While I was away, volatility had a moment. And it's still hanging at pretty high levels, especially in tech stocks.

In the Technology sector ETF $XLK, we're seeing the highest implied volatility that we've experienced all year:

And with the chart of $XLK forming a range...

...this feels like a good opportunity to play for volatility mean reversion.

Here's the Play:

In today’s Daily Digest, we’ll review the following:

1. No new positions today.
2. Rolled XHB position into September.
3. Exited XLC at our profit target.
4. Current status of open campaigns.

Let’s dig in!

They're out there telling me that the stock market is due for a correction this quarter.

But the stock market just had a correction last quarter.

Look at the Equally-weighted Nasdaq100 Index making zero progress since the start of March.

Remember that correction we were looking for back in Q1?

Well we got it:

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza.

Welcome back to Under the Hood, where we'll cover all the action for the two weeks ended July 19, 2024. This report is published bi-weekly, in rotation with The Minor Leaguers.

What we do here is analyze the most popular stocks during the week and find opportunities to either join in and ride these momentum names higher, or fade the crowd and bet against them.

We use a variety of sources to generate the list of most popular names.

There are so many new data sources available that all we need to do is organize and curate them in a way that shows us exactly what we want: a list of stocks that are seeing an unusual increase in investor interest.

Click here for a behind-the-scenes look at our process.

Whether we’re measuring increasing interest based on large institutional purchases, unusual...

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Last week, we held our June 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

Gold’s failed breakout is testing investor resolve.

But let’s consider last week’s action before unearthing our bullion.

Check out the failed breakout with a bearish momentum divergence in the lower pane:

Waning momentum and failed breakouts go hand in hand. Gold futures proved an excellent example of momentum diverging from price, one of the reasons we track RSI readings.

But just because momentum confirmed the failed breakout doesn’t mean we should turn bearish gold and precious metals.

Remember, gold posted a new all-time high last week. New all-time highs are bullish in my book, no matter how you slice them.

Plus, the March breakout remains valid, and the underlying uptrend is intact:

Zoom out on the weekly chart, and last week’s bar becomes a whipsaw (much like last December’s false start).

I get it: No one likes...

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

Gold’s failed breakout is testing investor resolve.

But let’s consider last week’s action before unearthing our bouillon.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average just had its highest weekly closing price in history.

Meanwhile, this week we also saw the highest reading of NYSE stocks above their 200 day moving average during this entire bull market.

Do you know how many times we saw a new 52-week high for the Dow in 2021 along with these breadth readings also hitting new cycle highs?

Zero.

It didn't even happen once.

That's because back in 2021, market breadth was deteriorating, not expanding.

See the difference?

Investors are preparing themselves for the launch of a second wave of crypto ETFs. With Ethereum up over 25% in recent weeks, it's clear the market has positive expectations for these new products.

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

Risk assets are taking a hit.

The major equity indexes are seeing red. Crude oil is slipping below eighty bucks. And gold is failing at new all-time highs.

Perhaps the markets are navigating the summertime blues – a tune base and industrial metal investors have been humming for months.

Remember copper’s failed breakout in May:

Oof!

Dr. Copper is living up to the trading adage that from failed moves come fast moves in the opposite direction.

The futures continue to fall – down almost 8 percent this week. 

Meanwhile, track the 4.16 level for potential support:

That level coincides with a key retracement and former resistance area – a logical place for buyers to step in and defend price. 

On the other hand, momentum is drifting toward oversold conditions. If the 14-day RSI drops below 30, I imagine copper will reach...

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Breadth has expanded in a big way since last week, with more and more stocks finally joining in on the bull market as big-cap tech leaders take a breather.

At the sector and industry group level, our list of indexes that are in uptrends continues to grow.

Some notable new members on this list include regional banks, small-caps, and various speculative growth funds.

After years of basing in accumulation patterns, these groups are just now completing primary trend reversals.

What does this mean?

In its simplest form, it means there are more ponds we can fish in for long opportunities. There are more stocks -- and groups of stocks -- that are in uptrends.

It’s just more options for us.

One of the groups that has broken out with authority recently is the biotechs.

Regardless of what index you're looking at, the path of least resistance is now higher for this health care subsector.

We’ve identified some of the strongest biotech stocks with asymmetric risk/reward setups and clear levels to trade against.

We think these are the best vehicles to bet...