From the Desk of Willie Delwiche.

Nearly three-quarters of the way through Q4 earnings season, two things stand out: stocks that have reported earnings misses have been less severely punished than in the past and an increasing number of companies are having their earnings estimates for the coming year revised higher. 

Why It Matters: This earnings season has hardly been spectacular and the percentage of companies beating estimates has been below average. Aggregate earnings numbers may (or may not) need to be revised lower as we move through 2023. But at this point, the worst case scenarios are not playing out and that has left plenty of folks offsides. Investors have moved to embrace the strength we have seen so far in 2023 and analysts are running higher numbers through their models. After seeing fewer and fewer upward revisions to earnings estimates in H2 2021 and H1 2022, the trend stabilized over the second half of last year and for now is ticking higher. The market doesn’t tend to get into too much trouble when analysts have...

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

I want to share with you a trade idea I wouldn’t have considered a year ago.

I balked at first. This trade’s simply not in my wheelhouse. But I’ve learned so much here at All Star Charts over the past three years.

And "to be open-minded" has been one of the most impactful lessons. 

Now, this setup has my full attention. Risk is well-defined, and the upside potential is heavily skewed in our favor.

I can see the spin on the pitch.

I’m talking about natural gas…

Before I lay out the levels, let’s step back and look at the big picture.

Natural gas stocks, represented by the Natural Gas ETF $FCG, haven't experienced the same extreme sell-off as natural gas futures $NGF:

In fact, they’re hanging tough much like other energy stocks. We’ve seen this before with crude oil and the Energy Sector ETF $XLE in recent quarters. 

So far, crude oil is carving out a base while XLE continues its...

This is the video recording of our February 10, 2023, All Star Charts Crypto Weekly Strategy Session.

Strazza and I did The Flow show earlier this week in which one trade that stood out and caught my interest was a juicy short squeeze candidate.

Checking back on it today, the stock still maintains a short position greater than 20%. That means more than one-fifth of all shares outstanding are held by people with a short position. And if this stock starts busting higher, the only way traders holding a short position can end the pain is to buy the stock.

This can potentially fuel a rapid rise in share prices (see: Gamestop $GME circa early 2020).

I'm certainly not calling for a repeat of past meme stocks short squeezes here, but in this case, we've got a stock that's chart is in the middle of completing a beautiful base and short holders are no doubt keeping their fingers near the trigger to exit this position quickly if we see some follow thru to the upside.

That creates opportunities for us.

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

The largest insider buy on today’s list comes in a Form 4 filing by Bryant R. Riley, the chairman and CEO of B. Riley Financial $RILY.

Riley reported a purchase of $5.4 million worth of RILY stock.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

I'll say this again, as I say it in the live trading room often: In a great bull market, you don't see this level of volatility.

This is not to say we can’t come out of this chop and slop. But, at the moment, we're still in the vortex.

It's the weekly bond edition of What the FICC?

I thought it was odd bonds didn't react to last week's rate hike. Regardless, the lack of volatility represents a positive development for risk assets, especially stocks.

Check it out!

I’ve been enjoying a (new to me) book recently. Today, I came across this passage that stopped me in my tracks:

Trading is a journey, not a destination. So you’re a trader. Now what? Trading is a constant process of intellectual and emotional growth, and people who trade for twenty years are still learning what to do and who to be when they finally hang it up.

From Street Freak, A Memoir of Money and Madness, by Jared Dillian.

It was almost like Jared was staring at me when he typed those words.

They hit home.

I’ve been in this game for over 20 years now. This coming summer will be the start of my 25th year!

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

It was a wild day, once again.

I thought we were going to have movement higher if we were able to break above $SPY 414.5.

But it was a no-go. We headed back downhill.