From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

Yesterday we saw a lot of whipsaw.

And then we had a slow grind higher to finish the day above the 50-day moving average on $SPY at 389.92.

Historically, Industrial stocks are the ones with the highest positive correlation with the overall market, among all the S&P sectors.

Financials are obviously important. We don't have bull markets around here without them.

Technology has also been important, considering it has the highest weighting among all the sectors in the U.S.

But when you run the numbers, it's actually Industrials that comes out on top.

Industrials are officially the market's most important sector.

And so when we take a look at how they're behaving, I'm still not seeing the weakness that most investors keep telling me is coming.

In fact, look at Industrials breaking out to new multi-year highs relative to the rest of the market:

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza and Alfonso Depablos @AlfCharts

It's a new year, but the same leadership groups continue to outperform.

As Charlie Dow taught us long ago, trends persist, so this is no real surprise.

All we can do about it is keep leaning on these outperforming groups.

We have a handful of stocks that fit this bill today. Let's get right into it.

In the Spring of 2022, JC came to me and said: “What do you think about managing an options income portfolio for me? I’m looking for some more strategy diversification in my portfolios. It doesn’t need to be anything sexy, just steady.”

Ok, I’m probably paraphrasing a bit, but that was the gist of his ask.

So I got to work on putting a plan together for him. When we looked at it together, it became obvious that we should offer this portfolio to the All Star Charts community who might also be interested in some further diversification. Even if people don’t take our trades, it could be a productive learning experience for everyone.

So we got to work and we launched the All Star Options Paid-to-Play (P2P) service in May 2022.

Each trading day, we either enter a new delta-neutral options credit spread in a liquid ETF (from a list of the most liquid Index and Sectors ETFs), or we play defense on an open position with an adjustment to put us in a better position to win. And we leave resting GTC (good-till-canceled) limit orders to close our credit spreads at profit targets which get filled periodically at the whim of the markets.

So far...

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

Lots of volatility today.

We dipped down to $SPY's 21-day moving average at 386 and bounced, which was nice.

From the desk of Willie Delwiche.

Dynamic Portfolio Update: Our portfolios held up well in 2022. Now we are making some changes to remain well-positioned for the trends that are intact as we begin a new year. We've re-allocated equity exposure away from the US and toward areas around the world (both regions and countries) that are showing leadership while also making room in the portfolios to take advantage of the strength coming from precious metals.

Thank you to everyone who has been participating, engaging with, and learning from the All Star Options Paid-to-Play offering.

I sincerely hope that in addition to watching me trade this portfolio, you have gained both financially and educationally during this continuing journey together.

It was a challenging year for many equities investors. Yet we enjoyed smoother returns and a better (and positive!) end result – what’s not to love about that?

We launched this portfolio on May 11th, 2022, and here is our abbreviated calendar year 2022 Performance with an overlay versus the S&P 500:

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

There's no denying many alts have posted sizeable gains over the last week.

But the fact remains that the appropriate conditions have yet to align for us to flip the book long.

Perhaps the best example of this is the recent move in Gala $GALA.

From the lows to the highs, Gala saw a 230% gain in the space of two weeks. It is, by far, the strongest name in this entire market rally.

But despite this 3x move, we're still below this broken support. Chances are, bears will step in here, and Gala will see some rightful consolidation.

This is just not a chart we want to buy on any level.

Harmony $ONE looks similar in that its retesting this breakdown level from the underside.

Ask yourself, "Is this a chart I want to buy?"

Put aside any preconceived ideas about the environment or Harmony's "fundamentals."

Does a chart like this inspire confidence?

Or patience?

We'd...

First Santa Claus showed up for his rally.

Now the "First 5 Days" of the year were up (+1.37%).

That's 2 for 2 so far in the January Trifecta.

So now what's next?

The January Barometer is the last leg of the early year triple crown.

"As January goes, so goes the rest of the year". According to my handy Stock Trader's Almanac, the S&P500 has an 83.3% hit rate for the full year when January is in the green.

So with more and more positive signs for stocks, it really shouldn't be a surprise to anyone.

The biggest Form 4 filing on today’s hot list is from Artal Group S.A., which revealed the purchase of 48,774 shares in small-cap biotech company Scholar Rock Holding Corporation $SRRK.

That’s equivalent to $455,090. 

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

This morning, $SPY is around the 386 level, which is right at the 21-day moving average.

We have Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell speaking early this morning, so the market might be whippy.

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza.

Welcome to Under the Hood, where we'll cover all the action for the week ended January 6, 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 simply...

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 positive, with 81% of our list closing higher with a median return of 1.46%.
• The Emerging Markets $EEM was the winner, closing with a 5.73% gain.
• The biggest loser was Oil $CL, with a weekly loss of -8.09%.
• There was a 2% gain in the percentage of assets on our list within 5% of their 52-week highs – currently at 4%.
• 45% of our macro list made fresh 4-week highs, and 15% made new...

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.

They’re Buying European Banks

European Financials (EUFN) have been among the best-performing industry groups for the last three months. As you can see, price recently reclaimed a critical level of interest and is pushing against seven-month highs. This is evidence of a bullish uptick in risk appetite.

New highs exceeded new lows last week for the first time since August (and only the third time since November 2021). That is a positive development but there is more work to be done before concluding that a new bull market has been reborn.

More Context: With this week’s improvement, our bull market re-birth checklist now has two out of the five criteria satisfied. It’s heading in the right direction, but 2022 was full of bounces that were not sustained and strength that did not persist. Big moves in both directions was a key part of last year’s experience, which saw the S&P 500 recording the 3rd most 3% up weeks and the 3rd most 3% down weeks in the past 70+ years. Further, we are seeing relative trends point to new leadership (equal-weight over cap-weight in the US; the rest of the world over the US on a global basis), but in most cases, the new leaders remain in longer-term down-trends. If we want to get more constructive on equities as an asset class, that needs to change.       

In our ...

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

Overall, that was a nice move in the market today.

As the day went on, though, the indices did pull in.

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

Have you noticed precious metals printing fresh highs?

Last week, gold posted new multi-month highs. So did silver and platinum, hitting their highest levels since the spring of 2022.

Not a bad start to 2023 for these shiny rocks. And it gets better!

Gold broke out to new all-time highs relative to bonds last week. The yellow metal is not only showing strength on an absolute basis – it’s also outperforming its alternatives.

These are classic bull market characteristics and two critical pieces of evidence suggesting gold is in the early stages of a new structural uptrend.

If gold is on its way to new all-time highs, gold mining stocks will be participating. 

And it just so happens they are…

If gold prices rise, companies that remove gold from the ground and sell it will surely benefit. Simple!

Check out the Philadelphia Gold and Silver Index $XAU, which tracks the 30 largest precious metal mining stocks:

We don’t directly trade XAU. Instead, we look to the index for information. Think of it as a roadmap for gold mining ETFs and stocks.

Last November, XAU...

No doubt Gold Bugs have been enjoying the price action in gold instruments recently. It has been a profitable few months to be long just about anything shiny -- even silver!

The All Star Charts research team published a continued bullish piece on the sector today.

Today's options trade is a conservative bet on a continuation of this pattern. Let's get right to it.