Am I being creative with my trading?

Am I tinkering with new ideas, new money management algorithms, new mindsets, new products, new timeframes, or new workflows?

We don’t need to be trying all new things all the time. But spending time thinking about divergent ideas is a valuable practice.

When we exercise our creative muscles, we might find nothing other than a journey down an empty rabbit hole. But sometimes, we have epiphany moments that change the way we operate. These can be minor, value-added ways – or maybe even drastic, wholesale change kinds of ways.

From the desk of Willie Delwiche.

Going back to 1950, the S&P 500 has always always been higher one year after midterm elections than it was on election day. But over the shorter-term, the market has had a more mixed reaction to the votes being cast and counted.     

Why It Matters: Investors are looking for a catalyst that could help 2022 finish on a more positive note and allow 2023 to begin with some positive momentum. There is no denying the historical pattern for stocks to rally in the wake of midterm elections. No doubt there will be pockets of strength in this cycle as well. Some of the dominant themes that have been present already in 2022 (e.g. more volatility than strength and a deteriorating liquidity backdrop) argues for seeing evidence of strength before embracing the pattern.     

We take a Deeper Look at market challenges that aren’t going away just because the voting is done and where investors could look for signs that conditions are improving.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

I mentioned yesterday that we'd see volatility over the next few days, and the market delivered just that today.

After 1:00 p.m. ET the market took a nosedive. Then it started to level off and even rallied into the close.

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

For weeks, I’ve been itching to call a top in the US Dollar Index $DXY.

Sentiment, volatility, and momentum thrusts have all suggested an end to the US dollar wrecking ball. But price hasn’t indicated any significant weakness in the structural trend.

The absence of confirming price action has made it impossible to take a bearish USD stance.

But that’s finally starting to change!

From the Desk of Louis Sykes @haumicharts

It's nearly impossible to switch off when you're invested in crypto.

I'm a little jealous of those solely involved with legacy markets; it must be nice to have an off-switch. In this part of the financial world, there's always something happening.

And my passion for the space often makes it difficult for me to let go.

But, last weekend, my hand -- indeed, my whole body -- was forced. A night in the ER and a few days bedridden with a gnarly viral infection overwhelmed my ardor for fake internet coins.

Happy to report I'm recovering. And here's me after I stumbled to my computer to catch up on the action:

It certainly helped get me in touch with all the confused people out there who aren't involved in this ecosystem. Much of crypto's comings and goings can often seem unworldly and completely foreign.

"This must be how normies feel..." I said to myself.

And now we can turn to the substance of this exchange war between Binance and FTX. It's so entertaining...

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

Deerfield Asset Management continues to make splashes in the biotech space.

Its latest filing disclosed a whopping $21.7 million purchase in Nuvalent $NUVL.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

Election Day is here, and the market has had a nice rebound off of last week's lows.

We have support on the $SPX at 3,800, and resistance is now at 3,824, then 3,843. $SPY support is at 378.20, then 376.55. Resistance is at 383.29.

Last night's Live Conference Call went great.

We had a lot to discuss as more and more stocks keep making new highs and fewer and fewer stocks are making new lows.

This transition first got going back in June.

But now things are really picking up.

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 Trade Exchange. 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 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...

This is the video recording of our November 7th Monthly Charts Live Strategy Session

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Our Top 10 Charts Report was just published.

In this weekly note, we highlight 10 of the most important charts or themes we're currently seeing in asset classes around the world.

Equal Over Cap-Weight

The equal-weight S&P 500 (RSP) emerged to fresh multi-year highs relative to the cap-weighted S&P 500 index (SPY). Seeing this ratio break out of a multi-year base is a development that indicates a healthy expansion in participation and is further evidence of improving market internals.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

The market started off strong and finished even stronger.

We saw a  midday lull, but that was bought up!  The $SPY broke above its 50-day moving average at roughly 379.

Range Bound and Restless

The S&P 500 was down last week but remains above its June lows and below its August highs.

More Context: We can look up at the summer highs on the S&P 500, but as long as more stocks are making new lows than new highs the risk is that it is the summer lows that are in jeopardy of being broken. The degree and duration of downturns since 2015 has varied but a clear pattern has emerged: rallies are difficult to sustain if fewer stocks are making new highs than new lows. Clearing the August high for the S&P 500 likely means seeing the NYSE + NASDAQ new high lists getting longer than the new low list (which has happened only twice in the past 50 weeks).   

We take a Deeper Look at important ranges across the market and where we are seeing important breakouts rather than restless investors trying to anticipate the next move.  

This is the one we all need to watch.

I don't think it has to be any more complicated.

The strategy here is very simple:

If you read the subject line and didn't immediately know that this post was about energy stocks, then you probably watch too much television.

FANG has always been a Texas-based Oil & Gas E&P stock.

It has nothing to do with mega-cap growth.

It's quite obvious that many investors bought the wrong FANG.

And I say good. That makes this unwind we've been witnessing that much more explosive.

The more people getting smoked in Tech and other growth, the better it is for the rest of us who aren't stuck in that garbage.

My suggestion is to ignore the gossip columnists and focus some more on the only thing that actually pays anyone: Price

Here's Diamondback Energy $FANG breaking out this week to new all-time highs:

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Check out this week's Momentum Report, our weekly summation of all the major indexes at a Macro, International, Sector, and Industry Group level.

By analyzing the short-term data in these reports, we get a more tactical view of the current state of markets. This information then helps us put near-term developments into the big picture context and provides insights regarding the structural trends at play.

Let's jump right into it with some of the major takeaways from this week's report:

* ASC Plus Members can access the Momentum Report by clicking the link at the bottom of this post.

Macro Universe:

• This week, our macro universe was positive as 64% of our list closed lower with a median return of -0.89%.
• Silver $SI was the big winner again, closing with an 8.55% gain.
• The biggest loser was Lumber $LB, with a weekly loss of -6.85%.
• There was no change in the percentage of assets on our list within 5% of their 52-week highs, which remains at 6%.
• 21% of our macro list made fresh 4-week highs.
• Meanwhile...

With strength starting to stand out in more and more sectors, we have a few good setups that we like for long trades here.

In chatting with our Head Technical Analyst Steve Strazza today, he pushed me in the direction of today's trade by highlighting the fact that if this one moves, its likely to move much faster and stronger than a couple of the other ideas I was interested in.

And the options in this stock are set up in a way that we can play this idea with a simple long calls trade. I like that. So let's dig in.

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