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

From the Desk of Louis Sykes

The collapse of the FTX exchange has been a significant catalyst for market participants to utilize one of Bitcoin's greatest value propositions -- self-custody.

Self-custody is when only you have possession of your digital funds because you control the private key. There's no question; there's no alternative to holding your crypto other than in private cold storage.

Owning your Bitcoin keys voids the necessity for a financial intermediary, completely removing any and all counterparty risk. This is especially important given that crypto exchanges hold a shaky history of being responsible stewards of clients' funds.

When you hold your crypto in hot wallets managed by intermediaries like exchanges, they have all the control. They can freeze your transactions, block withdrawals, set limits on the amount you can transact -- and, in the case of FTX, use your funds for their private self-interest.

We're seeing a massive migration where market participants are waking to the value of self-custody.

The largest insider transaction on today's list is a Form 4 filing by Martin Franklin, director at Element Solutions $ESI.

Franklin reported share purchases worth $17.2 million in ESI.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

Looks like we're heading for a flat open for the market as I write this morning.

We're still hovering near the $SPX 4,000 level. Resistance is at 4,037, then 4,062.

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

The dollar experienced significant volatility last week, posting its largest single-day loss since 2015.

As far as we’re concerned, the dollar is done. The weight of the evidence strongly suggests its best days are behind it. But that doesn’t mean it’s straight down from here for the US Dollar Index $DXY.

Instead, we expect plenty more volatility in the coming weeks and months. And when we look beneath the surface of the DXY, we’re at a logical level for the dollar to catch a breather.

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza.

Welcome back to Under the Hood, where we'll cover all the action for the week ended November 14, 2022. This report is published bi-weekly and rotated with our 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...

From the desk of Willie Delwiche.

The broker-dealer index (XBD) has eclipsed its August high and almost back to even on the year. Relative to the S&P 500, XBD has broken out above its early 2021 peak and is now at its highest since 2008.     

Why It Matters: Seeing uptrends in areas outside of just the Energy sector suggests rally participation may be expanding. This gives investors who can move beyond just the indexes more opportunities to lean into strength. But the broker/dealer group isn’t just any group. It’s typically seen as a leading indicator for the S&P 500 overall. Relative strength from this group is good for the market overall and says encouraging things about overall risk appetite.      

We take a Deeper Look at investor risk appetite and whether the recent improvement is likely to be sustained.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

The market was holding steady until a news report took the $SPX down to roughly 3,950.

That news report was later negated, and now we're back to where we started the day near the 4,000 level. 

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

We pride ourselves on never being dogmatic and always being open to any scenario.

What often marks a great technical analyst is the ability to choose to be objective and not letting emotion get in the way of analyzing money flow.

And we all have that choice.

We can be driven by an immediate emotional response and gather into an angry mob over the injustices of the FTX situation.

Or we can take responsibility for our own self-interest and continue to look for opportunities as they come.

It's hard not to feel like an asshole as I write this. But your only objective here is to make money. If you're a trader, you're not here for some greater good.

Now, to be clear, I in no way celebrate these misfortunes. Financial markets are brutal, and there’s nothing worse than the guy getting off on people blowing up.

But it’d be a terrible shame to walk away from this institutional crypto contagion without taking some lessons.

We’re all human beings.

None of us is infallible.

Markets like these remind us of the importance of risk management, which is so easily forgotten in the good times.

There’s such...

Is there anything more important than the US Dollar?

They keep fighting me on it, but the market keeps proving them wrong.

It's the Dollar stupid!

There were a handful of extra-large Form 4 purchases reported by insiders and executives yesterday.

At the top of the list is another Form 4 from Matthew Jacobson, who disclosed an additional $20 million purchase in the software stock, Datadog $DDOG.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

The market dipped in the last hour or so yesterday, though $SPY managed to close above 395.

We've seen a big bounce this morning, and we're back at the top of the range at 399.

This week we're looking at cement stock. After an underperformance, the strength is coming back to this industry group.

We retired our "Five Bull Market Barometers" in 2020 to make room for a new weekly post that's focused on the three most important charts for the week ahead.

This is that post, so let's jump into this week's edition.

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...

Last week’s 5.9% rally in the S&P 500 was the best single-week gain since June but it was not enough to shift any of the criteria on our Bull Market Re-Birth Checklist.

More Context: Big weekly moves in either direction have been relatively common this year. The S&P 500 has gained or lost 3% (or more) nineteen times so far this year. The average year since 1945 has seen 6 weekly moves of 3% or more. The record (held by 1974 and 2008) is 21. As I mentioned in last week’s Townhall Takeaways, volatility and strength have tended to be inversely correlated. Our Bull Market Re-Birth Checklist helps cut through the noise of big price swings and looks for evidence that strength could be sustainable. It's close but no cigar for several of the checklist criteria, suggesting the jury is still out on the current move. And after getting to 4 out 5 criteria met during the rally into the August peak, we are looking for 5 out 5 for evidence of a...

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

The indices consolidated most of the day.

And that's healthy.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Our Top 10 Charts Report was just published.

In this weekly note, we highlight 10 of the most important charts or themes we're currently seeing in asset classes around the world.

Dollar Strength Erodes

Sentiment, volatility, and momentum thrusts have all suggested an end to the US dollar wrecking ball. Now price action is confirming the data as the DXY resolves lower from a pennant formation to fresh multi-month lows. From a weight of the evidence standpoint, the dollar is done, and so are the accompanying headwinds for risk assets.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Check out this week's Momentum Report, our weekly summation of all the major indexes at a Macro, International, Sector, and Industry Group level.

By analyzing the short-term data in these reports, we get a more tactical view of the current state of markets. This information then helps us put near-term developments into the big picture context and provides insights regarding the structural trends at play.

Let's jump right into it with some of the major takeaways from this week's report:

* ASC Plus Members can access the Momentum Report by clicking the link at the bottom of this post.