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...
Welcome back to Under the Hood, where we'll cover all the action for the week ended March 31, 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.
Click here for a behind-the-scenes look at our process.
Whether we’re measuring increasing interest based on large institutional purchases, unusual options activity, or...
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Many of you know that my all time favorite options trades are simple long calls on stocks making new all-time highs. And when you add in a big round number up ahead within spitting distance, it's hard for me not to get excited.
So we're going to put on a short-term play to catch those rolls in $MCD while they're hot!
I thought March was supposed to be a seasonally weak period for gold.
I guess I was wrong.
Instead of rolling over, gold almost posted double-digit returns last month, while the higher beta plays (silver futures and mining stocks) soared.
As you might expect, many of the bullish trade ideas I laid out last month are working.
And, today, I have two new setups for you to check out…
Before I get to the trades, check out the closing prices on this gold monthly candlestick chart:
I use monthly charts to reconnect with the underlying trend after weeks of following daily price swings.
It’s easily one of my best practices. But it’s not all about the structural trend.
The monthly close carries weight, much like the weekly and daily closes. It marks the end of a time series and an agreement between buyers and sellers.
Notice support came in at its former 2011 monthly closing high at approximately 1,830 – an excellent example of the principle of polarity.
Gold also finished the month within ten dollars of a new all-time high. So close!
It's a list of the most important stocks in the most important country on the planet.
Find me a better index.
You can't. I've looked.
And when you look underneath the surface at the components of the Dow, you'll notice that its Advance-Decline line is pressing up against all-time highs.