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

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

The largest insider transaction on today’s list comes in a Form 4 filed by Lloyd M. Yates, director, president and CEO of NiSource Inc $NI.

Yates reported a purchase of 40,000 shares of NI, equivalent to $1,057,600.

With stocks selling off this quarter, the bears are back.

Could you imagine still telling yourself that the rally we got in equities over the past year was a bear market?

What kind of serial killer thinks like that?

A 3-5% correction in some of the major Indexes can cause people to lose their minds.

Heck, you may be wondering yourself if this is the beginning of a huge move lower for stock prices. I certainly am.

Remember, every big move starts with a small one. But not every small move turns into a big one.

That's where Credit Spreads come in. If there is real stress in the market, you're going to see it in credit.

But as stock prices corrected this month, Credit Spreads only got more narrow.

Here's an easy way to view that, comparing the prices of High Yield Bonds vs US Treasury Bonds:

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

It's the last week of August, and the market had a nice recovery on Friday.

We'll see if $SPY 440 holds for a move back to 444 or not.

This is the weekly post that aggregates all the charts we put together throughout the week and organizes them all into one, easy to flip through deck.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza and Alfonso Depablos @AlfCharts

Our Hall of Famers list is composed of the 150 largest US-based stocks.

These stocks range from the mega-cap growth behemoths like Apple and Microsoft – with market caps in excess of $2T – to some of the new-age large-cap disruptors such as Moderna, Square, and Snap.

It has all the big names and more.

It doesn’t include ADRs or any stock not domiciled in the US. But don’t worry; we developed a separate universe for that. Click here to check it out.

The Hall of Famers is simple.

We take our list of 150 names and then apply our technical filters so the strongest stocks with the most momentum rise to the top.

Let’s dive right in and check out what these big boys are up to.

Here’s this week’s list:

*Click table to enlarge view

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

It was a very volatile Friday -- up, down, and all around.

That makes for tough trading, and I told the people in the Live Trading Room the best you can do is to NOT trade today.

That being said...

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley 

“Looks like cocoa and sugar are poised to break out.” 

That’s the first message I saw on my phone this morning as traders across the US were preparing for the upcoming session.

But I wasn’t ready to get behind a tactical move in either cocoa or sugar.

Instead, my full attention rests with one commodity on the precipice of an explosive rally…

Cotton.

Check out the weekly continuation chart of cotton futures:

My eyes have been fixated on cotton since early February.

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

I bought bonds last December and again in March.

I thought it was time to bring these beaten-down assets back into the fold as US Treasuries printed fresh six-month highs.

But I was wrong. 

Fast-forward to today, and the downtrend for bonds remains intact.

And those false breakouts last spring have led to fresh breakdowns as we head into the fall.

The 10- and 30-year futures are flashing sell signals as they undercut their respective March pivot lows.

Now, the shorter end of the curve is doing the same.

Here’s the two-year Treasury note completing a bearish continuation pattern:

Today's trade was crowdsourced in the All Star Options Telegram chat. Thanks to those of you who brainstormed with me.

As you know, I'm on the hunt for rangebound instruments to sell delta-neutral premiums in. The problem is -- it's getting harder to find charts that check all the boxes. I find myself having to make compromises. I can either find good premiums (often at the risk of an earnings event on the horizon), or I can find a stock in a good range. But it's getting harder to find both.

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