From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

We saw a decent bounce from the start of the day and then the market sat idle.

$SPY needs to be above 446.80 to really get going higher.

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

Our Hall of Famers list is composed of the 150 largest US-based stocks.

These stocks range from the mega-cap growth behemoths like Apple and Microsoft – with market caps in excess of $2T – to some of the new-age large-cap disruptors such as Moderna, Square, and Snap.

It has all the big names and more.

It doesn’t include ADRs or any stock not domiciled in the US. But don’t worry; we developed a separate universe for that. Click here to check it out.

The Hall of Famers is simple.

We take our list of 150 names and then apply our technical filters so the strongest stocks with the most momentum rise to the top.

Let’s dive right in and check out what these big boys are up to.

Here’s this week’s list:

*Click table to enlarge view

The hunt for premium selling opportunities continues. And today's trade is in a name that is heavily weighted in the Home Construction sector ETF, where options premiums -- sector-wide -- are a bit more elevated than the rest.

Thankfully, October options expiration happens the week before this company releases its next quarterly earnings report, so we don't have any of that event risk to worry about.

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

We had a resting GTC order filled at our profit target in the Paid-to-Play portfolio today:

We had a resting GTC order filled at our profit target in the Paid-to-Play portfolio today:

The largest insider transaction on today’s list comes in a Form 4 filed by Broadwood Capital.

The hedge fund revealed a purchase of $7.8 million in STAAR Surgical Company $STAA, increasing its ownership stake to 18%.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

It's been a very bumpy week, and now we need to see if the indices are going to head higher from here or pull in more.

$SPY support is at 440.

Stocks are messy these days.

The major indexes peaked in July and the new 52-week highs list topped out almost 2 months ago.

This is all perfectly normal market behavior for this time of the year. In fact, if markets were behaving any differently, then THAT would actually be unusual.

Just like over the past 3 quarters. If stocks didn't do as well as they did, again, that would have been weird.

The market continues to behave according to historical trends, obnoxiously so.

And to be clear, it's when the market ignores seasonal tendencies that we want to pay more attention, because THAT is the signal.

In the meantime, we're just chugging along in one of the more normal years for the market that we've ever seen.

While in the process of preparing for this week’s live Options Jam Session, I came across an open trade in $HMC that has been performing quite well for us.

It reminded me that when I wrote about the trade back on May 15th for subscribers, I began the piece with this:

I’m filing today’s trade under the category of “Hard Trades.” Not because it’s particularly hard to execute or because it’s a complicated multi-legged spread. It won’t require an excessive amount of margin to get positioned nor is there any risk of unlimited losses.

It’s hard because people might look at the trading action of the past few days and think that it’s “gone too far” and “I should wait for a pullback.”

And traders who think that way may be right.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

The market pulled in for yet another day.

We'll see if we're flagging to head higher or to see 435 to 440 on $SPY.

Please keep in mind that my shorts are one-tenth of my long trades position-size-wise.

If I stay in a short position for a longer period of time, I add on pops and buy back till I complete the position.

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @sstrazza and Alfonso Depablos @Alfcharts

We held our September Monthly Strategy Session Tuesday night. Premium Members can access and rewatch it here.

Non-members can get a quick recap of the call simply by reading this post each month.

By focusing on long-term, monthly charts, the idea is to take a step back and put things into the context of their structural trends. This is easily one of our most valuable exercises as it forces us to put aside the day-to-day noise and simply examine markets from a “big-picture” point of view.

With that as our backdrop, let’s dive right in and discuss three of the most important charts and/or themes from this month’s call.