With the rise in $VIX (the "fear gauge") over the past several trading days continuing to persist, we've been on the hunt for options premium selling opportunities. Higher volatility environments lend themselves to better opportunities for premium sellers who can manage their risks and size their positions conservatively.

As such, we're going to sell some premium in the banking sector to take advantage of elevated premiums and what appears to be a high likelihood of continuing sideways action.

We had a resting GTC order filled at our profit target and we pre-emptively closed another position to book a profit in the Paid-to-Play portfolio today:

From the Desk of Louis Sykes @haumicharts

One of the hallmarks that's defined crypto is its sheer innovative and scalable nature.

Blockchains are bringing tremendous benefits to traditional industries; self-sovereignty of massive sums of capital, incredibly efficient payment methods, digital collectibles, play-to-earn, and decentralization are all great examples.

Perhaps one of the more overlooked outcomes of this asset class blossoming is the promotion of finance among disenfranchised youth.

The most significant insider activity on today's list comes in a Form 4 filing by Ryan M. Lance, the CEO at ConocoPhillips $COP.

However, it wasn’t COP shares that Lance just reported purchases worth roughly $1 million in.

These are the registration details for our Live Monthly Candlestick Strategy Session for Premium Members of All Star Charts.

This month’s Video Conference Call will be held on Tuesday September 6th @ 6PM ET. As always, if you cannot make the call live, the video and slides will be archived and published here along with every other live call since 2015.

Here are the details for Tuesday evening:

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

We look at a lot of charts. And believe it or not, many of them are absolute messes. Sideways, choppy, and trendless describe most markets right now.

It’s just a fact.

But we always find those big bases and tight continuation patterns on the verge of breaking out that keep us turning on our computers every morning. And the market I want to share with you today has both!

Lets’ take a look at coffee.

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

Currency markets have provided stellar trading opportunities this year. 

It isn't always this way.

Last year was rough. False breakouts and whipsaws were the norm, as most forex pairs and crosses chopped sideways in trendless ranges.

Many of those consolidations have now resolved, as currency markets have begun to trend again. And it’s hard to find a stronger primary trend to bet against than the declining Japanese yen. 

We’ve written about the yen multiple times in the past few months, pointing out that The Yen Provides the Base and joking that we could profit by simply buying Anything in Yen.

Today, we’ll follow up by outlining three tactical setups to bet on further yen weakness.

Boy do I have a treat for you today.

Last week I was a guest on the Investopedia Express Podcast with Caleb Silver and Kenny Polcari.

Kenny is known around wall street and the floor of the NYSE as the guy who would include recipes in his research notes.

How do you not already love the guy!

Caleb and I have also gotten to know each other well over the years.

So this was a ton of fun.

Between the market conversation, Kenny's recipe and Dex McBean rapping, this was one of the best podcasts to ever be a part of.

I think you'll enjoy this one:

From the desk of Willie Delwiche.

Key Takeaways:

• Thrust signals are typically reliable indicators of strength
• Lack of risk appetite and rising yields working against stocks
• Without marked deterioration in macro health, we still trust the thrust

The mid-August momentum thrust was just two weeks ago, but it seems longer than that. The S&P 500 has gone from up 4% for the month to down 3% for the month, in the process giving back half of the entire rally off of the June lows. It is possible that the volatility environment produced false signals of strength, but we are not ready to jump to that conclusion. The combination momentum and breadth strength seen prior to the mid-month peak has been a typically reliable indicator that further strength lies ahead for stocks. Two weeks of price action is not enough for me to throw out 40-years worth of data. 

That being said, the market could struggle to display the strength that these indicators have signaled in the past as long as we remain in a risk off environment. Moreover, the...

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

From the Desk of Louis Sykes @haumicharts

We hate to sound like a broken record. But "patience" is the name of the game in a tape like this.

Looking at the asset class from the top down, it's clear we're still in the basing process. There is perhaps no better visualization of this dynamic than our broad-based altcoin index.

Incorporating just over 300 coins, this equally weighted index tracks all USDT spot pairs on Binance, adjusted for stablecoins, leveraged coins, and other outliers.

The largest insider transaction on today's list is a Form 4 filing by ValueAct Partners.

ValueAct reported a purchase of roughly $10 million in Insight Enterprises $NSIT.

The stock we're looking at this week is part of the Industrial Manufacturing sector. Let's look at which name has made it to our scan this time.

We retired our "Five Bull Market Barometers" in 2020 to make room for a new weekly post that's focused on the three most important charts for the week ahead.

This is that post, so let's jump into this week's edition.

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @sstrazza

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 the...

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

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.

Stocks Fail at Key Level

A wide variety of risk assets have suffered significant corrective action dating back to last year. As such, we’ve gotten used to looking for logical areas of potential support, or levels where we could expect demand to enter the market.

No levels have provided a better guideline than the prior-cycle highs from 2018. And when it comes to the stock market, no index provides us with a more comprehensive view of the price action than the Value Line Geometric (VLG), shown below. The Value Line is composed of roughly 1,700 components and is designed to measure how the average - or more specifically, the median stock is performing.

As you can see, the median stock is currently rolling over after a successful retest of its 2018 highs. As long as the Value Line is below 595, stocks are likely to remain under pressure.

...

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 mostly negative, as 74% of our list closed lower with a median return of -1.48%.
• The Volatility Index $VIX was this week's winner, closing with a 24.08% gain.
• The biggest loser was the Nasdaq 100 $QQQ, with a weekly loss of -4.78%.
• There was a 5% drop in the percentage of assets on our list within 5% of their 52-week highs – currently at 6%.
• 11% of our macro list made fresh 4-week...

Key Takeaway:

• Powell’s tough talk justified by incoming inflation data.
• Slowing growth unlikely to derail Fed’s plans.
• Bull market re-birth struggling with labor pains.

Our bull market re-birth checklist took a step backward but a tough labor does not preclude a successful delivery. Without new complications from a macro perspective, we are willing to be patient and trust the thrust. At the same time, however, so far this year stocks have yet to show that they can sustain strength when yields and the dollar are rising. If the market is taking the Fed at its word, then higher bond yields are likely to be seen this year, in the US and around the world. Japanese yields are again approaching the 0.25% level that the Bank of Japan has targeted as a ceiling for yields. When that happened in Q2, the yen suffered.

Beyond financial market fluctuations, the tough line from the Fed could be tested by economic...

These days it seems like Energy stocks are acting strong regardless of whether there is strength or weakness in the broader markets.

I'm sure you've noticed.

The Long Energy trade remains in full force if the Sector Index $XLE is above those former highs from 2016-2018: