From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

What a week, though we've been pretty much range-bound.

Yesterday we started to dip in the late afternoon.

I’m in the process of creating a formal “business plan” for one of my trading strategies.

In 2002, I went through an arduous experience of creating an operating agreement, disclosure documents, and strategy explainers to attract investors as I built a small commodities hedge fund from scratch. Ignorance was bliss.

It was a chore, but a worthwhile investment in my time and energy because I ultimately won the business and started the fund. Success!

Now I’m entertaining the idea of managing OPM (other people’s money) again, and I’m reminded of the rewards of this process.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

Wild action again today...

We were down in the morning, then we rallied for a bit till about 2:00 p.m. ET, then we had a complete fade into the close.

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

What caught my attention following the SVB collapse wasn’t the headlines so much as how the markets handled the news and the stress that followed.

It’s difficult to find the silver lining of one of the largest bank failures since the financial crisis. But I’m more of a glass-half-full kind of guy.

Despite the relentless barrage of negative headlines, it’s undeniable that risks have been contained, and the markets have weathered the storm – at least for now.

Investors ditched equities and ran to the safety of US Treasury bonds as the saga unfolded. It was like the good old days when stocks were risk assets, and bonds acted like – well, bonds!

Now that the dust has settled, I believe the renewed classic intermarket relationship between stocks and bonds and the familiar patterns of risk-on/risk-off behavior bodes well for the overall market.

Especially when you consider easing volatility…

Here’s an overlay chart of the Bond Volatility Index $MOVE and the S&P 500 Volatility Index $VIX:

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

The weakness in the US Dollar over the past couple of quarters comes as no surprise to us.

The journalists nailed it again.

What else is new?

But here's what really has surprised me.

If you would have told me in September that the Dollar would fall apart over the next 2 quarters, I would have told you that precious metals are likely doing well in that environment. I would have also said that Silver would outperform Gold during that period.

In this case I would have been absolutely right.

Great.

But what I would have also been confident about is foreign equities doing well in that weaker Dollar environment.

And while I would have also been correct in that guess, I would have definitely told you that it would be Emerging Markets outperforming, not Developed Markets.

And that would have been very wrong.

It's been the Developed Markets outside the U.S. that have been dominating the equities markets over the past couple of quarters. Look at the performance of these assets since the Dollar peaked:

Today’s Hot List is a short one.

The most significant insider transaction is a 13D filed by Redmile Group.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

It's a real tug of war between the bulls and the bears.

Each day we start the morning lower, and then we gradually trend higher.

Someone will win soon.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Monday night we held our March Monthly Conference Call, which Premium Members can access and rewatch here.

In this post, we’ll do our best to summarize it by highlighting five of the most important charts and/or themes we covered, along with commentary on each

Let’s get right into it!

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.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

Same action, different day: a morning drop, then a rally as the day goes along.

This slow melt-up is very boring, like watching paint dry.

For a swing trader like me, earnings season is always tough. I often find myself in a situation where my favorite setups have a looming earnings release on the nearby horizon, introducing binary risks that make me uncomfortable.

And this season is no different. All of my favorite setups right now are fraught with earnings risk.

But I've found one opportunity where a pending earnings release may actually benefit us, allowing us to get positioned at attractive prices for a post-earnings run.