What's the best crypto trade on the books right now?

For us, it's been pretty simple.

While everything else has been a complete mess, there's been one name that's really stood out on all of our scans.

You know what I'm about to say...

Abdiel Capital filed a Form 4 yesterday revealing a purchase of an additional 105,500 shares in the software company Appian Corp $APPN.

The firm also made a large purchase in February in the amount of roughly $6.5 million. It now owns nearly 6 million shares of APPN, representing an ownership stake of approximately 14%.

Another software stock, Shift4 Payments $FOUR, had insider activity reported, as the chairman of the board and CEO, Jared Isaacman, filed a Form 4 revealing a purchase worth approximately $1.7 million. 

Isaacman now owns 334,742 shares of FOUR.

Price trends have been a tad bit clear in the week gone by and some of that has translated to new trade ideas. This week we're looking at a name from the Consumer Durables sector.

Let's take a look at the trade for this week!

We retired our "Five Bull Market Barometers" in 2020 to make room for a new weekly post that's focused on the three most important charts for the week ahead.

This is that post, so let's jump into this week's edition.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Welcome to our latest Minor Leaguers report.

We’ve had some great trades come out of this small-cap-focused column since we launched it back in 2020 and started rotating it with our flagship bottom-up scan, Under the Hood.

We recently decided to expand our universe to include some mid-caps…

For the first year or so, we focused only on Russell 2000 stocks with a market cap between $1B and $2B.

That was fun, but we wanted to branch out a bit and allow some new stocks to find their way onto our list.

The way we did this is simple…

To make the cut for our new Minor Leaguers list, a company must have a market cap between $1B and $4B.

And it doesn’t have to be a Russell component–it can be any US-listed equity. With participation expanding around the globe, we want all those ADRs in our universe.

The same price and...

From the desk of Steve Strazza @sstrazza

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.

We also weed out hedging activity and ensure there are no offsetting trades that either neutralize or cap the risk on these unusual options trades.

What remains is a list of stocks that large financial institutions are putting big money behind.

And they’re doing so for one reason only: because they think the stock is about to...

From the desk of Willie Delwiche.

It has an ominous name, but not much of a signal. The so-called “Death Cross” occurs when the 50-day average closes below the 200-day average. Today, for the 25th time since 1970, that will happen for the S&P 500. This table shows both where the S&P 500 tends to be in relation to its peak when these Death Crosses have occurred in the past and the experience of the index in the wake of past crosses.

In aggregate, forward returns following Death Crosses are not meaningfully different from any random day in the market over the past 50 years. This is more noise than news and these crosses mostly reflect an index that has pulled back from its peak. The S&P 500 is currently 13% below its January peak, which puts the current Death Cross in line with the historical pattern. The relationship between the 50-day average and the 200-day average describes an environment but is not likely to shape the path going forward.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Our Top 10 Charts Report was just published.

In this weekly note, we highlight 10 of the most important charts or themes we're currently seeing in asset classes around the world.

False Start of Failed Breakout?

The markets have been a bifurcated mess for more than a year now. During this time the relative strength from commodities and commodity-related stocks has stood out. Both have been on a tear and continue to rip higher. But despite the broad strength in commodities, Copper has gone nowhere since many risk assets peaked in May of last year.

That changed last week when Copper printed fresh all-time highs. Those new highs were short-lived though, as price quickly slipped back within its prior range. So was last week’s move in Copper a false start or a failed breakout? As any good technician, we want to err in the direction of the underlying trend, which is higher. But, we need to see prices agree before we have any conviction. For now, we want to remain patient and look to the key risk ratios and the bond market for clues to Copper’s next directional move. The direction in which...

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:

• Our macro universe was red this week, with 85% of our list closing lower with a median return of -1.95%.
• This week, US 10-Year Yield $TNX was the winner, closing with a massive 16.24% gain.
• The biggest loser was Copper $HG, with a weekly loss of -6.35%.
• There was an 11% drop in the percentage of assets on our list within 5% of their 52-week highs – currently at 19%.
• 13% of our macro list made fresh 4-week highs,...

We've been overly obnoxious with our tone of mostly staying out of the Crypto market and playing defense.

There's been so little to discuss and so few actionable trades that our priority right now is waiting for reliable signals to suggest a resolution from this trading range.

Price action in most crypto assets is still range-bound. It appears 46,000 is the critical level for bulls to reclaim.

There are many mixed signals, so we have no read on current price action as of the writing of this report.

In light of global events, we're seeing significant market reactions all over the place. And it seems like the narrative changes on a daily basis. Now more then ever, as a Trader, is it important to turn off the news and follow price. Price doesn't lie.

One trend that has been signficant and showing no signs of stopping is the bullish breakouts we're seeing in energy, commodities, and materials.

And today's name is one of the bellwethers in the space that is beginning to breakout from a multi-year base.

In today’s action, there was a large inside purchase reported by Sequoia Capital in the food delivery company DoorDash $DASH.

Sequoia has been a long-time investor in the stock.

In other insider purchases, Durable Capital Partners reported a buy worth roughly $5 million in Duolingo $DUOL.

And an Ambarella $AMBA director disclosed a purchase of just over $1 million in his company’s stock.

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway $BRK.A also disclosed more buying in Occidental Petroleum $OXY.