From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

The US Dollar Index $DXY has posted its tenth week consecutive in the green. 

And with the dollar off to a solid start Monday morning, an eleventh looks promising.

This is excellent news for dollar bulls.

But it's a gloomy prospect for risk assets, especially precious metals…

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

Overall, that was a decent bounce today.

We'll see if it continues through the week.

If we do get a heavy one, $SPY has potential to 438.

After slowly dipping my toes last week into the idea that it might be time to start getting into some new long exposure, the market's reaction to the latest Federal Reserve action tells me the direction is still sideways until further notice.

So we're literally betting on that today with a delta-neutral credit spread in the Russell 2000.

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P.S. We do trades like this regularly. If you'd like to leverage Best-in-Class technical analysis into smarter directional options trades, try out All Star Options Risk Free! Or give us a call to learn more: 323-421-7991.

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...

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

The US Dollar Index $DXY has posted its tenth week consecutive in the green. 

And with the dollar off to a solid start Monday morning, an eleventh looks promising.

This is excellent news for dollar bulls.

But it’s a gloomy prospect for risk assets, especially precious metals…

Check out the performance chart anchored from DXY’s July 13 bottom:

US stocks ($SPY), international stocks ($EFA), emerging market stocks ($EEM), gold ($GLD), silver ($SLV), and even US T-bonds ($TLT) are falling under a rising dollar. (Crude oil $USO has 99 problems, but the dollar ain’t one.)

Yes, US T-bonds remain a risk asset from a price perspective. A strengthening dollar will accompany declining bond prices if the US dollar and interest rates continue to climb together.

Global risk assets and precious metals do not perform well when investors flock to the US dollar.

Bonds are skidding lower. US stock indexes are breaking down. And precious metals? Well, it could be worse.

GLD is outperforming global equities, including the S&P 500, over the trailing two months.

Last week,...

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

From the Desk of Steve Strazza and Alfonso Depablos

The largest insider buy on today’s list comes in a Form 4 filing by Broadwood Capital.

The firm reported a purchase of roughly $11.6 million in STAAR Surgical Company $STAA.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

The market has been in a steady decline since mid-September.

I'll be truthful: As of right now, not too much is interesting to me.

I need to see how stocks act today.

On the eve of Chart Summit 2023, let's take a look at how some of the most important areas of the market are holding up during what is seasonally the most bearish time of the year.

Technology represents close to 30% of the S&P500 and almost half the entire Nasdaq100. And here it is going out at its lowest weekly close since May:

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

Monday night we held our September 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

Markets are adjusting to rising rates as investors weigh the possibility of “higher for longer.”

Bonds are breaking down to fresh lows. The major US stock market indexes are chopping within a range (perfectly normal from a seasonal and cyclical perspective). And commodities are kicking back into gear. 

All of these intermarket pieces fall neatly into a dynamic puzzle. Nothing appears out of place.

But the best information comes from markets presenting atypical behavior or defying expectations.

One commodity is doing just that as we head into the weekend...

Silver!

Did silver not get a copy of the FOMC press release? Or perhaps silver ignored it altogether… 

Silver should sell off as the 10-year yield hits a new sixteen-year high and the US dollar heads toward its...