People, you know how much we talk about relative strength in these parts.

No matter the attention we give it, we always underestimate its efficacy in financial markets. We talked all about this last week.

When it comes to leadership in this market, it's impossible to ignore Lido DAO $LDO.

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

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

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

February, I won't be sad to see you go!

It's been a very choppy month, and, as of now, we look to close lower overall for the past 28 days.

The largest insider buy on today’s list comes in a Form 4 filing by Kelcy Warren, co-founder and executive chairman of Energy Transfer $ET.

Warren reported an additional purchase, this one worth $21.6 million.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Welcome to our latest Minor Leaguers report.

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.

To make the cut for our Minor Leaguers list, 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...

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

Check out this week's Momentum Report, our weekly summation of all the major indexes at a Macro, International, Sector, and Industry Group level.

By analyzing the short-term data in these reports, we get a more tactical view of the current state of markets. This information then helps us put near-term developments into the big picture context and provides insights regarding the structural trends at play.

Let's jump right into it with some of the major takeaways from this week's report:

* ASC Plus Members can access the Momentum Report by clicking the link at the bottom of this post.

Macro Universe:

• This week, our macro universe was negative, with 89% of our list closing lower with a median return of -2.14%.
• The Volatility Index $VIX was the winner, closing with an 8.24% gain.
• The biggest loser was Silver $SI, with a weekly loss of -4.17%.
• There was a 7% drop in the percentage of assets on our list within 5% of their 52-week highs – currently at 6%.
• 9% of our macro list made fresh 4-week highs.
• ...

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Our Top 10 Charts Report was just published.

In this weekly note, we highlight 10 of the most important charts or themes we’re currently seeing in asset classes around the world.

Tactical Levels for the S&P

The S&P 500 is bouncing off the 38.2% retracement of its rally from the October lows. This level also coincides with the AVWAP from 2022 lows, making it a confluence zone of support to halt the recent selling pressure. 

Silver futures slide to multi-month lows, undercutting a critical shelf of former support.

Regardless, we believe precious metals and their related stocks ultimately resolve higher, printing fresh all-time highs.

But before we can put money behind this bullish thesis, interest rates and the US dollar need to stop rising.

Check it out:

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

Silver futures have undercut a critical shelf of former lows.

I find it difficult to hold a bullish bias for precious metals and mining stocks, at least from a tactical perspective.

And when I zoom out to longer time frames, overhead supply looms large across the entire space.

Understand, I believe precious metals and their related stocks ultimately resolve higher, printing fresh all-time highs. 

But before we can put money behind this bullish thesis, these next three charts need to throw it in reverse…

The conditions for the re-birth of a bull market were met earlier this month, but the confirmation of strength has been underwhelming. Of the six indicators on our bull market behavior checklist, only one is currently meeting the bull market criteria.

More Context: Our bull market behavior checklist is a balance of breadth & price indicators, designed to reflect persistent turns toward risk or opportunity. We don’t want to be so focused on what is happening at home that we lose sight of what is happening overseas, so we use both US and global market data. These indicators are not discrete signals that can be overly influenced by day-to-day volatility (of which there has been plenty) in recent months but are ongoing measures that reflect a continuous environment. While our checklist is not indicating a healthy breadth of bull market behavior, it would be premature to suggest that the rally off of the Q4 lows is on its deathbed. But after last week, the rally has gone from feeling tired and rundown to...

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

We saw a nice gap up on the $SPX today, but we weren't able to hold on to 4,000 or 4,017.

The market decided to close the gap down, which is all fine and well. But I'd like roughly that area held at 3,980 or so.

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

Silver futures have undercut a critical shelf of former lows.

I find it difficult to hold a bullish bias for precious metals and mining stocks, at least from a tactical perspective.

And when I zoom out to longer time frames, overhead supply looms large across the entire space.

Understand, I believe precious metals and their related stocks ultimately resolve higher, printing fresh all-time highs. 

But before we can put money behind this bullish thesis, these next three charts need to throw it in reverse…

First, here’s the daily chart of silver:

Nothing bullish is happening for precious metals, while silver slides below multi-year support.

Last Friday’s breakdown and oversold momentum reading represent red flags. 

Precious metals demand caution as long as silver holds below 21.40.

Why?

For starters, a breakdown in silver indicates dwindling demand.

We want to witness the entire space participate. Gold’s not going to post new all-time highs all on its lonesome.

Broad participation from silver, platinum, and mining stocks is key.

Silver...

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

Last week, most crypto markets saw moderate selling pressure following retests of critical levels of resistance.

At the same time, momentum is diverging in a bearish fashion, with our indicators putting in lower highs on this most recent high in price action.

Further, equity markets have begun to feel the pressure after selling off on a retest of resistance levels.

We'd previously noted that Bitcoin and equity indices had briefly decoupled on short time frames, pointing to resiliency on the part of crypto markets.

Last week, we saw this correlation return, with Bitcoin being dragged lower by selling pressure in risk markets generally.

The largest insider buy on today’s list comes in a Form 4 filing by Kelcy Warren, co-founder and executive chairman of Energy Transfer $ET.

Warren reported a purchase of roughly $17 million.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

The $SPX had about a hundred-point drop in a span of a week's time.

It'll take a bit of proving if this market wants to rally.

It's the weekly commodity edition of What the FICC?

Coffee, cocoa, and OJ are all ripping higher.

So can we extend an underlying bullish thesis for ag commodities to the grain contracts traded on the CBOT?

I don’t think it’s that simple. Regardless, I want to be prepared if and when the Chicago grain markets break out…

It's the weekly bond edition of What the FICC?

The narrative is quickly shifting back to tighter monetary policy following last week’s higher-than-anticipated CPI and strong economic data.

With these newfound recessionary fears circulating, I want to share a chart I like to avoid… The 2s10s treasury spread.

In some market environments Technology, and other sectors full of growth stocks, tend to outperform.

Usually interest rates are falling in that type of market.

You got a good dose of that for about decade.

US Stocks were the global leaders while Europe and other parts of the world, without that exposure to growth, made little progress.

See here.

And now with interest rates rising, other sectors have emerged as leaders. Industrials, for example.

This is all perfectly normal for this type of environment. We've seen it before, and to expect...

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.