I’ve been enjoying a (new to me) book recently. Today, I came across this passage that stopped me in my tracks:

Trading is a journey, not a destination. So you’re a trader. Now what? Trading is a constant process of intellectual and emotional growth, and people who trade for twenty years are still learning what to do and who to be when they finally hang it up.

From Street Freak, A Memoir of Money and Madness, by Jared Dillian.

It was almost like Jared was staring at me when he typed those words.

They hit home.

I’ve been in this game for over 20 years now. This coming summer will be the start of my 25th year!

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

It was a wild day, once again.

I thought we were going to have movement higher if we were able to break above $SPY 414.5.

But it was a no-go. We headed back downhill.

From the Desk of Ian Culley 

Markets don’t always trend higher or lower. In fact, traders often deal with churn – which sometimes is nothing more than a range-bound mess.

"Sideways" is a trend that's all too easy to forget after last year’s historic volatility. Even bonds became risk assets in 2022!

I found it odd when bonds failed to react to last week’s rate hike along with other long-duration assets.

But the lack of bond market volatility might be exactly what risk assets, especially stocks, need right now.

Check out the chart of the US 10-year yield:

The US benchmark rate continues to hold above 3.40%. This has been our line in the sand for months, coinciding with the June pivot highs from last year.

The market has proven the significance of the level. More importantly, the near-term trend is turning sideways. Notice the 14-day average directional movement...

This is the video recording of the February 9th, 2023, Weekly Town Hall w/ Willie Delwiche.

2/9/23 2:00 PM ET

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

As our Premium Members already know, we have a laundry list of scans that we run internally on an almost daily basis.

Different market environments, naturally, are more conducive to certain scans and less so to others.

We think our Freshly Squeezed scan is perfect for the current market. In fact, we wrote our initial report in December just to be sure we wouldn’t miss the moves that have taken place in recent weeks. We’re confident there is more to come.

With so many individual issues in massive drawdowns as the broader market begins to turn a corner, we’re witnessing some serious short-covering rallies in some of the most beaten-down names.

In fact, it’s already starting to happen. Bed, Bath & Beyond $BBBY was up by almost 100% the other day. It’s very likely they’re going bankrupt. But that’s just the kind of market we’re in.

Our scan is quite simple. It is designed to identify stocks with the highest short positions. When a stock is heavily shorted, we know there are incremental buyers waiting in the...

Have you figured it out yet?

Is Bitcoin about to roll over here?

Or are we flagging before the next run-up?

The beauty of this game is that we don't need to predict the future. Instead, we can rely on price action to dictate our execution.

In this case, we're waiting to see how Bitcoin reacts to all this overhead supply before committing to any new longs.

And, on the contrary, if we see a resolution out of this range, or if we see weakness in the coming weeks, we'll be loading up on some positions.

So, in the case that we see some selling pressure come in, where do we want to be positioned?

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:

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 is a Form 4 filing by Charles Magro, the CEO of chemical and seed company Corteva $CTVA.

Magro reported a purchase of 40,000 shares, equivalent to $2.4 million.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

The whipsaws that have been occurring in this market this past year are extreme. One day down, the next back up.

This morning, futures are higher. It's basically negated yesterday's down move.

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

When investing in the stock market, we always want to approach it as "a market of stocks."

Regardless of the environment, there are always stocks showing leadership and trending higher.

We may have to look harder to identify them depending on current market conditions. But there are always stocks that are going up.

The same can be said for weak stocks. Regardless of the environment, there are always stocks that are going down, too. 

We already have multiple scans focusing on stocks making all-time highs, such as Hall of Famers, Minor Leaguers, and the 2 to 100 Club.

We filter these universes for stocks that are exhibiting the best momentum and relative strength characteristics. 

Clearly, we spend a lot of time identifying and writing about leading stocks every week, via multiple reports.

Now, we're also highlighting lagging stocks on a recurring basis.

Welcome to the Short Report.

We...

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

Volatility reigns!

Overall, the market consolidated but really couldn't decide if it wanted higher or lower.

From the desk of Willie Delwiche.

Bulls on the Investors Intelligence survey continued to climb while bears fell for the fifth week in a row. The bull-bear spread has now decisively cleared its August high as investors move to embrace the stock market rally.    

Why It Matters: One of the missing ingredients for sustained stock market strength last year was the embrace of investors. To be fair, investors did not abandon equities from a positioning perspective and, in fact, during the record stretch of more bears than bulls on the AAII survey, equity ETFs have still seen nearly a quarter-trillion dollars of inflows. Nonetheless, rally attempts last year brought neither broad market strength (in the form of new highs > new lows) nor a meaningful expansion in optimism. In 2023, investors are seeing strength and believing that it can persist. That can become a self-fulfilling prophecy (at least for a while). Almost all of the net gains in the S&P 500 since 2015 have come with the bull-bear spread above 18.

In this...

This is the video recording of our February 8, 2023, Inside Scoop Weekly Strategy Session.

Whoa baby. This might be a fun one. Or not. Either way, we'll likely find out pretty quickly.

Chinese stocks continue to offer up interesting opportunities. And today's trade is no exception. And to play it, we're going to do it in a fairly aggressive manner, but with a tight risk management stop.

Let's get right to it.

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

Crypto markets can be daunting for those who come from traditional backgrounds.

There are entirely new market mechanisms, trading hours, different exchanges, and distinct ways to analyze the market, let alone the decentralized nature of how these markets operate.

It's no wonder that people find this asset class complicated.

Adding to the already heightened perplexity of these markets is how they're driven and how investors benchmark their performance.

Hear me out.

The most significant insider buy on today's list is a Form 4 filed by Super Micro Computer $SMCI Director Shiu Leung Chan.

Chan reported a $256,440 purchase of SMCI.