In the activist world, Bill Ackman announced that Pershing Square exited its position in Netflix $NFLX, as the stock was plunging lower by 35% on the heels of a disappointing earnings report.

It’s estimated that the hedge fund lost over $400 million on the position, which was just purchased back in January.

From the desk of Louis Sykes @haumicharts

If you've ever been deep in the trenches slinging cryptocurrencies, chances are you're well aware of the infamous liquidation cascade.

For some traders, the thought will send shivers down their backs.

To others, it represents one of the most profitable asymmetries in supply and demand.

The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) is the largest and most sophisticated derivatives exchange for several traditional financial instruments and Bitcoin futures contracts. But there are stringent rules bounding these contracts:

• Each contract is 5 BTC (currently just over $200,000).
• The market is only open Monday through Friday.
• Clients tend to have a good relationship with a broker that's allowed to trade on the CME.

These rules are essentially a risk-mitigation strategy.

In the case of liquidations, if the account reaches negative equity before the liquidation is finished, the trader is liable for the negative amount.

Further, failure to pay this would result in a bankruptcy proceeding, which the broker has to...

We debuted a new scan recently- The Outperformers.

The Outperformers is our newest scan that pinpoints the very best stocks in the market. It’s the fastest, easiest way to find quality names that are primed for major moves.

The goal is that as the market rally progresses, the sector rotation within the market will reflect in this scan. So while our Top/Down Analysis helps us with the broader view of the market, this Bottom/Up scan makes sure that we catch the slightest change in sentiment.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

When investing in the stock market, we always want to approach it as a market of stocks.

Regardless of the environment, there are always stocks showing leadership and trending higher.

We may have to look harder to identify them depending on current market conditions… but there are always stocks that are going up.

The same can be said for weak stocks. Regardless of the environment, there are always stocks that are going down, too. 

We already have multiple scans focusing on stocks making all-time highs, such as Hall of Famers, Minor Leaguers, and the 2 to 100 Club. We filter these universes for stocks that are exhibiting the best momentum and relative strength characteristics. 

Clearly, we spend a lot of time identifying and writing about leading stocks every week, via multiple reports. Now, we're also highlighting lagging stocks on a recurring basis.

Welcome to the Short Report.

We'll publish this...

For this week's trade, buying $XLI January 130 calls for 35 cents or cheaper.

Get the full details, risk management procedures and targets for this trade here:

This is the video recording of our April 20, 2022, Inside Scoop Weekly Strategy Session.

From the desk of Willie Delwiche.

Key Takeaway: That investors are in a dour mood is not in doubt. We just saw the fewest bulls on the AAII survey since 1992 and the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index is about as low as it has ever been. This week has brought news that US equity ETF’s have had outflows in three of the past four weeks. If this is just a pause in what some have called the persistent bid fueled by a move toward index investing, then this too is a bullish development. If, on the other hand, it represents the early stages of passive equity investors becoming disgruntled and looking for other options, then consider it a meaningful increase in equity market risk. Time will tell, but price and breadth improvements would help assuage these concerns. Either way, pessimism is a condition that needs a catalyst to spark a rally. It’s a pile of firewood, but for now it remains unlit. 

Sentiment Report Chart of the Week: Conditions Need Catalysts

A pile of wood does not alone make a campfire. You...

Investor sentiment is bad. Historically bad.

Don't take my word for it. Check it out for yourself.

Sentiment has only been this bearish four times over the last 40 years: Coming out of rampant 1970's inflation, the Savings & Loan crisis of the early 90's, the Great Financial Crisis of 2008-09, and the "Fiscal Cliff" circa 2012.

Do you remember those times?

And you see what happened in the S&P 500 after, right?

Is history going to repeat itself? And if so, how do we protect ourselves and our portfolios from the "risk" of being underinvested if that happens?

In a tape as messy is this, it pays to be patient and only focus on A+ setups.

The names emerging from bases on solid volume are the ones you want to lean on. By slinging names in messy ranges, you'd only be asking to get whipsawed.

We can't help but notice the relative strength coming out from ApeCoin $APE and STEPN $GMT, which we mentioned a few days back.

