.

It was amazing to connect with technicians from around the world last week at the 50th Annual CMTA Symposium.

I have a great deal of gratitude for all those who made last week possible and to the founding members who paved the way for technical analysis. 

The experience was humbling, as it exposed my roots and reminded me where I come from.

It's just like the Swiss franc reminds us that observations from more than a hundred years ago continue to play out across today’s markets…

Check out the monster base in Swiss franc futures:

The Swiss franc is forming a decade-long base, challenging the...

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

The largest insider buy on today’s list comes in a Form 4 filing by Impinj, Inc. $PI director Steve Sanghi.

Sanghi reported a purchase of PI shares worth $1,997,500.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

$SPY bumped right against its Bollinger band yesterday and dropped.

We had a pretty decent-sized move last week, and I think the indices will wait till tomorrow to get going again.

It's that time of the year again.

I keep being told to 'Sell in May and Go Away'.

But where is it exactly that I'm supposed to go?

Investors continue to be rewarded for owning stocks as both the S&P500 and Nasdaq100 closed out April with their highest Monthly close in a year.

This is the video recording of our May 1st Monthly Charts Live Strategy Session

Week starting May 1, 2023 | Edition No. 9 

Each week, we’re learning more about our scan and refining our process. In the interest of being transparent with you, here are some things you should know... 

In each weekly report, we’ll outline 1-3 actionable trades. We’ll also highlight a few other noteworthy setups and discuss why they’re attractive, but not ideal. Some weeks will have more actionable setups than others, as we don’t want to force trades. 

We want to be picky and only highlight setups where we can clearly define our risk. Typically, we want to see a skewed reward/risk ratio of 3:1 or greater. By risking $1 to make at least $3, we don’t have to be right every single time in order to be profitable. 

With any bottoms-up scan, many of these stocks are at the mercy of the broader market. We will always consider the current market environment when identifying our long/short ideas. 

Many of the tickers that make the list each week are small-cap companies, and some have fairly low volume. We like to see at least $10million in average daily dollar volume. We multiply the...

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

It’s still messy out there, no matter where you look.

Signs of strength are fleeting, whether we’re discussing gold, the S&P 500, or US Treasuries. It’s one of the few observations everyone agreed upon last week at the 50th annual CMTA Symposium. (I'll have more on that later this week.)

Despite failed breakouts and trading ranges ruling the market environment, one bullish data point stand out regarding precious metals…

Silver!

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

The market is still trucking along and going higher.

$SPY does have potential to the February high at 418.31.

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 Steve Strazza @Sstrazza.

Welcome back to Under the Hood, where we'll cover all the action for the week ended April 28, 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 Ian Culley @IanCulley

It’s still messy out there, no matter where you look.

Signs of strength are fleeting, whether we’re discussing gold, the S&P 500, or US Treasuries. It’s one of the few observations everyone agreed upon last week at the 50th annual CMTA Symposium. (I’ll have more on that later this week.)

Despite failed breakouts and trading ranges ruling the market environment, one bullish data point stand out regarding precious metals…

Silver!

Check out silver futures finding support at a critical polarity zone:

The 24.75 level acted as support last spring before giving way to increased selling pressure. By the end of last year and into early 2023, the same price level became resistance.

This is the principle of polarity in action, as the forces of supply and demand continue to highlight the level’s importance. 

I have to give silver the benefit of the doubt as long as it holds above that critical level. 

The same is true for the iShares Silver Trust ETF $SLV, as the comparable price stands at 22.50:

Risks remain to the upside if SLV trades above the...

As we're starting to get the latest round of earnings reports into the rear-view mirror, we're getting some clarity on the next crop of leaders for a potential move higher in the stock market.

Today's trade is on an emerging leader in the Defense sector that positions us very offensively for the next move up.

Let's get to it!

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:

Today’s hot list is a long one with many executives rushing to buy shares following the first quarter earnings blackout period.

The largest insider buy on today’s list comes in a Form 4 filing by Chicago Pacific Founders.

The firm reported a purchase of roughly $5.5 million in Polaris $PII.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

Happy May!

Here we are, and we have another busy week ahead of us.

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

Our International Hall of Famers list is composed of the 100 largest US-listed international stocks, or ADRs. We’ve also sprinkled in some of the largest ADRs from countries that did not make the market cap cut. 

These stocks range from some well-known mega-cap multinationals such as Toyota Motor and Royal Dutch Shell to some large-cap global disruptors such as Sea Ltd and Shopify.

It’s got all the big names and more--but only those that are based outside the US. You can find all the largest US stocks on our original Hall of Famers list.

The beauty of these scans is really in their simplicity.

We take the largest names each week and then apply technical filters in a way that the strongest stocks with the most momentum rise to the top.

Based on the market environment, we can also flip the scan on its head and filter for weakness.

Let’s dive in and take a look at some of the most important stocks from around the world.

Here’s this week’s list:

...

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

The market was full speed ahead today, and this week looks like just a blip on the chart.

At the rate we're going we can see 421 on $SPY.