From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

On Monday morning I said $SPY could have potential to 441, and on Tuesday morning we're there.

That was a nice reversal yesterday off the 435 level, and now the question is will we push to 444.

Look at this mess.

The S&P500 is stuck below overhead supply, as we've discussed plenty around here.

And it's happening at a time that the S&P500 is supposed to be a mess. So this is perfectly normal.

Nevertheless, this is the predicament that S&Ps currently find themselves in...

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza.

Welcome back to Under the Hood, where we'll cover all the action for the week ended August 18, 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.

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.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

I believe we're in wait-and-see mode until Friday!

It's a "What Will Jerome Say?" market.

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

Gold is hanging on for dear life.

Rising interest rates and a strengthening dollar create formidable headwinds for the shiny yellow rock.

I remain optimistic for the entire precious metals space, but hope is not a viable trading strategy – especially if gold undercuts its 2011 highs.

Some gold bugs may find it difficult to accept, but gold’s a short if and when it decisively closes below its prior commodity supercycle peak.

And it’s trading back at those former highs today…

This trade doesn't need a long-winded send-up. Because it's the same story as the trade we put on in $FCX on Friday.

So let's get right to it.

Here's the trade:

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

Gold is hanging on for dear life.

Rising interest rates and a strengthening dollar create formidable headwinds for the shiny yellow rock.

I remain optimistic for the entire precious metals space, but hope is not a viable trading strategy – especially if gold undercuts its 2011 highs.

Some gold bugs may find it difficult to accept, but gold’s a short if and when it decisively closes below its prior commodity supercycle peak.

And it’s trading back at those former highs today…

Let’s review the levels.

Check out the monthly candlestick chart of gold futures:

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

The largest insider transaction on today’s list comes in a Form 4 filed by Sylebra Capital Ltd.

The hedge fund reported a purchase of 415,751 shares of Impinj Inc, equivalent to $25.2 million.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

Some would say this is a big week.

With the Fed's Jackson Hole Economic Symposium on deck, all eyes will be on Jerome Powell.

Now we need to see if this rally lasts.

If so, $SPY has near-term potential to 441.

Are we all just going to assume that these consolidations in interest rates are about to resolve higher?

Seems like everyone around me considers this breakout to be foregone conclusion: