Premiums remain elevated in the options market as volatility persists and confusion among market participants reigns supreme.

We sold a delta neutral spread on Friday to take advantage of this environment. Today's trade will also be a credit spread, however, this time we will be taking on some bearish directional exposure to counterbalance some of our long exposure.

Last week, we worded our letter in a rather dramatic fashion, arguing that Bitcoin was on the edge of the abyss.

Since then, we've seen equity markets make a decisive move to the lows, while currency markets have acted in spectacular fashion. The US dollar continues to strengthen, while the UK pound sterling printed at new all-time lows.

As far as risk markets are concerned, this is a rather treacherous tape, and caution is still advised over more substantial time frames.

Much of our job as technical analysts is to discover pieces that don't conform to the regular puzzle.

What's caught us by surprise is the resiliency of crypto markets in the face of this risk-off action. Bitcoin continues to defend its critical 18,000 support level even in the face of equity markets selling off.

Furthermore, our breadth metrics suggest that altcoins have been holding up better than individual equities.

Let's dive into this week's letter.

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

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 October 3rd @ 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:

The market is extremely volatile, and there's a decent chance the S&P 500 will touch the June lows of 3,636. That's 362.17 on the $SPY.

The market is very oversold. But that doesn't mean we cant become even more oversold before we bounce.

The largest insider transaction on today's list is a Form 4 filing by Daniel Durn, the CFO of Adobe $ADBE.

Durn reported a purchase worth roughly $936,357. He was appointed CFO this time last year.

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.

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 Ian Culley @IanCulley

It’s not all doom and gloom out there… 

I know the market’s ugly right now. Risk assets are getting crushed across the board. 

But, believe it or not, greener pastures do exist in this market.

And, on days like these, I choose to focus on areas that aren’t free-falling into the fiery depths of hell.

Last week, I discussed the relative strength of the less economically sensitive grain complex. These contracts are more defensive in nature and are currently escaping the broad selling pressure.

That’s a relief!

When it comes to today’s trade ideas, I’m sticking to the individual contracts with the highest volume heading into the fall. Those are the charts and levels of the most importance.

Do the levels on the continuation charts come into consideration?

Absolutely!

Premium members can reference our Commodity Chartbook below for our structural outlook and reach out at info@allstarcharts.com with further questions.

All right! Let...

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...

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

What a day, what a wrecking ball.

Let's say goodbye to September!!

From the Desk of Ian Culley @Ianculley

On Wednesday afternoon, the Federal Reserve announced another 75-basis-point rate hike following its September policy meeting. 

Yields across the curve ripped, and Treasury bonds dipped.

What else is new?

An aggressive hiking regime has been the Fed’s modus operandi since March. And it's made clear its intent to stay the course.

But what does the rest of the market think about the rise in rates?

Let’s look at our intermarket ratios to gain some insight.

First, we have a triple-pane chart of regional banks versus REITs, the copper/gold ratio, and the US 10-year yield:

These key intermarket ratios tend to peak and trough with interest rates. Notice all three peaked in 2018.

As rates roll over and growth slows, investors reach for the safety of gold and REITS versus the more economically sensitive copper and regional banks.

...

From the desk of Willie Delwiche.

2022 Is Not 2008 - It Just Looks Like It

The Chart: 

In the past quarter century, only 2002 & 2008 have been more volatile than 2022. None have seen less strength beneath the surface than 2022. Other than this year, the only year to see more volatility than strength was 2008.

Why It Matters: 

Every year is its own experience, but we can see similarities in market environments over time. The current environment is consistent with past periods of persistent weakness.  

We recently closed an October Short Strangle in the Energy ETF $XLE at our profit target. The timing was pretty fortuitous, considering the wild ride all stocks have been on since the latest Federal Reserve interest rates announcement.

With volatility ticking backup up quite noticeably, $XLE has climbed back up near the top of my implied volatility list of ETFs, and the November options are priced in such a way that we can sell some pretty far out-of-the-money strikes increasing our odds of success.

So let's get right to it.

I was in the city yesterday for a few meetings and dropped by Fox Business to have a little chat with Charles Payne.

Charles is one of the few who let me talk about whatever I want. No agenda. Just price action.

I appreciate that.

It was just a short hit. But we talked about the seasonal tailwinds for stocks, how a stronger Dollar means stocks will remain under pressure, and what Financials and Homebuilders are telling us about the market.

We covered a lot. This fun.

Here's the full clip:

This is the video recording of our September 23, 2022, All Star Charts Crypto Weekly Strategy Session.

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

Here we are, at roughly the 369 level in the $SPY that I've been talking about. This has been a target of mine.

We're looking at a big shakeout this morning, so I'll take it slow.

The most significant insider activity on today's list comes in Form 4 filings by Robert Harris and Jonathan Glaser, directors of Hudson Pacific Properties $HPP.

Harris and Glaser filed Form 4s reporting purchases worth a combined $393,320.

The math has been simple.

When the Dollar is doing well, stocks don't.

And when the Dollar is weakening, stocks are strong.

It's been made very clear to us all.

The US Dollar is the enforcer:

Tuesday night we held our September Monthly Conference Call, which Premium Members can access and rewatch here.

In this post, we’ll do our best to summarize it by highlighting five of the most important charts and/or themes we covered, along with commentary on each

Let’s get right into it!