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 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 now, a company must have a market cap between $1 and $4B.

And it doesn't have to be a Russell component — it can be any US-listed equity. With participation expanding around the globe, we want all those ADRs in our universe.

The same price and liquidity filters are applied. Then, as always, we sort by proximity to new highs in...

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

Precious metals bulls have plenty to be excited about.

Major headwinds have abated as rallies cool in real yields and the dollar.

Gold futures are trading above their former commodity supercycle peak.

And the yellow metal is printing new all-time highs priced in every significant currency except the US dollar.

Even mining stock stocks are breaking out!

What a difference a week makes!

The powerful rally in stocks shows where the "pain trade" is (higher), and now I'm on the hunt for strong, leading stocks that will continue to turn the screws on the bears.

Let's get after 'em!

We've adjusted a position 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:

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

Precious metals bulls have plenty to be excited about.

Major headwinds have abated as rallies cool in real yields and the dollar.

Gold futures are trading above their former commodity supercycle peak.

And the yellow metal is printing new all-time highs priced in every significant currency except the US dollar.

Even mining stock stocks are breaking out!

Check out Alamos Gold $AGI ripping to a new five-month high:

AGI has been on my radar since January. It provided an excellent trade during the spring.

Now, Alamos is flashing another buy signal, reclaiming a critical shelf of former highs outlined last month. 

I like AGI long toward 20 provided it’s trading above 13.

AGI isn’t the only mining stock rewarding buyers right now. It’s just one of the strongest – buy the strongest, sell the weakest.

We’ve also discussed Sandstorm Gold $SAND and Kincross Gold $KGC. Both trades are shaping up well.

SAND is holding above our risk level, while KGC hit a new 52-week high last Friday (I still need to see a decisive close above 5.75 before buying KGC).

...

From the Desk of Steve Strazza and Alfonso Depablos

Today’s largest insider transaction is another Form 4 filing by the CEO and the CFO of Lumen Technologies $LUMN.

Together the two executives bought LUMN shares worth a total of $1,519,450.

A lot has been made about the underperformance from small-cap stocks this year.

The permabears in particular really enjoy using this one as an excuse for missing out on one of the most epic rallies in market history

"But the small-caps"....they cry.

So yes, let's address it. How about those small-caps?

Zoom out. It's a clean series of higher highs and higher lows:

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 Ian Culley @IanCulley

The tide is turning for commodities now that the dollar and rates are falling.

Crude oil is relinquishing its leadership role. Gold and silver are catching a bid. And copper is digging in at former support.

But it’s not only base and precious metals bouncing off critical levels…

Check out our Equal-weight Commodity Index refusing to roll over:

Our commodity index, comprised of an equally weighted basket of 33 commodities, is finding support at a shelf of former highs. This is the principle of polarity at its finest – former resistance turning into support.

While it’s still too early to get behind the next broad-based rally in commodities, copper-related mining stocks are following Dr. Copper’s lead...

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

We held our November Monthly Strategy Session Wednesday night. Premium Members can access and rewatch it here.

Non-members can get a quick recap of the call simply by reading this post each month.

By focusing on long-term, monthly charts, the idea is to take a step back and put things into the context of their structural trends. This is easily one of our most valuable exercises as it forces us to put aside the day-to-day noise and simply examine markets from a “big-picture” point of view.

With that as our backdrop, let’s dive right in and discuss three of the most important charts and/or themes from this month’s call.