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

We had a resting GTC order filled at our profit target in the Paid-to-Play portfolio today:

What a sloppy tape.

Don't let these drawdowns fool you; there is nothing stopping this market from getting worse. Over the last week, we've seen even more downside participation manifest, with many coins taking out their most recent November pivot lows.

It's just terrible.

The largest insider buy on today’s list comes in a Form 4 filing by Durable Capital Partners.

The hedge fund reported a purchase of $7.6 million of Duolingo $DUOL stock.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

The futures were wild last night after the Bank of Japan intervention and then steadily crawled their way back.

I'm watching 378 on $SPY. Should we break below that level, we could see 375.

All hell seems to be breaking loose at the BOJ.

I'm not going to pretend to know, or care. But I can tell you that Yen traders like it.

And investors in precious metals sure as hell love it.

These are good things to wake up to if you're long gold and silver:

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Welcome to The Minor Leaguers.

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.

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

We expanded our universe to include some mid-caps.

To make the cut for our Minor Leaguers list, a company must have a market cap between $1 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 liquidity filters are applied. Then, as always, we sort by proximity to new highs in...

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.

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...

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.

Banks Tank

The SPDR Regional Banking Index (KRE) registered its lowest weekly close since January 2021 as it threatens to break down from a topping pattern. In addition, the price is violating its AVWAP from the March 2020 lows, and momentum is hitting oversold conditions. If KRE is below this polarity zone ~58, the path of least resistance is lower, and we should be prepared for a leg to the downside.

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:

• This week, our macro universe was negative, as 83% of our list closed lower with a median return of -1.66%.
• Crude Oil $CL was the winner, closing with a 4.60% gain.
• The biggest loser was Lumber $LB, with a weekly loss of -5.84%.
• There was a 2% drop in the percentage of assets on our list within 5% of their 52-week highs – currently at 2%.
• 13% of our macro list made fresh 4-week highs, and 11% made new 13-week...

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

We filled the gap down on the $SPX at 3,818 and the market continued lower.

$QQQ closed its respective gap as well.

Sector-level trends are deteriorating - every previous time this happened this year, the S&P 500 went on to make new lows. 

More Context: Our sector-level trend indicator looks at momentum, price and breadth trends across the 11 S&P 500 sectors. It captures the breadth of these trends more than the intensity (the table inside the report shows the details). The mix of trends has ebbed and flowed by indicator and by sector this year. But every previous time the composite indicator has dropped below zero since the S&P 500 peaked in January, new lows have followed. If that pattern holds, the S&P 500 could soon find itself testing its October low (which is not what many of the seasonal studies would suggest is likely right now).      

In our Market Notes, we take a Deeper Look at the price evidence arguing for & against a test of the Q4 lows and what that could mean in the context of a challenging longer-term trend environment.