From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

What a day...

$SPY came close to the 415 level I mentioned this morning and then traded below 410.

The recovery was quick due to tech bouncing.

[9/7: updated stop to 180. We're already #FreeRiding, so whatever we sell for is pure profit!]

It's time for the small caps to make a stand. The time is now. If they don't, it could be 'goodnight' for a long time.

JC posted earlier this week about the Russell 200 index and had this to say:

We’re back to a key level of interest for Small-caps on an absolute basis. And we’re back down to historic levels relative to Large-caps. The chart tells a very powerful story.

I’m a buyer down here.

If the Russell2000 is above last Summer’s lows, I will be long the $IWM ETF. I also think there will be plenty of opportunities this summer in small-cap stocks.

We talked about $IWM internally this morning and I suggested a good, levered way to play this thesis while honoring a nearby risk management level that will get us out of the trade without much pain if we're wrong.

But first, here's the chart of $IWM:

The next new position in our Paid-to-Play portfolio is:

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

The largest insider transaction on today’s Hot List is a Form 4 filing by Enviva Inc $EVA director John Bumgarner Jr.

Bumgarner reported a purchase worth roughly $1.8 million in EVA.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

CPI data for April will be released at 8:30 a.m. ET.

I'll hold off on ideas until I see how the market reacts.

This is the video recording of the May 10, 2023, Inside Scoop Weekly Strategy Session.

I make quick decisions.

Is that because I’m a trader? Or am I a trader because I make quick decisions?

Over time, I think I’ve come to the conclusion that being a trader has instilled in me a knack and preference for quick decision-making. I wasn’t always like this. 25 years of trading has taught me to work with only 75% of the information I might want, and that is good enough to take action.

The phrase “invest, then investigate,” as Stanley Druckenmiller said, comes to mind.

Outside of trading, this can also affect my day-to-day decision-making. I think it frustrates my wife when I make decisions so quickly. In her mind, she probably thinks I’m being irrational, emotional, or acting on impulse. She, in contrast, is very deliberate. Cautious. Analyzes every detail…

...

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

The market was in a standstill today, awaiting the CPI print on Wednesday.

The indices held on.

Tomorrow might give a clearer picture near term.

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

Dollar bulls hold the line.

The US Dollar Index $DXY is clinging to the 100 level, refusing to let go despite new 52-week highs for the British pound and a steady rise in the euro.

I’ve laid out numerous ways to play the dollar in recent months and what will confirm a DXY breakdown. None of that has changed.

But one chart caught my eye.

I was struck over the weekend by the resemblance between the commercial position in gold and DXY.

Check it out…

DXY sits up top with the commercial or smart money position in gold in the lower pane:

I don’t know why this strong positive relationship escaped me in the past. But the correlation between these two charts makes sense.

Smart money buys gold as the dollar rises.

Remember, a strong...

The weakness in Small-caps has been well documented by now.

Look at the performance since the beginning of 2022.

While the Dow, S&P500 and other major indexes are pushing up near 52-week highs, the Russell2000 is down near 52-week lows.

The next new position in our Paid-to-Play portfolio is:

The largest insider transaction on today’s list comes in a Form 4 filing by Ares Management.

The firm revealed a $7.5 million purchase in Frontier Communications Parent $FYBR.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

$QQQ hit a fresh high yesterday, and this morning we're pulling back.

We could be in a standstill until tomorrow's CPI data. 

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

There’s a mountain of bullish evidence supporting an upside resolution in gold. 

But gold hasn’t broken out. Not yet!

Gold has been running this race for months... at least, that’s how it feels.

Perhaps it’s simply making its way to the starting line…  

I believe that’s the best way to view gold and precious metals at this stage of the game. Before I get ahead of myself – marking a series of upside objectives – I want to highlight a key level that defines my intermediate- and near-term risks…

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...

Week starting May 8, 2023 | Edition No. 10 

Our mission at The Buzz is simple: to identify and profit from the most-talked-about stocks on social media. 

Every week, we compile a list of stocks trending tickers that are experiencing a large increase in the investor interest. We use social media data from our partners at Likefolio. 

In each weekly report, we outline 1-3 actionable trades. We also take a closer look at a few other charts from our list. Some weeks will have more actionable setups than others, as we don’t want to force trades. 

With any bottoms-up scan, many of these stocks are at the mercy of the broader market. We will always consider the current market environment when identifying our long/short ideas. 

None of these setups are guaranteed to work. Profitable trading requires you to take small losses and let your winners run. If price closes below our risk levels, we want to take the small loss and move on, to preserve capital for future opportunities. 

As always, feel free to reach out to me at Patrick@thechartreport.com...

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 Kimmy Sokoloff

It was a real tug of war today for the indices.

$AMD really pushed through, moving more than 5%.