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…

Last week, gold futures came within five dollars of breaking to new highs:

Close, but no cigar.

There’s still plenty of overhead supply at those former highs at approximately 2,089. But bulls remain in control based on the bullish momentum regime and the clear uptrend off the October 2022 lows.

The three-point bearish divergence on the 14-day RSI might not paint the most bullish picture. You could even argue the momentum divergence increases the likelihood of a correction.

But I want to give the bulls the benefit of the doubt as long as price holds above...

Full Disclosure: I'm a Buffalo Bills fan. As such, I'm excited about this upcoming NFL season. This is the year! Does this fact color my interest in today's trade? Maybe.

I get all my speculative juice in the financial markets. But there is a growing number of Americans who are jumping into online sports betting. The increases in both participation and dollars wagered is skyrocketing.

Today's trade is a bet on a continuation of this trend that will likely be driven by the next NFL season.

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

We held our May Monthly Strategy Session last Monday night. Premium Members can access and rewatch it here.

Non-members can get a quick recap of the call simply by reading this post each month.

By focusing on long-term, monthly charts, the idea is to take a step back and put things into the context of their structural trends. This is easily one of our most valuable exercises as it forces us to put aside the day-to-day noise and simply examine markets from a “big-picture” point of view.

With that as our backdrop, let’s dive right in and discuss three of the most important charts and/or themes from this month’s call.

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

While financials and cyclical areas of the market have been under pressure the past few weeks, technology and other leadership groups have been resilient.

In fact, despite the latest banking sector volatility, we continue to find plenty of opportunities in growth stocks.

However, it's not just growth. We're seeing strength from risk-on groups like homebuilders, in addition to consumer stocks from both offensive and defensive industries.

Overall, we continue to see healthy rotation from the broader market.

Today, we have a consumer discretionary name everyone should be familiar with. Let's get into it.

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

The largest insider transaction on today’s list is a Form 4 filing by Alphabet Inc.

The tech giant reported a $19 million purchase in GitLab $GTLB.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

What a move on Friday!

But we must stay on our toes: We've got CPI this week. 

It's now or never.

The Russell2000 Small-cap Index is back down near last Summer's lows.

If there was ever a time for buyers to step up, it's right now.

And funny enough, relative to the Large-cap S&P500 Index, the Russell2000 is back down to the 2020 lows.

Again, if there was ever a time for buyers to step in, now is the time:

There's an ugly rumor going around that it's only a handful of stocks holding up this market.

The people telling you that are lying to you.

Here is our Hall of Famers list which consist of the largest stocks in the United States.

All the ones on this list are less than 5% from new 52-week highs:

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 Kimmy Sokoloff

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

It was a Friday, but we closed out the week strong.

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

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...

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

It’s getting busy in the commodities space.

Live cattle posted a new all-time high last month. Precious metals are gearing up for a potential rip-roaring rally, as gold retested all-time highs yesterday. And sugar futures refuse to quit.

But when I review my commodity charts, I notice more topping formations underway than bottoming patterns.

Crude oil is front and center as the energy space – commodities and stocks – remains one of the weakest areas of the market. 

That’s why yesterday’s action in crude has my full attention…

Check out Thursday’s candle in crude oil futures:

Did someone punch in too many zeros? 

I have no idea what caused yesterday’s abrupt sell-off, but...

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

Options premiums have risen a little bit in recent days due to the fed, earnings, government data, and trader indecision, and [insert your favorite scary story].

Whatever the reason, this feels like a good time and opportunity to add some delta-neutral positions to my portfolio.

So let's get right to it.

The insider “run” on regional bank shares continues, with Form 4s from nine more directors and executives from boardrooms and C-suites in that troubled sector leading today’s Hot List:

• Stellar Bancorp Inc $STEL
• NBT Bancorp Inc $NBTB
• Byline Bancorp $BY
• KeyCorp $KEY
• Texas Capital Bancshares $TCBI
• Synovus Financial Corp $SNV
• German American Bancorp $GABC
• Cullen/Frost Bankers $CFR
• TFS Financial Corporation $TFSL

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

It's been a long week, and a complete chop-fest at that.

We'll see if $AAPL has saved the day.

They had no growth, from what the news says.

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

Fed Chair Jerome Powell has spoken…

And not much has changed. Rates churn sideways as bonds carve out tradeable lows. 

The market is simply playing a new verse of the same old song.

But the tempo picks up as another antagonist enters the scene – regional banks!

Banks are the market’s weakest link, especially the smaller regional banks. They simply can’t stop falling.

To be clear: This isn’t about possible contagion risks or the next leg lower in the S&P 500. I’m more interested in the implications for interest rates.

The banking sector has captured every investor’s full attention. And regional banks have hinted at underlying problems with the rising rate environment for more than a year.

Check out the dual-pane chart of the Regional Bank ETF $KRE versus the REITs ETF $IYR ratio and the US 10-year yield $TNX:

...

You might have seen some of my tweets about an impressive trader I met earlier this week. I felt the encounter was too good to keep to myself – so here’s the full story…

I had a truly profound experience at the traders meetup I hosted in Denver on Tuesday night, where I met a new trader who completely blew me away.

Despite only having about a year of experience trading real money, this young man in his early 30s had a depth of knowledge and understanding that was truly remarkable. He carried with him a notebook filled with detailed market observations, trading strategies, post-mortems on trades, and more. No detail was left unnoticed, and his passion for trading was evident in everything he said.

What was even more impressive was his humility. He was incredibly smart, but he didn't flaunt his intelligence or try to impress anyone with his knowledge. Instead, he was genuinely curious about trading and had a...

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

What a wild day in the markets...

I think we just need to get $AAPL’s earnings out of the way.