From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

The Japanese government isn’t playing games.

Currency crisis or not, Tokyo is willing to defend the yen in the open market. It's proven this multiple times over the past three years, and today’s FOMC-related volatility will likely test its resolve. 

Considering previous yen-buying interventions, the dollar, interest rates, and the dollar-yen pair could be headed lower in the coming months.

Before we dive into the yen, here's a quick update on the action in the euro and pound.

The euro retested its breakdown level from earlier this month, forming a bear flag:

A close below 1.06 completes the flag pattern and sets a rough downside objective of 1.0450.

The British pound also pulled back this week:

Instead of simply...

I'm mindful that coming into this afternoon's Fed meeting lots can change following whatever is said after 2pm ET.

That said, there's a pretty compelling opportunity to sell some premium in the gold space, at strikes that are comfortably far away, increasing our odds of success.

In today’s Daily Digest, we’ll review:

1. New position in XLI.
2. No adjustments are needed today.
3. No exits since last report.
4. Current status of open campaigns.

Let’s dig in!

I know I've already said it a lot over the past few months, but for those people in the back who may not be able to hear so well...

THIS YEAR IS NOT ANYTHING LIKE LAST YEAR.

The strategies that worked so well throughout 2023 are not the ones working this year.

Last year's leaders are some of the worst stocks in 2024.

The leaders in 2024, in many cases, were some of the worst sectors in 2023.

It's not bad or good. Better or worse. It's just different.

The better you get at adapting to the current environment, the fewer headaches you're going to have.

I'm 42 years old. I've been doing this for over 2 decades.

I have 3 kids.

Do you think I need more headaches at this point in my life? Or fewer?

And so that's why we've...

From the Desk of Steve Strazza and Alfonso Depablos

The biggest insider buy on today's list comes via two Form 4 filings by Mark Miller, president and COO of Goosehead Insurance Inc $GSHD.

Miller reported the acquisition of 10,000 GSHD shares, equivalent to $580,650.

My family and I recently embarked on a memorable 4-day journey to Redwoods National & State Parks in the breathtakingly rugged landscape of extreme Northern California.

Words alone cannot do justice to the majesty of this region, nor can mere photographs fully encapsulate its grandeur. To truly grasp its magnificence, one must stand amidst the towering coastal redwood trees, with the rugged shoreline of Northern California stretching out before them, enveloped in the sights, sounds, and scents of one of the most remarkable forests on Earth.

Even the gentle rain that occasionally graced our adventure served to enhance rather than dampen our experience, intensifying the assault on our senses in the most fulfilling manner imaginable.

As we spent hours traversing the labyrinthine trails, venturing deep into the heart of the woods, a recurring reminder echoed among us: "Don't forget to look up!"

Often, we found ourselves engrossed in the intricate dance of navigating the...

From the Desk of Steve Strazza and Alfonso Depablos

The biggest insider buy on today’s list comes via two Form 4 filings by Mark Miller, president and COO of Goosehead Insurance Inc $GSHD.

Miller reported the acquisition of 10,000 GSHD shares, equivalent to $580,650.

In today’s Daily Digest, we’ll review:

1. New position in SMH.
2. No adjustments are needed today.
3. Exited XLV for profit.
4. Current status of open campaigns.

Let’s dig in!

From the Desk of Steve Strazza and Alfonso Depablos

The biggest insider buy on today's list comes via two Form 4 filings by the chairman, CEO, and president and one director of Hexcel Corporation $HXL.

Those two insiders reported a combined purchase of HLX with a total value of $1.6 million.

The month isn't over yet but I peaked.

How many assets can you think of that have been positive every single month this year?

Where do you find the most consistent leadership?

Is it in Technology?

No. Tech is down over 4.5% the past 2 months.

Is it Consumer Discretionary?

Nope. It's down 2 months in a row, falling almost 3%.

The answer is the US Dollar and Crude Oil Futures.

As we enter the final day of April, these 2 assets have been positive every month so far in 2024.

From the Desk of Steve Strazza and Alfonso Depablos

The biggest insider buy on today’s list comes via two Form 4 filings by the chairman, CEO, and president and one director of Helix Energy Solutions Group Inc $HXL.

Those two insiders reported a combined purchase of HXL with a total value of $1.6 million.

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

Random discovery, buying cheap, and riding the wave…

According to long-time gold mining investor Tommy Humphreys, these are three ways to score outsized returns in the junior mining space.

I’ll admit the first two strategies are foreign to me. But I can get behind riding a wave, especially when it jibes with a trend-following mentality.

Check out Tommy’s favorite gold mining stock, or "story," as he puts it…

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza.

Welcome back to Under the Hood, where we'll cover all the action for the two weeks ended April 26, 2024. This report is published bi-weekly, in rotation 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...

Random discovery, buying cheap, and riding the wave…

According to long-time gold mining investor Tommy Humphreys, these are three ways to score outsized returns in the junior mining space.

I’ll admit the first two strategies are foreign to me. But I can get behind riding a wave, especially when it jibes with a trend-following mentality.

Check out Tommy’s favorite gold mining stock or story, as he puts it…

Aris Mining $ARMN, a $500M miner based out of Vancouver, CA:

It’s a great-looking chart: price breaking out of a multi-month base, pullback finding support at former resistance, and relative strength suggesting further outperformance in the coming months.

But Tommy didn’t mention any of those bullish data points. 

Instead, he shared the fundamental story: Aris Mining is a profitable business run by serial outperformers (common themes valued by legendary investor Rick Rule).

So when a reader emailed me over the weekend asking for profit targets in ARMN, I...

In today's Flow Show, Steve Strazza laid out the case of how both the Nasdaq 100 and Chinese tech stocks (particularly Chinese internet) might be signaling an important rise in speculative appetite which could fuel the next bull run.

Of the names Steve shared, the one that made the most sense to me was JD.com $JD. Check out this chart:

We're looking at the past year in $JD and it feels to us that if this motor gets running, we could target the low 40's with a good thrust which would be new 52-week highs.

Knowing that we might come into some overhead supply at those levels which could check the rise, and also knowing that upside call options are currently sporting some rich premiums, we're going to put both of these observations to our advantage by utilizing a bull call spread.

Here's the Play:

In today’s Daily Digest, we’ll review:

1. No new positions today.
2. Adjustment to ARKK position.
3. Exited XLK, SMH, & XLI at profit targets.
4. Current status of open campaigns.

Let’s dig in!

The Japanese Yen hit levels last night not seen in over 30 years.

There was historic volatility this morning and some key reversals that may or may not hold over the short-term.

But what you need to know is that the Yen is crashing. It's been losing value relative to "things".

These "things" include all kinds of assets including stocks, commodities and bitcoin, who have all been hitting new highs when priced in Japanese Yen.

Look at Bitcoin hitting new all-time highs in Yen terms:

From the Desk of Steve Strazza and Alfonso Depablos

The largest insider buy on today’s list comes via Form 4 filings by Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway.

Buffett and Berkshire revealed a purchase of $28 million in The Liberty SiriusXM Group $LSXMA.