From the desk of Willie Delwiche.

Earlier this week, I laid out some similarities between now and 2008. From a price, liquidity, breadth and sentiment perspective, the echoes are there. 

The comparisons keep popping up. 

A couple of days ago, there was a chart showing that the ongoing decline in equity market value (relative to GDP) exceeds any other drawdown in the past 40 years with the exception of what was experienced during the Financial Crisis. 

Today, it’s data from Gallup showing economic confidence is at levels only seen in 2008-2009. 

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

It’s another brief Hot List today.

Neil Gagnon, the CEO of Gagnon Advisors LLC, revealed a purchase of approximately 43,200 shares in the small-cap software company SecureWorks Corp $SCWX.

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 the Hall of Famers, the 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.

From the desk of Louis Sykes @haumicharts

One of the greatest features of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies more broadly are the mechanisms that allow for self-custody.

In traditional assets like commodities and fiat, the only way to maintain self-custody of your assets is to inefficiently store them, which comes with a slew of security risks. Given the challenges of burying gold or stashing cash in a mattress, the overwhelming majority of people simply leave this daunting task to a financial intermediary.

The trouble in crypto, however, is the instability among even the most established of firms and institutions. Hacks, breaches, and insolvencies are incredibly commonplace in the world of digital assets. Even a handful of the largest protocols and lenders have gone under, and billions of funds have been lost in recent months.

And when it comes to exchanges -- one of the safer ways to store funds -- hacks have been common over the past few years.

From the desk of Willie Delwiche.

You can pretend the bond market doesn't matter all you want.

But I'm here to tell you that this $115 Trillion + market that we call "bonds" is what's moving things around here.

It starts with credit.

If there is stress in credit, then you're going to see the implications across markets.

Internally, we were talking yesterday about the energy space and the recent pullback in prices. While still the strongest sector in the market in 2022, this move off the highs has been notable.

Is the trend over? Or was that just the "hot money" taking profits?

I'm not sure we have a definitive answer to that question yet. It looks to me that the market is still sorting that out. And this condition of indecision, coupled with high implied volatility priced into options is combining into a nice opportunity to collect some options premium while energy figures itself out.

So we're going to wade into the energy pool with a delta-neutral short-premium options trade.

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

Today’s Hot List is a short one.

Patrick S. Barrett, executive vice-president and CFO of OceanFirst Financial Corp $OCFC, revealed a purchase of approximately 10,500 shares in his own stock.

From the desk of Louis Sykes @haumicharts

One of the great features of technical analysis and classical charting is its universal nature.

Technical analysis is a proven value-add regardless of which asset class you're analyzing, be it equities, commodities, bonds, or even the emerging world of digital assets.

Markets are incredibly sophisticated, with many moving parts. A big misconception about technical analysis held by novice proponents is that fundamentals are of no use.

It's quite the opposite. Fundamentals drive markets.

Particularly when it comes down to long time frames, markets are driven by fundamentals and macroeconomic factors.

On the other hand, technicals help us profit in the direction of those fundamentals. 

Over shorter time frames, markets are driven by speculation and significant players. As a result, technicals and order flow are important to emphasize over these time frames.

Under these conditions, smart players with a lot of size push prices to maximum pain thresholds of the so-called "dumb money."

From the desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

In almost every market environment, there are assets we want to buy and assets we want to sell. That holds even when we think the only option is to sell.

Recently, the strong buys have been in commodities and cyclical areas of the market, while bonds and the major stock indexes have sold off. That's dramatically changed in recent weeks, though.

Now, all the major asset classes –  bonds, stocks, and commodities – are under pressure, as bears come for the leadership groups. It seems nothing is immune to bearish price action these days. 

Despite the broad selling pressure, there's still an asset we want to buy: the US dollar. That’s right, the good old greenback! It’s one thing the bears can’t seem to crack.

If we think about it from an intermarket perspective, a defensive bid for dollars makes sense given the downside pressure on risk assets across the board. We don’t think it’s a coincidence.

Regardless, the USD is strong and shows no signs of changing anytime soon.