From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

Goodbye, August!

That was a tough month, and we’ll see what September brings.

We’ve seen a big two-day move for the indices, and we still have two days before the long weekend for $SPY to  hit 453 and 455.

[10/19/23 Update: moved stop to 125]

We're adding another bullish leg to an existing position we already have on the books in Google.

In early May, we purchased December 120 calls that have performed nicely for us. In fact, we already sold half of our position and are #FreeRiding on the remaining portion of that initial trade. We can't lose!

Given the price action and relative strength we've seen in $GOOG this summer, we're ready to put on another fresh position to take advantage of even more upside.

Check out this chart:

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

The market started the day in consolidation mode then kept trying to break out.

We can still see the push in $SPY to 453.

From the Desk of Steve Strazza

This is the video recording of the August 30, 2023, Hot Corner Insider Weekly Strategy Session.

Click below to watch:

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

The largest insider transaction on today’s list comes in a Form 4 filed by the CEO of Sirius XM Holdings Inc $SIRI, Jennifer C. Witz.

Witz revealed a purchase of SIRI shares of roughly $1 million.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

To all my Floridians out there, be safe.

The indices were up over 1% yesterday.

We'll see if we rest and pause or head straight to 453 on $SPY.

The big news dropped yesterday that Grayscale won their case vs the SEC apparently paving the way for a new Bitcoin ETF soon.

Whether any of this is true or not isn't really our concern.

I couldn't care less about Grayscale or any of their personal issues.

The "news" is not our problem. What we're really interested in what is actually happening.

But a 5-6% ripper in Bitcoin yesterday and a near 30% rally in Marathon Digital certainly gets my attention.

First, here is a longer-term look at the structural uptrends in Bitcoin and Ethereum as they both held support from former resistance levels at their prior cycle peaks.

Notice how the buyers...

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

King Dollar is bouncing around as we approach Labor Day.

Last week’s strength is evaporating.

Meanwhile, global currencies claw back recent losses as cryptocurrencies and gold’s crazy cousin, silver, enjoy a much-needed boost.

It’s no secret that risk assets like a weaker dollar! 

But let’s put the current action into perspective before we get ahead of ourselves.

Remember, a single session doesn’t constitute a trend.

But it could mark a critical turning point…

The US Dollar Index $DXY violated a year-to-date downtrend line last week, breaking above its June pivot high:

And it did so while posting its first overbought reading (14-day RSI above 70) since its peak last fall.

That’s an impressive feat and a clear point for dollar bulls! 

Yet I can’t ignore the oversold momentum reading (14-day RSI below 30) that accompanied last month’s failed...

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

That was a very big move for the indices today.

Once $SPY broke out of its resistance zone, this one and the others really jumped.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

The market is really stuck, and names aren’t appealing to me at the moment.

We’ve drifted lower since early August, and now we have a slight bounce in the indices.

Now we need to see if it continues or we roll back over.

From the Desk of Steve Strazza

The largest insider transaction on today’s list comes in a Form 4 filed by the CEO of Sirius XM Holdings Inc $SIRI, Jennifer C. Witz.

Witz revealed a purchase of SIRI shares of roughly $1 million.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

To all my Floridians out there, be safe.

The indices were up over 1% yesterday.

We’ll see if we rest and pause or head straight to 453 on $SPY.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

That was a very big move for the indices today.

Once $SPY broke out of its resistance zone, this one and the others really jumped.

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

The largest insider transaction on today’s list comes in a Form 4 filed by Ares Management Company.

The hedge fund reported a purchase of Frontier Communications Parent Inc $FYBR shares in the amount of $573,540.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

The market is really stuck, and names aren't appealing to me at the moment.

We've drifted lower since early August, and now we have a slight bounce in the indices.

Now we need to see if it continues or we roll back over.

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...