I F*d up.

And when I do, I usually suffer the consequences – almost without exception.

But today is one of those exceptions. Thankfully.

Recently, in an effort to fade the rising volatility in the options market arising from the 3-4 week pullback from recent stock market highs, I sold naked puts in a large cap stock – Occidental Petroleum $OXY.

I like the name for a number of reasons, the most prominent being that Warren Buffett (Berkshire Hathaway) has been acquiring large blocks of stock just below current levels. This is support.

So when the broader markets were continuing their slide a couple of weeks ago, I felt $OXY was a high probability bet to hold these levels until the mini-market panic cooled off, and selling premium via $OXY puts seemed like an intelligent way to play it.

So far so good.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Welcome to our latest Minor Leaguers report.

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.

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.

Silver futures slide to multi-month lows, undercutting a critical shelf of former support.

Regardless, we believe precious metals and their related stocks ultimately resolve higher, printing fresh all-time highs.

But before we can put money behind this bullish thesis, interest rates and the US dollar need to stop rising.

Check it out:

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

Silver futures have undercut a critical shelf of former lows.

I find it difficult to hold a bullish bias for precious metals and mining stocks, at least from a tactical perspective.

And when I zoom out to longer time frames, overhead supply looms large across the entire space.

Understand, I believe precious metals and their related stocks ultimately resolve higher, printing fresh all-time highs. 

But before we can put money behind this bullish thesis, these next three charts need to throw it in reverse…

It's the weekly commodity edition of What the FICC?

Coffee, cocoa, and OJ are all ripping higher.

So can we extend an underlying bullish thesis for ag commodities to the grain contracts traded on the CBOT?

I don’t think it’s that simple. Regardless, I want to be prepared if and when the Chicago grain markets break out…

It's the weekly bond edition of What the FICC?

The narrative is quickly shifting back to tighter monetary policy following last week’s higher-than-anticipated CPI and strong economic data.

With these newfound recessionary fears circulating, I want to share a chart I like to avoid… The 2s10s treasury spread.

In some market environments Technology, and other sectors full of growth stocks, tend to outperform.

Usually interest rates are falling in that type of market.

You got a good dose of that for about decade.

US Stocks were the global leaders while Europe and other parts of the world, without that exposure to growth, made little progress.

See here.

And now with interest rates rising, other sectors have emerged as leaders. Industrials, for example.

This is all perfectly normal for this type of environment. We've seen it before, and to expect anything else would be irresponsible.

There was a time where Tech stocks were the leadership group.

That time is behind us.

You could wish and pray and hope that it becomes that environment once again.

Or you can live in reality.

That's up to you.

Look at Materials, for example, holding above all that former support from the past couple years. If $XLB is above 80, this is sector we need to own:

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

Earlier this week we held our February Monthly Conference Call, which Premium Members can access and rewatch here.

In this post, we’ll do our best to summarize it by highlighting five of the most important charts and/or themes we covered, along with commentary on each

Let’s get right into it!

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

I can’t stop talking about the softs trading on the NYMEX.

Coffee, cocoa, and OJ are all ripping higher. It seems only a matter of time before sugar and cotton join the fun.  

So can we extend an underlying bullish thesis for ag commodities to the grain contracts traded on the CBOT?

I don’t think it’s that simple. Regardless, I want to be prepared if and when the Chicago grain markets break out…

Let’s review the most actively traded contracts for corn and the soybean complex. First up…

Corn

Here’s the May corn futures contract:

There are two ways to play it.

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 which you can check out here.

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: