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...

Another day goes by and another bank that doesn't matter disappears.

This is a big deal.

In theory, investors should care about a handful of these regional banks no longer in existence.

But they don't.

In theory, there should be systemic implications to all of this, and the selling in little regional banks should spill into other, more important, parts of the market.

But it hasn't.

In theory, the inverted yield curve should precede a recession and all the money printing should ultimately cause a collapse.

But it hasn't.

And that's my point here.

At what point does anyone care?

I'm waiting for it myself.

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

When investing in the stock market, we always want to approach it as "a market of stocks."

Regardless of the environment, there are always stocks showing leadership and trending higher.

We may have to look harder to identify them depending on current market conditions. But there are always stocks that are going up.

The same can be said for weak stocks. Regardless of the environment, there are always stocks that are going down, too. 

We already have multiple scans focusing on stocks making all-time highs, such as Hall of Famers, Minor Leaguers, and the 2 to 100 Club.

We filter these universes for stocks that are exhibiting the best momentum and relative strength characteristics. 

Clearly, we spend a lot of time identifying and writing about leading stocks every week, via multiple reports.

Now, we're also highlighting lagging stocks on a recurring basis.

Welcome to the Short Report.

We...

These tiny banks have been in trouble for quite some time.

That we know.

The question has been more about whether or not the selling spills into other parts of the market.

So far it has not.

The spikes in volatility in the bond market, for example, have only resulted in volatility in these little banks.

We have not seen it spill into other asset classes, and certainly not in the majority of stocks.

Remember, the S&P500 and Nasdaq100 just closed the month of April at the highest levels in a year.

Where's the volatility?

I imagine it’s not uncommon for people to realize sooner or later that the person they thought they were is not at all who they really are. Perhaps not even close.

Are you being yourself?

Think hard about this. And be careful. Because your conclusion might have important ramifications beyond your day-to-day daydreaming through life. It will also likely have significant impacts on who you are as a trader and how you approach your relationship with risk – even your courtship of success (or lack thereof).

Everyone’s path to personal discovery will have its own speed limit, hills and valleys, and complements of sharp turns and extreme weather conditions.

The visibility isn’t always clear. For me, the wiper-fluid that cleaned my windows and sharpened my...

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

"The bigger the base, the higher in space."

That’s how I learned it from JC.

But he wasn’t the technician who coined the adage. It was actually handed down from Lousie Yamada, who studied under the legendary Alan Shaw.

It was amazing to connect with technicians from around the world last week at the 50th Annual CMTA Symposium.

I have a great deal of gratitude for all those who made last week possible and to the founding members who paved the way for technical analysis. 

The experience was humbling, as it exposed my roots and reminded me where I come from.

It's just like the Swiss franc reminds us that observations from more than a hundred years ago continue to play out across today’s markets…

Check out the monster base in Swiss franc futures:

The Swiss franc is forming a decade-long base, challenging the...

It's that time of the year again.

I keep being told to 'Sell in May and Go Away'.

But where is it exactly that I'm supposed to go?

Investors continue to be rewarded for owning stocks as both the S&P500 and Nasdaq100 closed out April with their highest Monthly close in a year.

This is the video recording of our May 1st Monthly Charts Live Strategy Session

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

It’s still messy out there, no matter where you look.

Signs of strength are fleeting, whether we’re discussing gold, the S&P 500, or US Treasuries. It’s one of the few observations everyone agreed upon last week at the 50th annual CMTA Symposium. (I'll have more on that later this week.)

Despite failed breakouts and trading ranges ruling the market environment, one bullish data point stand out regarding precious metals…

Silver!

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 Steve Strazza @Sstrazza.

Welcome back to Under the Hood, where we'll cover all the action for the week ended April 28, 2023. This report is published bi-weekly and rotated 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 options activity, or...

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

Our International Hall of Famers list is composed of the 100 largest US-listed international stocks, or ADRs. We’ve also sprinkled in some of the largest ADRs from countries that did not make the market cap cut. 

These stocks range from some well-known mega-cap multinationals such as Toyota Motor and Royal Dutch Shell to some large-cap global disruptors such as Sea Ltd and Shopify.

It’s got all the big names and more--but only those that are based outside the US. You can find all the largest US stocks on our original Hall of Famers list.

The beauty of these scans is really in their simplicity.

We take the largest names each week and then apply technical filters in a way that the strongest stocks with the most momentum rise to the top.

Based on the market environment, we can also flip the scan on its head and filter for weakness.

Let’s dive in and take a look at some of the most important stocks from around the world.

Here’s this week’s list:

...