Both have real nice shapes emerging from their post-ICO bases:

Looking tactically, they both offer us some decent risk-versus-reward for a speculative bet.

The only insider buy on today's Hot List is a Form 4 filing by the CEO of Solo Brands $DTC, who reported a purchase of roughly $486,200.

In the options market, there was bullish options activity in the social media platform Pinterest Inc $PINS and in the retail pharmacy operator Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc.

From the desk of Steven Strazza @Sstrazza and Ian Culley @IanCulley

The US Dollar Index $DXY resumes its relentless march higher.

But the full story surrounding the dollar’s dominance is a bit more complicated.

Lately, we’ve been pounding the table about the narrow scope of the DXY, as 83% of its weightings come from just three currencies – the yen, the pound, and the euro.

All three continue to lose ground versus the dollar, and this is exactly what's driving the rally at the index level.

On the other hand, the USD has not performed as well against other currencies – especially emerging markets and commodity-centric ones. 

While this remains the case, we’re starting to see USD strength expand beyond the major components of the DXY. We're also seeing some nice long-term patterns materialize that favor the US dollar.

A great example is the rounding bottom in the US dollar-Korean won cross – USD/KRW.

Here’s a zoomed...

From the desk of Willie Delwiche.

Participating in strength so far in 2022 provides us with some operational flexibility in our Dynamic Portfolios. But in a market with relatively narrow participation, it can be challenging to find ways to move from strength to strength without becoming too concentrated. That said, we are reducing exposure to some of the strongest areas of the market - taking gains more than expecting weakness. We are finding opportunities to maintain our current exposure to the market, increase our diversification and remain consistent with the message of caution coming from our risk indicators and the weight of the evidence. This remains an environment that favors a dynamic over passive approach and one in which being tactical and cyclical enhance strategic exposure.

There are times when you need to trade like a pig. With these macro conditions, now is not that time.

In those roaring crypto bull markets we've all come to know, bravery is more important than brains. But, in periods like these, traders who are patient get rewarded.

When the market inevitably improves, you can get back to making money instead of picking up pennies to recover from big drawdowns by avoiding the mental hurdle of overtrading.

As we've said before, one of the big characteristics that often differentiates good traders from mediocre ones is the ability to sit out when necessary.

There's that old adage that there are only three short periods each year to make money. Or consider the classic Paul Tudor Jones quote that “markets trend only about 15 percent of the time; the rest of the time they move sideways.”

We can't reiterate this enough; there's a huge difference between looking for a setup and seeing one.

If you go into the market with preconceived notions about how things should be instead of seeing them for how they really are, you might as well go take a punt on the dish lickers.

Follow the money flow....

Today’s Hot List is a short one.

Durable Capital Partners continues to build its position in the language-learning website and mobile app Duolingo Inc $DUOL.

This is the video recording of the April 2022 Mid-month Conference Call.

We discussed:

• The Major U.S. Indexes and Current Technical Analysis
• Commodities making multi-year highs vs Stocks
• Our Sentiment Composite Indicator shows excess Pessimism
• Value Stocks continue to lead vs Growth Stocks
• Energy Stocks and Commodities Trades
• Agriculture Stocks and Commodities
• Base Metals & Precious Metals
• The US Dollar vs US Dollar Index are very different
• Global Markets: Pockets of Strength & Weakness
• Bonds Yields and Yield Curves
• What To Do With These Beat Up Growth Stocks
• Bitcoin Correlations & New Crypto Trade Ideas

We alluded to the strong move that we're observing in the Fertilizers and Chemicals space. Today we're here to take a look at one such stock that just broke out above its resistance and looks good to go!

Read on to know more.

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.

Welcome back to our latest Under the Hood column, where we'll cover all the action for the week ended April 15, 2022. This report is published bi-weekly and rotated with our Minor Leaguers column.

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.

Watch this video for a behind-the-scenes look at our process.

Whether we’re measuring increasing interest based on large...

From the desk of Steve Strazza @sstrazza

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.

They’re doing so for one reason only: because they think the stock is about to move in their...