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

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

Let’s get into it!

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

It was tough sledding for tech names, yesterday and today.

Time will tell if this pull-in will be bigger than previous ones.

Here are today’s trades:

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

Today’s Hot Corner list is a short one.

Lockheed Martin Corporation $LMT director John M. Donovan filed a Form 4 revealing the acquisition of 548 shares of LMT, equivalent to $250,476.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

We kicked off earnings season with $NFLX and $TSLA, and they're trading lower this morning.

We'll see if people buy the dip or sell the news. 

As many of you know, Steve Strazza and I are touring South East Asia this month. We're hitting the homestretch of our trip, with about a week or so left. We're currently in Hong Kong and this city is beyond description. I don't even know where to begin. It's a cliche to say "you have to see it to believe it." But it is 100% true in this case.

As you can imagine, it's been a bit of a logistical challenge to keep up with the U.S. markets when we are on the other side of the globe. U.S. trading hours in Hong Kong are 9:30 pm to 4:00 am. Lucky for us, many of the positions we have on have been performing well. We've been positioned for a continued bull market and we're definitely being rewarded over the past few weeks.

We're currently positioned long in stocks like $AAPL, $MARA, $KBH, $GXO, $CARR, $VRRM, $ABNB, $IONQ, $DKNG, and more.

I mention this because as I'm looking at candidates for new long trades that we like, I am frustrated that most report earnings over the next 1-2 weeks. And as you know, I don't like positioning when a stock is so close to reporting earnings. I don't like the binary risk.

So, I think this is Mr. Market's way of telling...

We interrupt this raging bull market to update you on some historic positioning in the bond market that is sure to impact your portfolio, whether you like it or not.

Even if you don't trade bonds, this is really really important.

You see, I know it's easy to sit back and chill out with the S&P500 making new 52-week highs, the Dow Jones Industrial Average and Dow Transportation Average making new 52-week highs and, of course, the Nasdaq100 making new 52-week highs after posting its best first half to a year EVER.

Market breadth continues to expand and sector rotation is frustrating the hell out of anyone trying to short this market.

The thing is, what even changed?

What happened that stocks have absolutely been ripping higher since last year?

Positioning.

It's not the economy that drives stocks. It certainly isn't fundamentals.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

I've talked about how it's harder to find longs these days.

We had about two rug-pulls today for $SPY and $QQQ.

It was a tougher day trading as we await earnings on $NFLX and $TSLA.

This is the video recording of the July 19, 2023, Hot Corner Insider Weekly Strategy Session.

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Welcome to The 2 to 100 Club.

As many of you know, something we've been working on internally is using various bottom-up tools and scans to complement our top-down approach.

It's really been working for us!

One way we're doing this is by identifying the strongest growth stocks as they climb the market-cap ladder from small- to mid- to large- and, ultimately, to mega-cap status (over $200B).

Once they graduate from small-cap to mid-cap status (over $2B), they come on our radar. Likewise, when they surpass the roughly $30B mark, they roll off our list.

But the scan doesn't just end there.

We only want to look at the strongest growth industries in the market, as that is typically where these potential 50-baggers come from.

Some of the best performers in recent decades – stocks like Priceline, Amazon, Netflix, Salesforce, and myriad others – would have been on this list at some point during their...

This is the video recording of the July 19, 2023, Hot Corner Insider Weekly Strategy Session.

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

Today’s Hot Corner list is a short one.

EcoR1 Capital Fund filed a 13G for Apellis Pharmaceuticals Inc $APLS revealing an initial stake of 5.40%.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

All the indices have been on fire.

Earnings are coming up.

We'll see if the bar is low for them and they jump that hurdle or not.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

Up and away we go, with new highs all around.

As the saying goes, we're overbought, but we can stay this way for some time.

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

The US Dollar Index’s $DXY break toward fresh lows resembles a defiant crawl more than an earnest march.

An image of dragging my children away from the toy aisle flashes across my mind.

(Actually, I let them walk around the store with their toy of choice. And then, we ditch the item before checkout after a couple rounds of negotiations. It works quite well – no screaming involved.) 

But while the DXY drags its feet, the individual currencies that comprise the index are picking up the pace. 

The Swiss franc is ripping. The euro is posting fresh 52-week highs. And the British pound is hitting our upside objective.

Our initial target for the pound marks a logical level of resistance.

But since the Dollar Index broke down less than a week ago, could the pound slice through this...

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

Today’s Hot Corner list is a short one.

Director John D. Harkey, Jr. revealed a purchase of 100,000 shares, equivalent to $852,000, in Lions Gate Entertainment Corp $LGF.B.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

It's another new day, and maybe more new highs.

It's getting harder to find longs.

We do get opportunities, but it's more difficult with things stretched like this.