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

The relative strength of Emerging Market bonds shores up the ongoing bottoming process for risk assets.

Check it out!

From the Desk of Ian Culley

It’s impossible to ignore – investors are reaching for risk.

Biotech stocks are catching higher. Copper futures are working on their tenth up-day in a row. Even the Emerging Market HY Bond ETF $EMHY is breaking to 7-month highs as it completes a multi-month base. 

And don’t forget about Silver! Gold’s crazy cousin has proven by far the best-performing asset since the US dollar peaked last fall. Strength among these market areas indicates a healthy risk appetite.

I can’t overlook these signs of a constructive bottoming process, especially considering the next chart…

Check out the Emerging Market Bond ETF $EMB relative to the US Treasuries ETF $IEF:

There’s plenty to unpack here…

First, the EMB/IEF ratio is challenging fresh 7-month highs after posting a higher high and a higher low last fall. A bearish to bullish trend reversal is underway for this important risk-on ratio.

You can add this to the growing list of...

I got a lot of feedback on my last letter where I suggested active traders need to stop trading Covered Call spreads for tactical trades and instead do a simple Naked Puts trade.

Thank you to everyone who engaged.

Anyway, here’s one question [edited to the important parts] I got from a reader where I thought my answer might be instructive to more of you:

Hi Sean,

I read your information on naked puts. When I intend to buy a stock, I would like to sell a put. I just don't know how to go about it. I just don't know where the strike price would be. I understand that I would have to buy the stock at that price (whether it is better or worse than hoped).

If you could give me an example that would help.

Cheers!

This is a great question, but one without a clear-cut answer. Here was my response:

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

It was very whippy price action today in individual names.

We saw a lot of stop outs in the morning, then some recovery later on.

Forget cryptocurrencies. Look at these crypto stocks!

Seriously, some of these moves have been nuts.

We took a small long in MicroStrategy $MSTR at the lows, and it hit our 50%-plus target in just two weeks.

Crazy...

If cryptocurrencies are going to start trending higher -- which is our bet -- these stocks face serious resistance.

But let's approach this with a level head.

This is the video recording of the January 19th, 2023, Weekly Town Hall w/ Willie Delwiche.

1/19/23 2:00 PM ET

We had a resting GTC order filled at our profit target in the Paid-to-Play portfolio today:

We had a resting GTC order filled at our profit target in the Paid-to-Play portfolio today:

The next new position in our Paid-to-Play portfolio is:

We had a resting GTC order filled at our profit target in the Paid-to-Play portfolio today:

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

As of this morning we filled a gap on $SPY at 390.65.

If we continue to stay below 390, there's potential to see 386. 

Today’s Hot List is a short one, as insider activity has cooled with the broader equity market this week.

The only insider transaction was a Form 4 filing by EcoR1 Capital LLC.