From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

The $SPX ran right into resistance today at 3,980 then pulled back in.

We really need above that level to trend higher. It would be best to also hold onto 3,950 on a closing basis.

This is the video recording of the December 8th, 2022, Weekly Town Hall w/ Willie Delwiche.

12/8/22 2:00 PM ET

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

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Welcome to the 2 to 100 Club.

As many of you know, something we've been working on internally is using various bottom-up tools and scans to complement our top-down approach. It's really been working for us!

One way we're doing this is by identifying the strongest growth stocks as they climb the market-cap ladder from small- to mid- to large- and, ultimately, to mega-cap status (over $200B).

Once they graduate from small-cap to mid-cap status (over $2B), they come on our radar. Likewise, when they surpass the roughly $30B mark, they roll off our list.

But the scan doesn't just end there.

We only want to look at the strongest growth industries in the market, as that is typically where these potential 50-baggers come from.

Some of the best performers in recent decades – stocks like Priceline, Amazon, Netflix, Salesforce, and myriad others – would have been on this list at some point during their journey...

This recent risk-off move in the equities market was textbook.

It's no coincidence the S&P 500 sold off at the channel resistance and AVWAP off the highs. We're more or less seeing a confluence of developments skew risk-off over the last few weeks.

The US Dollar Index is at a logical level to bounce, while cyclicals, which have been leaders in the equity markets, are pausing at their August highs.

Meanwhile, most crypto assets are retesting their June lows from the underside.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

Futures are up a bit this morning, but we're still range-bound.

We have data out at 8:30 a.m. ET. We'll see if that has an influence over the market today.

The largest insider transaction on today’s list is a Form 4 filing by Byline Bancorp $BY Director Antonio del Valle Perochena.

Perochena revealed a purchase of BY shares worth $979,055.

In Bull Markets we see more stocks making new highs.

That's just math right?

And when we talk about new highs, you'll often hear people discussing the new 52-week high list.

Until recently, this list was almost non-existent.

So while there's definitely a ton of more action there, we should really be seeing an expansion in new 1-month highs and new 3-month highs.

Crawl before you walk.

If this stock market rally has legs, more new highs is just mathematically necessary for that to occur.

It's a market of stocks.

Here's the 3-month high list on the New York Stock Exchange. An expansion in upside participation will go a long way in proving that, yes, in fact the path of least resistance is higher:

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

This market is range-bound at the moment. $SPY is stuck between 395 and 390.

The market truly might be waiting for next week for a big move. We've got November CPI on Tuesday and the Fed on Wednesday.

From the desk of Willie Delwiche.

Portfolio Update: In our Cyclical portfolio we have moved global equity exposure from Latin America to Europe while in the Tactical Portfolio we are reducing energy exposure to take advantage of shifting global leadership and improving trends from the metals.

From the desk of Willie Delwiche.

The S&P 500 continues to make lower highs as new lows have approached, but not broken below, new highs. This breadth signal occurred as the S&P 500 was peaking in January. It re-emerged near the March and August highs and appears to be doing so again.   

Why It Matters: New high versus new low crossovers are usually fueled more by changes in the new low list than the new high list. New highs edge up slowly in the early stages of a bull market and can peak well before the indexes. The post-COVID bull market was a great example of that. But regardless of the driver, history shows it is important that they take place. As the longest bear market since the Financial Crisis has moved along, investors have been itching to turn more optimistic. But so far the price action (on the surface and below) isn’t doing much to change anyone’s mind or give rise to the increase in bulls needed to have a bull market.

In this week’s Sentiment Report we take a closer look at persistent...

It's hard not to notice the strength we've been seeing in the metals space lately. This surely is getting the Gold Bugs excited.

We wouldn't consider ourselves any kind of "bug," but it's fair to say we're biased toward charts that trend. If line goes up, we like to buy. If line goes down, we like to sell. Simple.

If we can get into an emerging trend early -- so much the better!

"Poor man's gold" (as JC called it), might just be starting a big relative outperformance trend that could spell a big opportunity for us.