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...

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

The bears have found a new home: gold mining stocks.

Silver’s breakdown earlier this month raised the caution flag for the entire precious metals space. 

Less than two weeks later, gold futures and mining stocks are falling under the wrath of increased selling pressure. Precious metals bears are winning the battle as support levels fall to the wayside. 

Meanwhile, the bulls are reluctant to leave without a fight…

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

The market was all over the place today.

Look, we're waiting for the debt ceiling negotiations to end before the market makes its next move.

That's the deal... or no deal.

The bears have found a new home: gold mining stocks.

Silver’s breakdown earlier this month raised the caution flag for the entire precious metals space. 

Less than two weeks later, gold futures and mining stocks are falling under the wrath of increased selling pressure. Precious metals bears are winning the battle as support levels fall to the wayside. 

Meanwhile, the bulls are reluctant to leave without a fight…

Let’s review the recent action in mining stocks.

While I always prefer a price chart, I also like Grant’s moving average tables.

He measures the closing prices of all 30 components of the PHLX Gold and Silver Mining Index $XAU against (above or below) multiple moving averages, from five days at the far left of the table to 250 days at the far right.

This provides an excellent read on trends across multiple timeframes.

Here’s the table heading into the May 5 close:

A sea of green! Sellers hadn’t made their way to these mining names just yet.

Fast-forward a couple weeks, and the study presents a far different picture:

Red dominates the table across shorter time frames, displacing the...

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:

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

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

The largest insider buy on today’s list comes in a Form 4 filing by the president of Gen Digital Inc $GEN, Ondrej Vlcek.

Vlcek revealed a purchase of 300,000 shares, equivalent to $4.7 million.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

We're still waiting on debt ceiling negotiations.

The indices pulled back on Friday.

Some things are changing.

Have you noticed?

Let's keep something in mind. During healthy market environments, you historically see correlations falling.

It's when volatility spikes in bear markets that correlations all go to 1.

So are these recent divergences just further evidence that this is a strong market for stocks?

The breadth expansion and sector rotation we keep seeing certainly points to that.

So let's take a look.