From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

Markets continue to churn sideways, frustrating most investors.

Instead of allowing the market to dictate your emotions along with the herd, let it simply highlight the path of least resistance. That’s what I’m doing.

Today, I want to share with you two ways to trade the British pound – regardless of its next directional move…

The structural trend for the pound undoubtedly points sideways. A zoomed-out weekly chart makes that clear:

Yes, it has reclaimed a critical shelf of former lows. But it’s messy. And while I believe the pound and other currency pairs will begin to trend in the coming weeks and months, I have no idea what direction they will take.  

So I’m prepared to trade the British pound in either direction.

I laid out the bullish case at the end of January. You can check it out here.

Today, I want to draw attention to those former lows at approximately 1.1950, outlining...

If stocks are going higher from here, Meta Platforms $META (the cool kids call it "facebook") is likely to lead the way.

We're going to leverage some short puts to pay for the potential of unlimited upside if we get our timing right.

And the best part is, we've got a nearby risk-management level to tell us we're wrong. And if we are, we'll likely know quickly.

Check out this chart of $META:

These are the registration details for our Live Monthly Candlestick Strategy Session for Premium Members of All Star Charts.

This month’s Video Conference Call will be held on Monday March 6th @ 6PM ET. As always, if you cannot make the call live, the video and slides will be archived and published here along with every other live call since 2015.

Here are the details for Monday evening:

I F*d up.

And when I do, I usually suffer the consequences – almost without exception.

But today is one of those exceptions. Thankfully.

Recently, in an effort to fade the rising volatility in the options market arising from the 3-4 week pullback from recent stock market highs, I sold naked puts in a large cap stock – Occidental Petroleum $OXY.

I like the name for a number of reasons, the most prominent being that Warren Buffett (Berkshire Hathaway) has been acquiring large blocks of stock just below current levels. This is support.

So when the broader markets were continuing their slide a couple of weeks ago, I felt $OXY was a high probability bet to hold these levels until the mini-market panic cooled off, and selling premium via $OXY puts seemed like an...

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...

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...

Silver futures slide to multi-month lows, undercutting a critical shelf of former support.

Regardless, we believe precious metals and their related stocks ultimately resolve higher, printing fresh all-time highs.

But before we can put money behind this bullish thesis, interest rates and the US dollar need to stop rising.

Check it out:

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

Silver futures have undercut a critical shelf of former lows.

I find it difficult to hold a bullish bias for precious metals and mining stocks, at least from a tactical perspective.

And when I zoom out to longer time frames, overhead supply looms large across the entire space.

Understand, I believe precious metals and their related stocks ultimately resolve higher, printing fresh all-time highs. 

But before we can put money behind this bullish thesis, these next three charts need to throw it in reverse…

It's the weekly commodity edition of What the FICC?

Coffee, cocoa, and OJ are all ripping higher.

So can we extend an underlying bullish thesis for ag commodities to the grain contracts traded on the CBOT?

I don’t think it’s that simple. Regardless, I want to be prepared if and when the Chicago grain markets break out…

It's the weekly bond edition of What the FICC?

The narrative is quickly shifting back to tighter monetary policy following last week’s higher-than-anticipated CPI and strong economic data.

With these newfound recessionary fears circulating, I want to share a chart I like to avoid… The 2s10s treasury spread.

In some market environments Technology, and other sectors full of growth stocks, tend to outperform.

Usually interest rates are falling in that type of market.

You got a good dose of that for about decade.

US Stocks were the global leaders while Europe and other parts of the world, without that exposure to growth, made little progress.

See here.

And now with interest rates rising, other sectors have emerged as leaders. Industrials, for example.

This is all perfectly normal for this type of environment. We've seen it before, and to expect...

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.