Spotify is trading in the spot where we can get paid on follow-thru back toward all-time highs. But we don't necessarily need it to get all the way there for us to earn profits on today's trade.

Here's a chart of $SPOT:

The speculative juices are returning to the cryptocurrency space, and the bulls are starting to reemerge from the shadows as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, and many of the smaller (MOAR!) speculative names are starting some eye-popping gains.

As equities traders, we don't have a proper spot ETF to play anything in the crypto space, but the closest thing we have is Microstrategy $MSTR.

So we're going to use this vehicle to make a speculative bet on a potential upside-down waterfall move in Bitcoin.

Today's trade has me thinking of this classic corny joke from Pulp Fiction:

One of the strongest sectors out there right now is banking. Particularly regional banks. And as we head into year-end, the catch-up trade is real and money managers chasing alpha are looking into some beaten-up names in the regional banks to get the juice they need to make their year.

This plays in favor of today's trade which has a yawning gap to fill which is likely to overshoot on the upside if a broader market melt-up is in the cards (narrator: we think it is).

Check out this chart of KeyCorp $KEY:

I'm beginning to sound like a broken record regarding "hard trades," but they just keep working. Look at COIN and UBER as examples.

Today's trade is in a software name that has two things going for it right now:

1. it's hard.
2. it's a potential "catch up" trade.

The hard trades continue to work, and I shouldn't argue with the market's message.

And right now, the market is telling me there are opportunities in Chinese stocks.

Today's trade is in a Chinese education company that promises to teach us something valuable.

During our Analyst meeting this morning, the idea I brought to the table was a long bet in Cloudflare $NET.

I like that it's just starting to break above a level of resistance that has been in place for the better part of two years.

My initial thought was to make a short-term tactical bet on a run to $100, but then I noticed that in the June options expiration series, the highest strike available is $110. Clearly the CBOE doesn't read All Star Charts research and our belief that this stock could touch $130 per share over the next 3-6 months!

Check out this chart of $NET and you'll see a move to $130 doesn't seem that outlandish at all:

Ok, I took some liberties with today's title. I can already hear JC groaning. Blog post titles are not my strength. I accept this.

A book I recently read (Number Go Up), and today's trade in $LIN inspired my thinking about lines going up.

Moving on, let's get into what we like about this stock and how we're playing it with options.

If a new leg of the bull market is just getting started, positioning in the leaders should pay off well. With this in mind, we're going to get involved in a name everyone knows and uses -- Amazon. The odds are good that Amazon will deliver profits to those well-positioned for a run.

Implied volatility in the options affords us the luxury to go further out in time for our thesis to play out, but we're going to cap our upside both because we think there will be some upside resistance that comes into play and also to increase our odds of success.

Me and Steve Strazza were kicking around ideas today on the Flow Show. And one solid idea we landed on was $IBM.

Good 'ole Big Blue looks like it wants to take on a shade of green.

We're getting involved!

The Analysts here are getting all bulled up on Nuclear energy. And for good reason -- some good clean charts.

One of the sector leaderss is showing signs of resolving a base that began forming in September after an impressive doubling off the lows set this Spring.

Objects in motion tend to stay in motion (I heard this once in a high school science class).

The stock is cheap and we can leverage into it to really juice our gains with out-of-the-money call options.

Today, a "darling" company in the media thanks to new obesity drugs and other good news hitting the media airwaves is selling off. In fact, its having its worst day relative to its sector peers in many years.

Someone forgot to tell Eli Lilly $LLY that a new bull market run may recently have gotten under way. Of course, it was already way ahead of the game. In fact, look at this long-term chart:

These aren't usually the trends I like to take the other side of.

But perhaps it's gone on a little too long and it's ready to pause and retrace?

This stock could get cut in half and the long-term trend would still be intact.

When we zoom in a little closer, we see a very notable (and sizeable) gap from this summer where the stock jumped from $450 per share to north of $500 per share overnight:

This is definitely a "hard" trade. Hard because it's already had a tremendous run this month. Hard because it's in a name that people often don't associate with big bull runs, in a sector that definitely isn't sexy.

And maybe we're early, positioning just about when it's about to take a pause or retrace to digest recent gains. Maybe.

The only way to find out is to get involved.

The hard trades pay precisely because they are hard.