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

With stocks off to a very strong start to the year, we're certainly setting ourselves up for a positive January.

There is still about a week left, but the S&P500 is already up 4.7% so far this month.

Historically, if we finish up, and it looks like the chances of that are high, then it bodes very well for stocks throughout the rest of the year.

The largest insider buy on today's list is a Form 4 filing by EcoR1 Capital LLC, which reported a purchase of roughly $2.9 million in Zymeworks Inc $ZYME.

EcoR1 Capital also filed a Form 13G, disclosing a stake of 7.80% in the cancer biotech stock Janux Therapeutics $JANX.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

The futures are indicating lower this morning. A healthy digesting is warranted.

I'd like to see 396, roughly, held over the next few days on $SPY.

If we push past 402.70, then we can potentially see 405, the next level above.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza.

Welcome back to Under the Hood, where we'll cover all the action for the week ended January 20, 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.

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.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Check out this week's Momentum Report, our weekly summation of all the major indexes at a Macro, International, Sector, and Industry Group level.

By analyzing the short-term data in these reports, we get a more tactical view of the current state of markets. This information then helps us put near-term developments into the big picture context and provides insights regarding the structural trends at play.

Let's jump right into it with some of the major takeaways from this week's report:

* ASC Plus Members can access the Momentum Report by clicking the link at the bottom of this post.

Macro Universe:

It's the weekly Gold Rush!

The intermarket landscape provides favorable conditions for precious metals as the US dollar experiences an unabated decline.

Check it out...

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

I mentioned in this morning's note that $SPY had a date with 400.

We hit that level and ran to 402.60, which was top of the Bollinger band.

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

Gold is running into supply.

Whether the former 2011 highs still hold any psychological significance doesn’t matter.

Gold bulls continue to find an overwhelming amount of sellers at that level. This will remain the case until demand absorbs supply.

How long will that take? It’s anyone’s guess – maybe weeks, perhaps even months or quarters.

The point is, gold needs time.

Meanwhile, silver futures are coiling within a tight range…

Check out the daily chart of gold’s crazy cousin:

The S&P 500 has rallied off of its October and December lows, but the 200-day average, which rolled over in April 2022, continues to fall.

The Bull has been rolling. Have you noticed? Judging by the response I got from an innocent little bullish tweet last week during the midst of a mild pullback for stocks, you'd think I'm insane for thinking stocks have a chance to go up.

So many angry people looking for lower prices.

Maybe they'll be right someday? Chances aren't zero.

Meanwhile, I'll just keep paying attention to price and relative strength which is an excellent guide to point me into winning trades in any direction.

So for today's trade, we're going to ignore the digital assaults on our senses by the angry bears and get analog in our approach to riding this bullish wave.