The largest insider buy on today’s list comes in a Form 4 filing by Texas Capital Bancshares $TCBI director Robert W. Stallings.

Stallings reported a purchase of roughly $1 million of TCBI stock.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

Today was the first real breakdown for the indices, with $IWM leading the way.

For $SPY and $QQQ it was the first real break below their respective 21-day moving averages.

The largest insider transaction on today’s list comes in a Form 4 filing by Ares Management.

Ares revealed a purchase of roughly $4.1 million in Frontier Communications Parent $FYBR.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

This market is completely stuck in a range, and we haven't been able to get out of it for at least two weeks.

This morning the indices are back near yesterday’s low.

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...

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 Kimmy Sokoloff

I think this market might be on hold till Big Tech earnings are behind us.

Time will tell.

Today’s Hot List is a short one.

The most significant insider transaction is a 13D filed by Perceptive Advisors.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

We have a big week ahead of us as far as earnings go.

The indices have been holding on for the past two weeks, but we've barely gone anywhere.

You want to talk about trends?

The biggest trend I see is that stocks keep going up in price, but investors are more pessimistic than ever.

I don't understand...

What are people so angry about? Why are they so scared?

Barron's latest Big Money poll shows that out of the 130 managers polled only 6% of their clients were bullish.

lol 6%?

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

Today was monthly options expiration, and it was slim pickings.

Fridays are always hard to trade, as you can see below: not much movement.

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza and Alfonso Depablos @AlfCharts

With earnings season underway, financials are making a statement this week.

The first few weeks of reporting are always heavy with banks and financial stocks. As these are the market laggards, we knew we would get some critical information from their earnings reactions.

While it hasn't been fireworks to the upside by any means, there also hasn't been much downside from these stocks.

It is never a bad thing if the bears can't take down the weakest stocks. That's what is going on right now.

Meanwhile, more and more bullish setups keep crossing our desk. It's all very constructive.

Let's talk about two we like right now.