From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

The US dollar isn’t going down without a fight.

Investors weren’t given much time to celebrate the breakdown as it quickly turned into a potential failed breakdown. 

Before we get ahead of ourselves, it could simply turn into a hard retest.

It happens all the time.

So let’s check the charts…

The US Dollar Index $DXY is trading back above a critical shelf of former lows:

As long as it’s above that level – let’s call it 101 – the odds of a failed move increase.

On the other hand, price could chop sideways for longer than anyone cares to believe.

It’s a real possibility, especially when zooming out on the daily chart:

...

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

We had decent movement in the indices today.

We'll see how $GOOGL does after the close.

The indices are flagging, but I think it all depends on tonight.

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

The largest insider buy on today’s list comes in a Form 4 filing by the former chairman of FB Financial Corporation $FBK, James W. Ayers.

Ayers revealed a purchase of 12,000 FBK shares, equivalent to $393,600.

Here's something you don't see every day.

European Financials hitting new 52-week highs?

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

$GOOGL kicks off Big Tech earnings tonight.

We'll see if this name is a precursor for other tech names.

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

Here comes the Fed.

Another FOMC decision is upon us.

But the market has the central bank’s number this time, or so it seems.

The fed fund futures are pricing in an almost certain chance we’ll see a 25-basis-point rate hike come Wednesday.

With general consensus running at all-time highs, the focus will shift toward Jerome Powell’s words, basically the Fed’s forward guidance.

I won’t tune in to that press conference.

What I will do is monitor price.

When it comes to precious metals I’m following absolute trends, as usual, but I’m also tracking these two critical relative trends…

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

The market is kind of drifting and seems to be in an indecision mode.

This week could be tough trading with earnings and the Fed.

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...

Crude Oil futures are pushing up against new 3-month highs just as investors have given up on the commodities trade.

No one I speak to thinks Energy leads the way in the 2nd half of 2023.

And I speak to a lot of people who got the past year very right. Even they don't believe...

Here's what I see: Former resistance for Crude Oil in 2018 turning into support throughout the past year:

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

The market is kind of drifting and seems to be in an indecision mode.

This week could be tough trading with earnings and the Fed.

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza.

Welcome back to Under the Hood, where we'll cover all the action for the week ended July 21, 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

Here comes the Fed.

Another FOMC decision is upon us.

But the market has the central bank’s number this time, or so it seems.

The fed fund futures are pricing in an almost certain chance we’ll see a 25-basis-point rate hike come Wednesday.

With general consensus running at all-time highs, the focus will shift toward Jerome Powell’s words, basically the Fed’s forward guidance.

I won’t tune in to that press conference.

What I will do is monitor price.

When it comes to precious metals I’m following absolute trends, as usual, but I’m also tracking these two critical relative trends…

First, let’s take a look at the Gold Miners ETF $GDX versus the S&P 500 ETF $SPY:

It’s now or never for gold miners.

Gold mining stocks are, without a doubt, participating in gold’s rally to new all-time highs. It’s difficult to imagine a scenario where they don’t.

And when assets climb within strong uptrends, they tend to outperform their alternatives.

Notice the GDX-to-SPY ratio ripped higher during gold’s rally in 2016 and 2019-20.

I expect similar relative...

I’m continuing to travel throughout Southeast Asia — to eight different countries — with my All Star Charts analyst Steve Strazza, giving presentations at local Chartered Market Technicians (CMT) Association events, meeting local traders, enjoying native cuisines, and just marveling about the similarities we traders from different corners of the world all share.

So for the rest of the month of July and into early August, I’m going to cut the preamble and get right to the action for you guys.

As such, here’s the trade I’ll be putting on today:

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 SRB Corporation.

The advisory firm revealed a purchase of $2.1 million in Safety Insurance Group $SAFT.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

It's a busy earnings week, and we have an FOMC decision coming on Wednesday.

Futures are up some this morning.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

We’re seeing a slight bounce this morning after yesterday’s sell-off.

It’s monthly options expiration today, so things could get volatile.

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.

Technical Analysis is the study of the behavior of the market and its participants.

So while identifying price trends is our ultimate goal, sentiment plays an important role in that process.

Prices don't move up or down because of "fundamentals" or "the economy". The price of assets move based on positioning.

When investors are all positioned one way, and are at a consensus, who's left to drive prices further in that direction?

Last summer we saw some of the most pessimistic sentiment towards stocks in history.

Some of that sentiment has started to shift a bit, like in the AAII and II polls. We're back somewhere towards the middle in those. You need, at least, some bulls to buy stocks to have a bull market.

But when it comes to Fund Managers, Cash is still their largest position, and they're most bearish on equities.