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

 

From the desk of Louis Sykes @haumicharts

The last few days have seen one of the largest unwinds and destruction of wealth in crypto history.

By historical standards, the collapse in the Terra ecosystem will go down as some of the most wide-reaching, systemic stress the asset class has endured.

We want to dedicate a good portion of this week's crypto letter to why UST failed, how it impacted other assets, and our outlook following this event.

I think it’s safe to say insiders are buying the dip!

This might be the most Form 4 filings we’ve seen in a single day since we started doing this.

And we’re seeing activity in all different sectors, from software to chemicals, including even casinos.

From the desk of Steven Strazza @Sstrazza and Ian Culley @IanCulley

Despite the rising US Dollar Index, strength among commodity-centric currencies has been a key theme for much of this year. 

Today, that’s no longer the case.

The rally in the USD is accelerating, as dollar strength broadens to even the most resilient currencies. 

Two of the top commodity currencies – the Australian and Canadian dollars – are undercutting the lower bounds of their current ranges and making fresh 52-week lows.

These breakdowns mean the path of least resistance is now lower. If these are valid resolutions, we’re looking at increased headwinds for risk assets.

Let’s look at a couple charts of the AUD and the CAD, highlight the levels we’re watching, and discuss what continued weakness in these major currencies means for stocks and commodities.

First up is the Australian dollar-US dollar cross:

...

From the desk of Willie Delwiche.

A risk off environment persists. Leadership areas are coming under pressure as market correlations rise (as they typically do in periods of stress). We are reducing our exposure and move to the sidelines to ride out this period of volatility.

From the desk of Willie Delwiche.

It’s hard to get away from the crowd when you only ask the questions that everyone else is. When we ask better questions, we get more relevant answers. The questions being most asked right now focus on whether we are going into a bear market and whether we are seeing capitulation (“Was that the bottom?”).

• A bear market has been evident beneath the surface (at least since late 2021, but in some ways for over a year). It’s now showing up in the indexes. The Value Line Geometric Index is below its 2018 highs (as well as its Jan 2020 pre-COVID peak) and is in a 20% drawdown (the line in the sand many use to identify bear markets).
• I understand the allure of trying to call a bottom in real-time (or close to it). But I’ll let the market sort that out. The crowd, focusing almost exclusively on their favorite sentiment data, has been doing that all year and so far at...

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

 

The most significant insider transaction on today’s Hot List is a Form 4 filing by the CEO of Uber Technologies $UBER, Dara Khosrowshahi.

The Silicon Valley executive revealed a purchase of roughly $5.3 million of his own stock.

The selling pressure in stocks and other risk assets continues to persist.

What are we looking for to turn this thing around?

I sat down with Liz Claman yesterday on Fox Business to discuss exactly that.

This one is short and sweet. What are the key levels? Where are we looking for leadership?

If bonds catch a bounce, who will lead out of the hole?

The US Dollar is back up to its 2016 and 2020 highs.

On both of those occasions, the Dollar sold off and risk assets went on to do very well.

Is this time different?

Here's what it looks like:

The market remains in a volatile territory. We have just a few industry groups which continue to show relative strength. The defense sector is one of them.

Read on to know more.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @sstrazza

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 the stock is about to move...