From the Desk of Steve Strazza and Alfonso Depablos

The largest insider buy on today’s list comes in a Form 4 filing by Broadwood Partners.

The hedge fund reported a purchase of $7.7 million in STAAR Surgical Company $STAA.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

That was a powerful day on Friday for the indices.

Futures are lower this morning due to the attack on Israel.

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.

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

Each commodity market has unique supply and demand dynamics.

The result is a diverse set of assets offering a steady flow of trading opportunities.

Today, I’ll outline two promising trade setups – one long, one short.

Let’s start with a fan favorite…

Natty Gas!

Natural gas futures gained over 6% on Thursday, taking out a key pivot high.

Here’s the continuation chart posting its highest level since March:

Notice natty gas is finding support above a former resistance zone at roughly 2.835. 

On Wednesday’s "What the FICC?" I mentioned trading against Tuesday’s low based on this near-term support.

Price has ripped higher since, taking out a shelf of pivot highs and filling a downside gap from early September.

I’m now long the November contract with an initial...

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

The market had its rally cap on today.

It wasn't looking so great in the morning.

But it ramped higher with force into the weekend...

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Our Hall of Famers list is composed of the 150 largest US-based stocks.

These stocks range from the mega-cap growth behemoths like Apple and Microsoft – with market caps in excess of $2T – to some of the new-age large-cap disruptors such as Moderna, Square, and Snap.

It has all the big names and more.

It doesn’t include ADRs or any stock not domiciled in the US. But don’t worry; we developed a separate universe for that. Click here to check it out.

The Hall of Famers is simple.

We take our list of 150 names and then apply our technical filters so the strongest stocks with the most momentum rise to the top.

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

Here’s this week’s list:

*Click table to enlarge view

We filter out any laggards that are down -5% or more relative to the S&P 500 over the trailing month.

Then, we sort the remaining names by their proximity to new 52-week highs.

This leaves...

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

We love our bottoms-up scans here at All Star Charts. We tend to get really creative when making new universes as we want to be sure they will deliver us the best opportunities the market has to offer.

However, when it comes to our latest project, it couldn't be any simpler!

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 stocks.

Welcome to The Junior Hall of Famers.

This scan is composed of the next 150 largest stocks by market cap, those that come after the top 150 and are thus covered by the Hall of Famers universe. Many of these names will someday graduate and join our original Hall Of Famers list. The idea here is to catch these big trends as early on as possible.

There is no need to overcomplicate things. Market cap is a quality filter at the end of the day. It only grows if price is rising. That's good enough for us.

The bottom line is it is a bull market. We...

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

Costco earns its margins before you even whip out your credit card at the checkout counter.

How?

They get paid upfront, selling you an annual "membership" that allows you to shop at Costco. That membership is all margin for Costco. This is how they can afford to sell most of their goods at or just above cost, yet still earn steady, reliable profits. What a concept!

We're gonna steal that concept by getting paid upfront.

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

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

The market had its rally cap on today.

It wasn’t looking so great in the morning.

But it ramped higher with force into the weekend…

From the Desk of Steve Strazza and Alfonso Depablos

The largest insider buy on today’s list comes in a Form 4 filing by J. Alexander Douglas Jr,, the CEO of Overstock.com Inc $OSTK.

Douglas revealed the acquisition of 11,265 OSTK shares, equivalent to $498,306.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

Futures are giddy this morning.

Let's see how $SPY holds on to the 425.50 area.

One of the better indicators of a healthy bull market is when you see Consumer Discretionary stocks (the things we want) outperforming Consumer Staples stocks (the things we need).

The ratio between Discretionary and Staples is one we look at during bull markets, to confirm what the indexes are doing, as well as in bear markets to find divergences that may turn before the indexes themselves (see '08-'09).

This really has been one of the more reliable indicators for many years.

And wouldn't you know it, as pessimism spikes, volatility pops, and the permabears begin to pound their chest again, Discretionaries are putting in higher lows relative to Staples.

This is classic sector rotation we see during healthy market environments:

There are no free lunches on Wall Street and certainly not in options trading. 

It might be sexy to tell people that we’re “options premium sellers” and suggest that all we do is sell naked options that expire worthless – while keeping all the premiums for ourselves. Easy peasy.

But we know that’s not really how it works.

There’s a risk in holding naked short options. Our brokerage houses are keenly aware of these risks – and that’s why they require us to post margin in order to hold these positions. The margin protects the house. Mostly their house, but our houses too.

When a short options position goes against us, our brokerages need to ensure we have adequate buying power in our accounts to close the position and prevent further losses.

But just because we need to post a certain amount of dollars to hold a position doesn’t mean we should calculate our returns off of that number. That number doesn’t mean anything other than the fact that it’s the amount the house needs in order to be comfortable with us being naked short.

If we’re measuring our returns in naked short options trades based on our margin requirement, we’re...

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

Borrowing costs are increasing, and US Treasuries are tanking – again. 

Everyone knows it. Even my therapist commented on interest rates and the “terrible” economy.

The 30-year T-bond has hit our initial target. And the 10-year is within striking distance. 

So much for limited downside risk for the bond market. Perhaps the call for a 5.25 print on the 10-year yield by Christmas wasn’t aggressive at all.

But elevated yields aren’t the problem…

And I don’t care about the economy when it comes to market speculation.

Remember, we don’t trade the economy. We trade the markets or – more precisely – price.

Interest rates hung around decade highs earlier this year while the Nasdaq 100 enjoyed its best first half since its inception.

Stocks like it when...

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

The market started the day trending higher.

Then all the indices completely reversed.

Then they went back up.

It was tough trading.

From the Desk of Steve Strazza and Alfonso Depablos

The largest insider buy on today’s list comes in a Form 4 filing by J. Alexander Douglas Jr,, the CEO of Overstock.com Inc $OSTK.

Douglas revealed the acquisition of 11,265 OSTK shares, equivalent to $498,306.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

Futures are giddy this morning.

Let’s see how $SPY holds on to the 425.50 area.