From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

Fed Chair Jerome Powell spoke this afternoon after the central bank announced a 25-basis-point rate hike. 

The fed funds futures were all over the place, from pricing in a 25-basis-point increase to a double-hike. They settled in around a single hike, with a slim chance of a pause.

Exhausting!

It’s clear we can expect increased volatility going forward.

But, instead of guessing the Fed’s next step or parsing Powell's words, I’ll rather sit back, wait, and prepare to trade a decisive breakout.

When I think about the latter stages of the hiking cycle or a potential pause, my mind immediately turns to one currency in particular…

The Japanese yen.

Since the Fed began raising rates last spring, the yen has been one of the strongest trending markets. It stands to reason it could experience a significant trend reversal as the Fed changes course.

Luckily, we have a clear level to set our alerts and define risk. 

Check out the chart of yen futures:

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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 Steven Klinsky, a director of New Mountain Finance Corporation $NMFC.

Klinsky reported a purchase of roughly $1.1 million.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

It's a big day today.

Will the Fed raise by 50 basis points or 25 basis points? Or will it do nothing? I'm thinking 25 basis points.

However it turns out, expect volatility.

This is the video recording of the March 22, 2023, Inside Scoop Weekly Strategy Session.

The shorter my timeframe, the shittier the market. ~ Brian Lund @bclund

That quote was uttered during a Twitter spaces I hosted yesterday in which we discussed the emergence of “0-DTE” options and the opportunities and challenges they are spawning.

As Brian brought...

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

It was a nice day in the market overall.

We gapped up but didn't pull back into yesterday's high on the indices.

Welcome to The Buzz! 

Our mission at The Chart Report is to highlight ideas from the best traders and technicians on social media. 

Now, we’re taking this concept one step further and tapping into the madness of the crowd. 

That’s why we created The Buzz! 

Our mission at The Buzz is simple: to identify and profit from the most-talked-about stocks on the market today. 

But isn’t the crowd always wrong? 

The grandfather of contrarian investing, Humphrey B. Neil once said; 

“The public is often right during the trends, but wrong at both ends.” 

We agree with Humphrey, which is why we’ll be focusing on catching the meat of these trends, with both long and short ideas. 

The Buzz uses proprietary social media data from our partners at Likefolio. 

Every week, we compile a list of stocks that are experiencing the most momentum in terms of investor interest. Let’s take a look at which stocks are buzzing this week!

This table shows the rate...

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

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

The largest insider buy on today’s list comes in a Form 4 filing by Joe Craft, president and CEO of Alliance Resource Partners $ARLP.

Craft reported a purchase of roughly $2.7 million.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

The market is gapping up nicely into the next resistance zone.

For $SPY, we have to watch this 396.50 area. If it can clear this level, there's room to 400.

Otherwise it's back down to 393 or so.

This is the video recording of the March 2023 Mid-month Conference Call.

Buyers taking control of a market heading into the weekend exude confidence. And Gold bugs have done it two weeks in a row now and counting, as they reclaimed the former 2011 highs.

So what’s next for precious metals?

Well, if Gold priced in other major currencies is any indication (which I think it is), it looks like new all-time highs.

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're covering all the action for the week ended March 17, 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

Precious Metals are back on track, with Gold leading the way.

Gold bugs closed out last week with another strong showing, absorbing overhead supply at a critical level – the former 2011 highs.

With momentum on their side, let’s see how precious metal bulls are faring in other areas of the world.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

The market was very whippy today, and I believe it will be this way till after the Fed on Wednesday.

We'll take it day by day.

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

Precious Metals are back on track, with Gold leading the way.

Gold bugs closed out last week with another strong showing, absorbing overhead supply at a critical level – the former 2011 highs.

With momentum on their side, let’s see how precious metal bulls are faring in other areas of the world.

When we look at Gold valued in other major currencies, it’s already reaching new all-time highs!

Check out Gold priced in euro:

It reclaimed the 2011 highs during the covid sell-off, much like Gold priced in USD. The main difference: Gold has remained more resilient, valued in euro, finishing last Friday at a new all-time weekly closing high.  

It’s a similar picture priced in British pounds:

A big base breakout in early 2020, followed by retests in the spring and summer of 2021, has led to new all-time highs.

The next secular bull run in Gold is well underway in Europe.

But what about the Japanese yen?

You guessed it – gold is also printing fresh all-time highs priced in yen…

No surprise! But you get the point. 

It’s the...