Did you know Motorola has been around since long before the cellular phone?

In the late 90's and early 2000's, Motorola was one of the go-to cell phone manufacturers. I owned several, personally. To this day, I still maintain that I've never had a clearer signal with zero audio delay than I did with my Motorola StarTac phone circa 2001.

This all came up this morning when internally, while discussing the setup in the $MSI stock, we were all kind of surprised that Motorola, based in Chicago, is a one-hundred year old company! Wow.

Clearly, this is a company that has gone through many pivots to lead new technology development.

Of more immediate concern to us options traders is we've got two potential catalysts that can drive some quick gains for us.

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

Cathie Wood’s ARK Investment Management is on our list today, as it filed a 13G for Roku Inc $ROKU.

The asset manager reported a small increase of 0.06% in its ownership.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

We've got the March CPI data coming out at 8:30 a.m. ET.

I have no idea which way the market will swing.

This is the video recording of the April 12, 2023, Inside Scoop Weekly Strategy Session.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Dividend Aristocrats are easily some of the most desirable investments on Wall Street. These are the names that have increased dividends for at least 25 years, providing steadily increasing income to long-term-minded shareholders.

As you can imagine, the companies making up this prestigious list are some of the most recognizable brands in the world. Coca-Cola, Walmart, and Johnson & Johnson are just a few of the household names making the cut.

Here at All Star Charts, we like to stay ahead of the curve. That's why we're turning our attention to the future aristocrats. In an effort to seek out the next generation of the cream-of-the-crop dividend plays, we're curating a list of stocks that have raised their payouts every year for five to nine years.

We call them the Young Aristocrats, and the idea is that these are "stocks that pay you to make money." Imagine if years of consistent dividend growth and high momentum and relative strength had a baby, leaving you with the best of the emerging dividend giants that are outperforming the averages.

By adding our technical analysis to the mix, the Young...

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

Trendless price action remains the way right now for currency markets.

Yes, some of our bearish dollar trades have triggered and are trending. But most have not. 

It doesn’t mean they won’t, of course. But it would be irresponsible not to consider potential outcomes that conflict with my bearish USD thesis…

If the dollar rips, what USD dollar pair would I use to express a bullish outlook?

The answer: the South African rand.

Check out the weekly chart of the USD/ZAR pair:

The dollar has been in a strong uptrend versus the rand for more than a decade. It’s been one base breakout after another, leading to the USD/ZAR challenging its all-time highs last month. 

Those former highs coincide with a key extension level. This a logical level to witness price digest its recent rally. And it has! 

Here’s a potential six-...

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

Slim pickings in this market.

There are trades out there.

But we aren't getting enough follow-through.

We had a resting GTC order filled at our profit target in the Paid-to-Play portfolio today:

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

One thing I learned years ago is that you need bulls for there to be a bull market.

In other words, as bull markets progress, stocks stop falling in price, and continue to appreciate despite all the negativity.

This is the beginning of the acceptance phase. It's perfectly normal.

There's nothing like price to change sentiment.

And that's exactly what we have in the current environment.

Today's most significant insider transaction is a 13G filing by Jennison Associates LLC. 

The asset manager revealed an initial stake of 16.80% in Mobileye Global Inc $MBLY.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

Futures up a tad this morning.

The market awaits tomorrow's CPI print.

We have Phillip Streible on the show today.

I'm a big fan of Phil's work. He's the Chief Market Strategist at Blue Line Futures and a market veteran with more than 20 years of experience trading futures and forex.

Today, Phil shares with us his technical perspective on precious metals and discusses key fundamental drivers at play right now.

Check it out:

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

The pieces of the puzzle are falling into place. 

Gold priced in USD has finally joined other global currencies, closing last week at an all-time high. Silver, the high-beta play, is outperforming its more reserved cousin (gold). And gold mining stocks are breaking out.

Many of our trade ideas over the past few weeks are working. I believe this trend has just begun and could last for months – or even quarters.

Especially when I consider this next chart…

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

Price action was sloppy early and then, around midday, the indices started to trend higher.

The morning trading was trying to squeeze dry lemons.

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 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...

[9/21: moved stop to 88]

Fair warning: today's trade is in a company that will be reporting earnings early next week. I generally try to avoid entering trades ahead of earnings. But its that time of the season where its kinda hard to avoid earnings. They are happening. We just have to deal with it.

That said, we'll control what we can control: The amount of risk we take, and our time duration for the position to recover, if needed.

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

The pieces of the puzzle are falling into place. 

Gold priced in USD has finally joined other global currencies, closing last week at an all-time high. Silver, the high-beta play, is outperforming its more reserved cousin (gold). And gold mining stocks are breaking out.

Many of our trade ideas over the past few weeks are working. I believe this trend has just begun and could last for months – or even quarters.

Especially when I consider this next chart…

Check out the VanEck Gold Miners ETF $GDX filling the first of a series of downside gaps:

These gaps represent strong selling pressure during the early stages of last year’s sell-off when the bears were in full control. But in the interim, GDX carved out a multi-month base, repairing the damage. 

Now that the gold bugs have filled the first gap, I’m focusing on the 37 level. A decisive break above that level signifies a close of the breakaway gap that kicked off last year’s downtrend. 

It also coincides with fresh 52-week highs for GDX, lending credence to the bearish-to-bullish trend reversal underway –...