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

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

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

The investment management company revealed a purchase of $1.9 million in Mercury Systems $MRCY.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

The dollar is rising, and it's above its 200-day moving average. $SPY is still under resistance at 440.60.

I'll be truthful, not many names are interesting to me. Retail is taking a beating.

Maybe we can bottom-fish, although it's very risky.

The longer I’ve been in this business of trading, the more I’ve come to realize that “get better at smarter trading” is not the answer to the question: “How do I make more money as a Trader?”

Yes, we can all be better at regime detection, trade selection, strategy selection, optimal position sizing, risk management, and profits management. There will never not be room for improvement in these realms.

However, to me, the real answer lies somewhere off the charts. Away from the screens. Outside of our office or wherever we get work done.

The answer is located someplace closer to where we unwind. Where we exercise. Where we meditate. Where we reconnect with the important people and places in our lives. Where we rejuvenate our souls.

It’s becoming all too clear to me that one of the keys to optimal performance is to make sure our bodies and minds are right. And that ain’t gonna happen while hunched over a computer screen or mobile device.

The key to optimal performance is

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

It's a very sloppy and choppy market, and it's hard to trade.

$SPY closed its opening gap up.

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

The largest insider transaction on today’s list comes in a Form 4 filed by Kelcy Warren, chairman and CEO of Energy Transfer Partners $ET.

Warren reported a purchase of roughly $38.8 million.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

On Monday morning I said $SPY could have potential to 441, and on Tuesday morning we're there.

That was a nice reversal yesterday off the 435 level, and now the question is will we push to 444.

Look at this mess.

The S&P500 is stuck below overhead supply, as we've discussed plenty around here.

And it's happening at a time that the S&P500 is supposed to be a mess. So this is perfectly normal.

Nevertheless, this is the predicament that S&Ps currently find themselves in...

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza.

Welcome back to Under the Hood, where we'll cover all the action for the week ended August 18, 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...

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...