From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

We all know how dreadful it can be to get through airport security.

Clear Secure is trying to be the remedy by using biometric data to provide identity verification and expedite security at airports and other venues.

Last quarter, the stock rallied over 20% following its earnings report and has nearly doubled since.

Despite the stock's strong performance and highest price since 2021, the bears are still betting against it. The amount of shares held short is near its highest level in history.

Let's talk about how we're playing it:

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

What's better than a Bitcoin miner short squeeze?

Some of our best trades have come from these stocks as they can make dramatic moves in both directions.

Our crypto desk recently wrote "it appears this seven month bear market is reaching its concluding stages." 

With that in mind, what're we buying?

We're buying a leader in the crypto mining industry with a double-digit short interest and warrants to juice our returns even more.

Let's talk about it:
 

It has been two-years since the S&P 500 bottomed in October 2022 and stocks began a new bull market. 

During this time, many sectors and industry groups have enjoyed tremendous uptrends while materials stocks have gone sideways.

But materials stocks are starting to look interesting...

The SPDR Materials Sector ETF $XLB is making new all-time highs:

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

The market keeps squeezing short sellers out of their biotech positions and rewarding bulls with big breakouts. 

Knowing this, our strategy is simple. We want to keep buying the best-looking and most heavily-shorted biotech stocks.

Today, we're covering one that has rallied nearly 200% since late last year. Despite this extreme upside momentum, the stock still has a massive short interest.

With the stock resolving a multi-year accumulation pattern, we think this short squeeze has plenty of room to run. To get back to the all-time highs from just a few years ago, it would require about a 10x.

We're looking for something much smaller and quicker for now, but you never know!

Let's talk about how we're trading our latest Freshly Squeezed setup.

Last week, we discussed China and Gold futures as potential catalysts for resolving a multi-decade basing pattern in Dr. Copper.

If we're in an environment where Copper futures are printing fresh all-time highs, then we should spend some time identifying opportunities in the equities market that benefit from rising base and industrial metal prices globally.

Over the last 6-months, the Steel $SLX, Copper $COPX, and Metals and Mining $XME ETFs have underperformed the S&P 500:

When it comes to our short-squeeze universe, the best trades tend to come from the junkiest stocks. 

In late 2022, we went dumpster diving for the most beat-up and heavily shorted stocks in the market and had some big winners. We were at the depths of the bear cycle, and the charts looked terrible. They were supposed to be zeros, but they weren't.

Just look at how Carvana $CVNA has performed since we were buying it at 8.25 almost 2-years ago.

Another junky group that has been working recently is the Marine Shipper industry.

Our custom Marine Shipping Index is on the verge of reclaiming the 61.8% retracement of its prior drawdown:

Have you heard about China?

Chinese stocks just had their best week in history, following the People's Bank of China's (PBOC) announcement of rate cuts, among other stimulative actions.

In July, we talked about Copper and its base and industrial metal peers showing broad weakness. But that seems to be changing...

China is the world's largest consumer of refined copper, so base and industrial metals have benefited from the recent pivot from the PBOC.

Chinese stocks and copper futures have been positively correlated for years:

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Welcome to The Junior International Hall of Famers.

With the goal of finding more bullish setups, we have decided to expand one of our favorite scans and broaden our regular coverage of the largest US-listed international stocks, or ADRs.

This scan is composed of the next 100 largest stocks by market cap, those that come after the top 100 and are thus covered by the International Hall of Famers universe.

Many of these names will someday graduate and join our original International Hall Of Famers list. The idea here is to catch these big trends as early on as possible.

Let’s dive right in and check out what these future big boys are up to.

This is our Junior International Hall of Famers list:

It has been over 1,600 days since Crude Oil futures traded below zero in 2020, which preceded one of its best 2-year bull markets in history.

Since the peak in early 2022, energy has been a tough trade for those with trend-following strategies and a favorable one for mean-reversion strategies.

Crude Oil futures are at the lower bound of a multi-year range, and the Energy Sector SPDR $XLE has the fewest percent of stocks above their 200-day moving average out of all 11 sectors. 

Energy has been a laggard recently.

However, it's important to remember where energy has come from. Crude Oil futures went from below 0 to 130 in less than two years, and the XLE is the second best-performing sector since Covid, lagging only Technology $XLK:

We've been obnoxiously talking about soft commodities lately.

But, it's for a good reason! And it all comes down to relative strength.

Aside from a few pockets of strength, the trends have been a mess in the broader commodity complex.

Products like Natural gas and precious metals have been hard to ignore if you're involved in the commodities markets.

There's more though. 

Orange Juice futures made a new all-time high this week and look primed to begin a new leg higher.

Let's talk about how we're playing it:

First, some context: 

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Last week, we outlined a short squeeze in Phathom Pharmaceuticals $PHAT, which has been working for us.

It doesn't seem like the market is finished squeezing the short sellers out of their biotechnology positions.

Today, we're discussing yet another biotech stock that has a ridiculously high days-to-cover ratio and short interest.

More importantly, the risk couldn't be more well-defined.

So, we're stepping up to the plate and taking another swing at a short squeeze.