It's nearly that time when we get a fresh batch of monthly candlesticks.

We only perform this exercise once the candlesticks are completed. But, sometimes, you want to cheat and peep a few days early.

What's great about monthly candlesticks is that it takes us a mere half hour to get through them all, which is only six hours a year.

We can't emphasize enough the level of value-add for such a brief amount of time.

It forces us to take a step back, and it gives us no choice but to identify the direction of the primary trends. We use them to put shorter-term trends into context, which is especially important in this choppy price action.

So, no matter your time frame, identifying primary trends and then working from there is a huge advantage over a blind bottom-up approach.

In the current state of the crypto markets, the overwhelming majority of names are in greater than 80% drawdowns.

Solana is down 90%.

Cardano is down 90%.

Fantom is down 95%.

Harmony is down 96%.

These are substantial drawdowns, and this is one of the most severe crypto bear markets by drawdown, loss realization, and capital...

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

The market held overnight, which is a good sign.

We're now back to the levels seen in early October on the SPX. Support for the $SPY is at 374.8, with resistance at 380, then 386.

The largest insider transaction on today’s list is a Form 4 filing by FB Financial Corporation $FBK Chairman of the Board James Ayers.

Ayers reported a purchase worth roughly $1.9 million.

How do we know if we're in a bull market or not?

Generally speaking, more stocks are going up than going down in bull markets.

And sure, there are a lot of different ways to quantify it, but this is really the gist of it: Are more stocks going up or are more of them going down?

It really is that simple.

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

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

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:

• Our macro universe was positive this week, with 77% of our list closing higher with a median return of 2.96%.
• Lumber $LB was the winner again, closing with a 9.11% gain.
• The biggest loser was the Volatility Index $VIX, with a weekly loss of -7.28%.
• There was a 3% drop in the percentage of assets on our list within 5% of their 52-week highs – currently at 6%.
• Only 51% 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.

They Can’t Break the Banks

Unlike most industry groups, community banks never completed a top, as price has remained above the pivot lows from last year. Additionally, momentum has not reached oversold conditions during the current bear cycle. If this range remains intact, the world isn't coming to an end any time soon.

Reversal - Or Just a Respite?

The new low list peaked in May and the new high list bottomed in July. Despite this, we’ve had more new lows than new highs in 44 of the past 46 weeks.

The Details: More than 4400 stocks (48% of the total on the NYSE + NASDAQ) made new lows in May. That was the most since March 2020. The new low list has ebbed and flowed since then but has not surpassed that peak. The 116 stocks (just 1% of NYSE + NASDAQ total) that made new highs in the first week of July was the fewest since April 2020. Last week 357 stocks (4%) made new highs and 1645 (18%) made new lows.

More Context: When downtrends ready to turn higher and new bull markets are being born, we usually see a sharp collapse in new lows accompanied by a gradual expansion in new highs. The combined effect is that new highs begin to consistently outnumber new lows. We saw this in early 2019 and again after the COVID lows. There were two weeks in August in which the new high list was longer than the...

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

We opened up on the indices, and they came back down to fill their respective gaps.

We trended higher the rest of the day, but it was a pretty volatile morning.

I dunno why, but thinking about train tracks and rail stocks got me thinking of Blue Steel. There is absolutely no connection between today's trade and the pose made famous by the Zoolander film. But, you're welcome.

Today's trade idea comes straight from All Star Charts' recent Mid-Month Conference Call.

While not aggressively bullish here, I do think there is an opportunity to leverage high options premiums into a high-probability bet.

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

Where is the defensive rotation?

I was told US Stocks were in a bear market.

For those keeping score at home, the NYSE new lows list peaked in June. That was over 4 months ago.

But Consumer Staples have been underperforming since May!

We had a resting GTC order filled 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 next new position in our Paid-to-Play portfolio is:

Nothing's changed.

That's it -- that's the post. There's nothing to discuss.

Bitcoin and the rest of the asset class are still a choppy mess. There's no conviction in taking longs until price action can shape up in a more bullish manner.

Given the lackluster market conditions, this letter will act as yet another brief interim update.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

The SPX futures popped above 3,800 last night and then retreated.

Now we seem to be climbing back to that area. This 3,800 area will have some resistance, then 3,827.

It’s a new week, but the same insiders are still buying.

Form 4 filings for the wood pellet producer Enviva $EVA have been hitting the wire nonstop this month.

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.

The Outperformers.

The Outperformers is our custom-made scan that pinpoints the very best stocks in the market. It’s the fastest, easiest way to find quality names that are primed for significant moves.

The goal is that as the market rally progresses, the sector rotation within the market will reflect in this scan. So while our Top/Down Analysis helps us with the broader view of the market, this Bottom/Up scan makes sure that we catch the slightest change in sentiment.

Why are you an investor?

Have you asked yourself that recently?

Why do you take time out of your life to enter into the arena that we call markets?

Are you here to make money?

Or would you rather gossip about fed??