Am I tinkering with new ideas, new money management algorithms, new mindsets, new products, new timeframes, or new workflows?
We don’t need to be trying all new things all the time. But spending time thinking about divergent ideas is a valuable practice.
When we exercise our creative muscles, we might find nothing other than a journey down an empty rabbit hole. But sometimes, we have epiphany moments that change the way we operate. These can be minor, value-added ways – or maybe even drastic, wholesale change kinds of ways.
Going back to 1950, the S&P 500 has always always been higher one year after midterm elections than it was on election day. But over the shorter-term, the market has had a more mixed reaction to the votes being cast and counted.
Why It Matters: Investors are looking for a catalyst that could help 2022 finish on a more positive note and allow 2023 to begin with some positive momentum. There is no denying the historical pattern for stocks to rally in the wake of midterm elections. No doubt there will be pockets of strength in this cycle as well. Some of the dominant themes that have been present already in 2022 (e.g. more volatility than strength and a deteriorating liquidity backdrop) argues for seeing evidence of strength before embracing the pattern.
Sentiment, volatility, and momentum thrusts have all suggested an end to the US dollar wrecking ball. But price hasn’t indicated any significant weakness in the structural trend.
The absence of confirming price action has made it impossible to take a bearish USD stance.
It's nearly impossible to switch off when you're invested in crypto.
I'm a little jealous of those solely involved with legacy markets; it must be nice to have an off-switch. In this part of the financial world, there's always something happening.
And my passion for the space often makes it difficult for me to let go.
But, last weekend, my hand -- indeed, my whole body -- was forced. A night in the ER and a few days bedridden with a gnarly viral infection overwhelmed my ardor for fake internet coins.
Happy to report I'm recovering. And here's me after I stumbled to my computer to catch up on the action:
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 Trade Exchange. 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'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.
