From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

We saw a decent snapback in the market early today then a late-morning fade.

This $SPX 3,800 level is support for now.

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Dividend Aristocrats are easily some of the most desirable investments on Wall Street.

These are the names that have increased dividends for at least 25 years, providing steadily increasing income to long-term-minded shareholders.

As you can imagine, the companies making up this prestigious list are some of the most recognizable brands in the world. Coca-Cola, Walmart, and Johnson & Johnson are just a few of the household names making the cut.

Here at All Star Charts, we like to stay ahead of the curve. That's why we've turned our attention to the future aristocrats.

In an effort to seek out the next generation of the cream-of-the-crop dividend plays, we curate a list of stocks that have raised their payouts every year for five to nine years.

We call them the Young Aristocrats, and the idea is that these are "stocks that pay you to make money."

Imagine if years of consistent dividend growth and high momentum and relative strength had a baby, leaving you with the best of the emerging dividend giants that are outperforming the averages.

By adding our technical...

From the desk of Willie Delwiche.

The Bank of Japan hasn’t officially raised rates and is continuing to buy Japanese government bonds. But its surprise decision to stop defending the 0.25% ceiling on 10-year bond yields has reverberated through the global financial markets.

Why It Matters: While bond yields around the world climbed to new highs over the course of 2022, the Japanese 10-year yield was held at 0.25% through active intervention on the part of the Bank of Japan. Funding those purchases kept the Yen under pressure for most of the year. The de facto rate hike that allows the 10-year yield to move up to 0.50% brought strength in the Yen and weakness in the US dollar. Precious metals caught a bid and bond yields around the world moved higher. The yield on the German 10-year bond is approaching the 10-year high it reached in October and US yields are climbing as well. The lasting impact on equities from this Bank of Japan pivot is clear. A weaker dollar could be a tailwind for stocks (they...

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:

What a sloppy tape.

Don't let these drawdowns fool you; there is nothing stopping this market from getting worse. Over the last week, we've seen even more downside participation manifest, with many coins taking out their most recent November pivot lows.

It's just terrible.

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

The hedge fund reported a purchase of $7.6 million of Duolingo $DUOL stock.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

The futures were wild last night after the Bank of Japan intervention and then steadily crawled their way back.

I'm watching 378 on $SPY. Should we break below that level, we could see 375.

All hell seems to be breaking loose at the BOJ.

I'm not going to pretend to know, or care. But I can tell you that Yen traders like it.

And investors in precious metals sure as hell love it.

These are good things to wake up to if you're long gold and silver:

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Welcome to The Minor Leaguers.

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, 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 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

Our Top 10 Charts Report was just published.

In this weekly note, we highlight 10 of the most important charts or themes we're currently seeing in asset classes around the world.

Banks Tank

The SPDR Regional Banking Index (KRE) registered its lowest weekly close since January 2021 as it threatens to break down from a topping pattern. In addition, the price is violating its AVWAP from the March 2020 lows, and momentum is hitting oversold conditions. If KRE is below this polarity zone ~58, the path of least resistance is lower, and we should be prepared for a leg to the downside.