[9/21: moved stop to 88]

Fair warning: today's trade is in a company that will be reporting earnings early next week. I generally try to avoid entering trades ahead of earnings. But its that time of the season where its kinda hard to avoid earnings. They are happening. We just have to deal with it.

That said, we'll control what we can control: The amount of risk we take, and our time duration for the position to recover, if needed.

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

The pieces of the puzzle are falling into place. 

Gold priced in USD has finally joined other global currencies, closing last week at an all-time high. Silver, the high-beta play, is outperforming its more reserved cousin (gold). And gold mining stocks are breaking out.

Many of our trade ideas over the past few weeks are working. I believe this trend has just begun and could last for months – or even quarters.

Especially when I consider this next chart…

Check out the VanEck Gold Miners ETF $GDX filling the first of a series of downside gaps:

These gaps represent strong selling pressure during the early stages of last year’s sell-off when the bears were in full control. But in the interim, GDX carved out a multi-month base, repairing the damage. 

Now that the gold bugs have filled the first gap, I’m focusing on the 37 level. A decisive break above that level signifies a close of the breakaway gap that kicked off last year’s downtrend. 

It also coincides with fresh 52-week highs for GDX, lending credence to the bearish-to-bullish trend reversal underway –...

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

Today's most significant insider transaction is a Form 4 filing by Edgar Smith, director at Business First Bancshares $BFST. 

Smith  reported a purchase of BFST shares worth $400,219.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

Happy Monday!

Tech names were strong on Thursday.

We'll see if we get follow-through. $SPY and $QQQ are flagging at the moment.

This is the weekly post that aggregates all the charts we put together throughout the week and organizes them all into one, easy to flip through deck.

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

Precious metals and crude oil stole the show this week.

Crude oil reclaimed its prior-cycle peak, gapping higher on the Sunday open, while gold and silver posted fresh highs. 

I’ll have more on those shiny metals Monday in the weekly Gold Rush report.

Today, I want to bring your attention to a commodity that often escapes the headlines – palladium – and why I think a significant bottom could be in place for this diverse metal.

I say “diverse” because palladium has multiple use-cases, from catalytic converters to fine jewelry.

Around ASC we jokingly refer to palladium as “the Notre Dame of precious metals” because it’s in its own conference. 

Categorizations aside, here are three reasons I believe palladium is a strong buy…

• Commercial Positioning

Commercial hedges hold their largest net-long position in history!

...

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

We filter out any laggards that are down -5% or more relative to the S&P 500 over the trailing month. 

Then...

I recently came across a video on youtube from a very smart man – whom I respect and have had several favorable interactions with – that made me shake my head.

But before I throw any shade on any other professional colleague, let me be the first to say that I’m no genius. My shit stinks too, and I’m sure I’m equally guilty of throwing questionable ideas or thoughts out into the metaverse from time to time. I’m human, just like everyone else.

So here’s what got me rankled.

The video had a catchy title like: “How I made fourteen hundred dollars in one day trading 0-DTE options.”

Ok. I’m interested. I like to make that kinda money each trading day. Tell me more!

The short video went on to demonstrate how this trader sold a slightly out-of-the-money naked put in $SPX...

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

We held our April Monthly Strategy Session on Monday 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.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

For a short week it really was kinda long.

We had a nice consolidation over these four days.

We'll see if we can trend higher next week.

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.

We...