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

From the Desk of Steve Strazza and Alfonso Depablos

The largest insider buy on today’s list comes in a Form 4 filing by Cormorant Asset Management LP.

The hedge fund reported a purchase of roughly $19.6 million in Ambrx Biopharma Inc $AMAM.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

FOMC on deck!

Now we'll either see a quick pop up to 447.70 on $SPY or a drop down to 437 to 435.

Pre-market indices are trading higher.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

It was a slow day, and the market just drifted lower.

We'll see what happens tomorrow after the FOMC announcement.

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

Sellers beware! 

The US Dollar Index $DXY is kicking ass and taking names.

The dollar has ripped higher ever since the July failed breakdown.

It’s now challenging fresh six-month highs and a critical former resistance area. 

An upside resolution for King Dollar will undoubtedly pressure risk assets – not the ideal scenario for stock market bulls.

And the dollar rally has plenty of room to run if the DXY is a reliable indicator...

Check out the number of consecutive up-weeks in the lower pane of the US Dollar Index chart:

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

From the Desk of Steve Strazza and Alfonso Depablos

The largest insider buy on today’s list comes in a Form 4 filing by Thurman John Rodgers, director of Enphase Energy Inc $ENPH.

Rodgers reported a purchase of $4 million in ENPH.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

The indices are stuck under their respective moving averages.

This is making it harder to find opportunities to trade.

Is this the world's most important trend that no one is talking about?

How many people do you know would tell you that stocks are already in their 4th year of a downtrend relative to commodities?

In other words, how many people do you know that would argue we are now in year 4 of a Commodities Supercycle?

Here's what this looks like:

This is the video recording of the September 2023 Mid-month Conference Call.

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

Precious metals represent an opportunity cost.

The entire complex – gold, silver, platinum, and palladium – has gone nowhere for the past few years.

Yet I can’t overlook the resilience of gold and silver as interest rates and the US dollar rise – two significant headwinds for these shiny rocks. 

Perhaps they deserve the benefit of the doubt.  

I believe they do.

But extending these lackluster metals with a favorable outlook does not equate to taking a long position.

It’s far from it.

Price must prove buying precious metals offers a rewarding proposition.

The following two intermarket ratios will undoubtedly rise if and when it does.

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza.

Welcome back to Under the Hood, where we'll cover all the action for the week ended September 15, 2023. This report is published bi-weekly and rotated with The Minor Leaguers.

What we do here is analyze the most popular stocks during the week and find opportunities to either join in and ride these momentum names higher, or fade the crowd and bet against them.

We use a variety of sources to generate the list of most popular names.

There are so many new data sources available that all we need to do is organize and curate them in a way that shows us exactly what we want: a list of stocks that are seeing an unusual increase in investor interest.