From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

It's Fed Day, and we know the drill...

Up, down, and all around.

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

If stock markets are about to recover and start another leg higher back towards all-time highs, I have a hard time imagining a scenario where Google (Alphabet) $GOOG doesn't at least retake last summer's highs north of $123 per share.

Call me crazy, but that's where my head's at.

Take a look at the coil that $GOOGL is working through right now:

The $GOOGL and $GOOG charts look the same. It's confusing and annoying that they have two shares classes (the "L" shares come with voting rights, the others do not).

The GOOG options have more open interest and volume, so that's where we will put on our trade.

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

These tiny banks have been in trouble for quite some time.

That we know.

The question has been more about whether or not the selling spills into other parts of the market.

So far it has not.

The spikes in volatility in the bond market, for example, have only resulted in volatility in these little banks.

We have not seen it spill into other asset classes, and certainly not in the majority of stocks.

Remember, the S&P500 and Nasdaq100 just closed the month of April at the highest levels in a year.

Where's the volatility?

The big story on today's list is that executives from some of the most severely damaged banks are still filing Form 4s.

Here's yesterday's list:

• Texas Capital Bancshares $TCBI
• Zions Bancorporation, National Association $ZION
• Simmons First National Corporation $SFNC
• Ameris Bancorp $ABCB
• Prosperity Bancshares $PB
• FB Financial Corporation $FBK
• Bank of Hawaii Corporation $BOH
• Farmers National Banc Corp $FMNB
• Old National Bancorp $ONB
• First Financial Bankshares $FFIN

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

This is a big day, with the FOMC set to announce an interest rate decision at 2:00 p.m. ET.

We had a late-day bounce yesterday -- typical, as this market loves to levitate.

This is the video recording of the May 3, 2023, Inside Scoop Weekly Strategy Session.

I imagine it’s not uncommon for people to realize sooner or later that the person they thought they were is not at all who they really are. Perhaps not even close.

Are you being yourself?

Think hard about this. And be careful. Because your conclusion might have important ramifications beyond your day-to-day daydreaming through life. It will also likely have significant impacts on who you are as a trader and how you approach your relationship with risk – even your courtship of success (or lack thereof).

Everyone’s path to personal discovery will have its own speed limit, hills and valleys, and complements of sharp turns and extreme weather conditions.

The visibility isn’t always clear. For me, the wiper-fluid that cleaned my windows and sharpened my...

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

The market took a decent dive early today, but after lunch time we saw a decent bounce. Perhaps it was short covering.

We don't know which way the market will go tomorrow after the Fed's interest rate announcement.

Time will tell.

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

"The bigger the base, the higher in space."

That’s how I learned it from JC.

But he wasn’t the technician who coined the adage. It was actually handed down from Lousie Yamada, who studied under the legendary Alan Shaw.

It was amazing to connect with technicians from around the world last week at the 50th Annual CMTA Symposium.

I have a great deal of gratitude for all those who made last week possible and to the founding members who paved the way for technical analysis. 

The experience was humbling, as it exposed my roots and reminded me where I come from.

It's just like the Swiss franc reminds us that observations from more than a hundred years ago continue to play out across today’s markets…

Check out the monster base in Swiss franc futures:

The Swiss franc is forming a decade-long base, challenging the...

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

The largest insider buy on today’s list comes in a Form 4 filing by Impinj, Inc. $PI director Steve Sanghi.

Sanghi reported a purchase of PI shares worth $1,997,500.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

$SPY bumped right against its Bollinger band yesterday and dropped.

We had a pretty decent-sized move last week, and I think the indices will wait till tomorrow to get going again.

It's that time of the year again.

I keep being told to 'Sell in May and Go Away'.

But where is it exactly that I'm supposed to go?

Investors continue to be rewarded for owning stocks as both the S&P500 and Nasdaq100 closed out April with their highest Monthly close in a year.

This is the video recording of our May 1st Monthly Charts Live Strategy Session

Week starting May 1, 2023 | Edition No. 9 

Each week, we’re learning more about our scan and refining our process. In the interest of being transparent with you, here are some things you should know... 

In each weekly report, we’ll outline 1-3 actionable trades. We’ll also highlight a few other noteworthy setups and discuss why they’re attractive, but not ideal. Some weeks will have more actionable setups than others, as we don’t want to force trades. 

We want to be picky and only highlight setups where we can clearly define our risk. Typically, we want to see a skewed reward/risk ratio of 3:1 or greater. By risking $1 to make at least $3, we don’t have to be right every single time in order to be profitable. 

With any bottoms-up scan, many of these stocks are at the mercy of the broader market. We will always consider the current market environment when identifying our long/short ideas. 

Many of the tickers that make the list each week are small-cap companies, and some have fairly low volume. We like to see at least $10million in average daily dollar volume. We multiply the...

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

It’s still messy out there, no matter where you look.

Signs of strength are fleeting, whether we’re discussing gold, the S&P 500, or US Treasuries. It’s one of the few observations everyone agreed upon last week at the 50th annual CMTA Symposium. (I'll have more on that later this week.)

Despite failed breakouts and trading ranges ruling the market environment, one bullish data point stand out regarding precious metals…

Silver!

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

The market is still trucking along and going higher.

$SPY does have potential to the February high at 418.31.

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 back to Under the Hood, where we'll cover all the action for the week ended April 28, 2023. This report is published bi-weekly and rotated with The Minor Leaguers.

What we do here is analyze the most popular stocks during the week and find opportunities to either join in and ride these momentum names higher, or fade the crowd and bet against them.

We use a variety of sources to generate the list of most popular names.

There are so many new data sources available that all we need to do is organize and curate them in a way that shows us exactly what we want: a list of stocks that are seeing an unusual increase in investor interest.

Click here for a behind-the-scenes look at our process.

Whether we’re measuring increasing interest based on large institutional purchases, unusual options activity, or...