Counting is a lost art.

Humans love their short cuts.

Rather than taking the time to actually go one by one counting each of the stocks that are going up, down, or sideways, humans would rather skip that altogether in favor of their favorite Index or some kind of statistic.

 You don't need any sophisticated math skills in order to count how well or poorly the stock market is doing.

It's actually incredibly simple. 

Humans just don't want to do it.

And that's the arb.

The most significant insider buy on today's list comes via a 13D filing by Starboard Value LP.

Earlier in the week, the hedge fund revealed an original stake of 6.60% in Match Group Inc $MTCH.

Starboard has already sent a letter to executives and the board, which you can access here.

Here’s The Hot Corner, with data from July 16, 2024:

Two directors of Zevra Therapeutics Inc $ZVRA, John B. Bode and Thomas Anderson, filed Form 4s revealing purchases of a combined amount of $146,629.

After a prolonged decline since October 2021, MTCH stopped going down late last year.

As you can see, price is building a short-term bottom as it threatens to break higher from a falling wedge.

If there's a place and a moment for bulls to take control, we think this is it.

MTCH also...

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

The stock market is in the middle of one of its fiercest multi-day rallies in recent history.

Since last week, there has been a notable expansion in breadth, with areas like small caps, regional banks, biotechs, and speculative growth joining the bull market party.

Long story short, investors are beginning to move out on the risk spectrum and embrace some of the riskiest stocks the market has to offer.

Another way to see this offensive positioning is by analyzing the performance of the stocks that investors are betting against the most.

Names with sky-high short interests continue to work in this environment.

As such, it's time to run it back with another Freshly Squeezed report.

Here's how we do things...

We find the most heavily shorted stocks in the market. We wait for momentum to come into these names. And then we ride them higher as the bears get squeezed.

We got new short data last week, so let's dive in and talk about it.

Our scan is quite simple. It is designed to identify stocks with the most aggressive short positions.

When a stock...

I believe there to be a rather spectacular opportunity lining up in crypto markets. We've seen a decent portion of tokens give up their entire bull market gains and are now back to where they started.

If you're making the bet, as I am, that crypto and web 3.0 aren't going away anytime soon, I think this recent calamity in the price action of these tokens present a rather favorable opportunity.

I outline my thinking as well as twenty trade ideas I like to take advantage of this.

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

The bull market is back! 

The major indexes are hitting new all-time highs, and so is gold. 

Small-caps are ripping. Crypto is ripping. And the most heavily shorted names on the street are squeezing higher.

I’d expect the US dollar to break down as stock market bulls rush to put their greenbacks to work. 

Instead, the US Dollar Index $DXY is holding steady. Dollar-yen is refusing to roll over.

And risk-on commodity currencies – the Australian, Canadian, and New Zealand dollars – are failing to trigger buy signals.

Stock market bulls don’t seem to care about the lack of risk-on signals from global currencies. 

As long as that’s the case...

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.

Nowadays, 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...

In today’s Daily Digest, we’ll review the following:

1. No new positions today.
2. Rolled XLI position into September.
3. No exits since the last report.
4. Current status of open campaigns.

Let’s dig in!

Are you paying attention to the things happening around you?

More stocks are going up in price, not fewer.

Consolidations and rangebound markets are resolving higher, not lower.

New leadership groups are emerging, not the same old leaders being recycled.

Big bottoms are completing and bases are breaking out to the upside, not huge tops breaking down to the downside.

And all of this while the world's most important stock market index is breaking out of a 4-month base to new all-time highs:

The most significant insider buy on today's list comes via a Form 4 filing by AP Moller Holdings.

The investment company reported an additional purchase of $28.9 million in Noble Corporation $NE.

Viking Global Investors filed a 13G for Longboard Pharmaceuticals $LBPH revealing an initial stake of 5.20%.

Here’s The Hot Corner, with data from July 15, 2024:

In another Form 4, Michelle O'Hara, executive vice president and chief human resources officer of Science Applications International Corporation $SAIC, bought 1,000 shares of her own company’s stock.

Over in Washington, Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma revealed a purchase worth between $15,000 and $50,000 in...

You won’t find many investment shops that know their way around the world of technology better than Coatue Management.

The firm was founded in 1999 by Philippe Laffont after leaving the renowned hedge fund, Tiger Management. 

Today, Coatue has emerged as one of the top “Tiger Cubs” and is revered for their astounding track record of investing in early-stage internet companies.

Coatue was there early in names like Tik-Tok, Snapchat, and Spotify… and most recently in OpenAI, the parent company of ChatGPT.

The firm made a new AI investment a few weeks ago, and it is one of the more significant insider transactions we’ve seen all year.

Allow me to explain…

This is the video recording of the July 2024 Mid-month Conference Call.

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

Precious metals might be the most straightforward trade on the sheets right now.

Gold is 10 bucks away from a new all-time high. Silver and platinum are holding above critical breakout levels. And mining stocks are ripping.

Close your eyes and take a swing. You’re bound to hit a winner.

But your odds of success (and potential payout) improve if you forego shiny rocks in favor of buying gold and silver mining stocks.

Check out the Gold Miners $GDX breaking out relative to the Physical Gold Trust ETF $GLD:

GDX outperforming GLD speaks to risk-seeking behavior – a bullish environment for mining stocks and physical metals.

No wonder Alamos Gold $AGI, Eldorado Gold $EGO, and Kinross Gold $KGC are posting fresh multi-year highs. The most resilient trends outperform their alternatives – just like the Gold Miners ETF in the above chart. 

Meanwhile, the laggards refuse to break down. Even Newfound Gold $NFGC – fresh off all-time lows – has rallied more than...

Precious metals might be the most straightforward trade on the sheets right now.

Gold is ten bucks away from a new all-time high. Silver and platinum are holding above critical breakout levels. And mining stocks are ripping.

Close your eyes and take a swing. You’re bound to hit a winner.

But your odds of success (and potential payout) improve if you forego shiny rocks in favor of buying gold and silver mining stocks.

In today's episode of The Flow Show, me and Steve Strazza talk about the uniquely interesting market we currently find ourselves in, and we delve into a sector that appears to be making a long overdue turn higher, and a stock within the sector that is positioned for a potentially monster breakout.

Here's the big picture setup of Viking Therapeutics $VKTX:

In today’s Daily Digest, we’ll review the following:

1. No new positions today.
2. Rolled XME position into September.
3. No exits since the last report.
4. Current status of open campaigns.

Let’s dig in!

It's worth pointing out that despite the events over the weekend, you're not seeing any bid at all for Gold.

It's the stock market that's getting a bid. It's Bitcoin that's up 6% since Saturday.

And it's the Small-cap Indexes that are hitting new 30-month highs:

The most significant insider buy on today's list comes via a Form 4 filing by Abdiel Capital LP.

The investment firm reported a purchase of $18 million in Appian Corporation $APPN.

Here’s The Hot Corner, with data from July 12, 2024:

Deep Track Capital filed a 13G for Verona Pharma plc $VRNA revealing an initial stake of 5.08%.

VRNA came public in May 2017 and has been building a monster base since its IPO.

Last week, price reclaimed the AVWAP from last year's highs with authority, and VRNA is now approaching another critical resistance level:

The bias is sideways for longer if price remains stuck in the range. However we have a clear level at approximately 26.50.

If and when buyers lift prices above that area of ​​overhead supply, VRNA could finally take off.

Stay tuned. We'll be back on...

Last week I maintained my bullish directional biases even in the face of another down leg in crypto markets. Today, we're monitoring an increasing number of failed breakdowns, meaning that bulls are once again asserting control of the tape.