All Archives - Page 33 of 340

[PLUS] Weekly Market Perspectives – Looking For Evidence That A Bull Market Is Re-Born

May 10, 2022 by Peter

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 least, they have been wrong.

The questions on my mind are “what do we tend to see when bull markets are re-born and what is the evidence that we are moving from a period of rising volatility to one of sustained strength.

[Read more…]

[Options Premium] Mr. Cooper, Can You Lend Me a Profit?

May 9, 2022 by Sean McLaughlin

Another week and more elevated fears in the marketplace. The Nasdaq QQQ’s breached the 300 level intraday today and that’s got everyone chirping — and for good reason.

Of course, the contrarian bird sitting on my shoulder has been uttering the phrase: “the wider the rubber band is stretched, the harder the snap back!”

Now, I’m not going out on a limb and declaring that the bottom for stocks is in and we rally from here. But I do like the odds of a viscous snap back rally materializing at some point this week. And if something like that were to come to pass, I want to be in names that have held up the best in this tape.

Today’s trade is one such name. [Read more…]

[Options Premium] Tactical Bounce Play

May 6, 2022 by Sean McLaughlin

In the All Star Charts recent Monthly Charts Strategy Session, JC highlighted a bunch of stocks that have held levels that feel significant.

And since we’ve seen a lot of damage to bullish charts in recent weeks, the best bets on the board right now appear in stocks that have held up better than the rest.

One mining stock that held up well after hot money ran for the exits is Newmont Corporation $NEM. [Read more…]

[Options] Going Back to the Well

May 4, 2022 by Sean McLaughlin

It’s no secret the oil and energy sectors have been outperforming in 2022.

Of course, when a trend like that is no secret, it tends to become a crowded trade. And we’ve seen a taste of the ramifications of that in recent weeks. There were some vicious pullbacks in all the biggest winners about two weeks ago.

Fast forward to today, and the smoke has cleared a bit. Many of these names survived the exits of hot money and are now showing signs of resuming their prior uptrends.

At the top of this list right now is Exxon Mobil $XOM.

[Read more…]

[Options] Where are the Setups?

May 2, 2022 by Sean McLaughlin

Looking across the landscape of broken charts, it’s hard to put capital to work here right now.

When zooming out, there are some larger trends that are still intact, but man — you gotta be really bold to step in here.

There are only two stocks on our board that are in our buy zone: Suncor $SU and Host Hotels & Resorts $HST. Unfortunately, both have earnings coming up this week. We’d be forcing it to get involved here. And I don’t like being forced into anything.

We say it all the time: There are no called third strikes on Wall Street. We can stand at the plate with the bat on our shoulder for as long as we like until we find a pitch we want to take a swing at. And right now, that feels like the most prudent stance.

So we’re going to chill out and wait for new bases to form, relative strength to reveal itself, and setups to appear.

We’ve got plenty to keep ourselves busy with. Many of our open positions are getting tested. I exited two of them this morning (BTU and CCJ).

Mama said there’d be days like these…

~ @chicagosean

The Virtual Trading Pit

April 30, 2022 by Sean McLaughlin

Twitter is on everyone’s mind these days. In light of Elon Musk’s takeover, there are a lot of people with mixed thoughts/feelings about the platform. But I for one am incredibly grateful for what Twitter has brought into my world.

During the depths of the financial crisis, I was trading (poorly) from home. I had left my office at the Chicago Board of Trade a couple years prior and I was having a hard time adjusting to being away from “my people.”

I missed the camaraderie of being around other traders. I missed the serendipitous strategy brainstorms. I was lacking the sounding boards to vent after a bad trading day, or to celebrate after a good one. And there was nobody else on Earth who understood the inside jokes and mannerisms that were second nature to those of us who attempt to pull money from the markets on a daily basis.

We are a different breed of human animal.

In March 2009 as the stock market was nearing the bottom of the Great Financial Crisis, I read an article in Barron’s that mentioned this “new online community called Twitter” and it highlighted people in finance who were using the platform to share trading ideas and network.

I thought it sounded like an interesting idea and I signed up for an account.

Of course, my early attempts at using the platform were amateurish at best. [Read more…]

[Options Premium] Written Jam Session

April 29, 2022 by Sean McLaughlin

Hey everybody. We aren’t able to put up a video Jam Session this week as the whole team is off-site in Washington, D.C. attending the CMT Annual Symposium.

Need proof? Here’s me, JC, Strazza, and friends in front of the White House at midnight last night! 🙂