[video_player type=”embed” style=”1″ dimensions=”640×360″ width=”640″ height=”360″ align=”center” margin_top=”0″ margin_bottom=”20″ ipad_color=”black”][/video_player] The S&P 500 faded today ahead of a looming raft of inflation data we’ll see over the next few days. In my view, given the recent strength of the market, traders seem to have bought the rumor… and are now poised to sell the news. The result, for the moment, is a flat market. That said, one area of potential strength right now is in high short-interest stocks that are seeing bullish unusual option activity. GME – no stranger to a squeeze – is seeing this kind of activity right now. We’ll look at how to find the next gamma squeeze, and we’ll look in on tickers like RH, PBI, BBAI, BB, MPW, FYBR, and KODK. Let’s get started…

[video_player type=”embed” style=”1″ dimensions=”640×360″ width=”640″ height=”360″ align=”center” margin_top=”0″ margin_bottom=”20″ ipad_color=”black”][/video_player] If you love it when stocks don’t move and nothing makes sense, you probably had a blast this week… For everyone else, yours truly included, the markets were just… terrible. I mean, they sucked. Or worse. As a trader, you want to see two-sided trades, action. We did not get that. Instead we’re straight up, straight down – a glimmer of sweet, sweet volatility – and then straight up. We’d been experiencing some volatility lately, but this week was a volatility vacuum. Complacency is the name of the game… and I don’t like it. We’re going to talk about that. We’re going to talk about the way-too-low expected moves. We’ll talk about why the market is stuck in a “bad news is good news groove” and what it’ll take to break free. Let’s get started…

[video_player type=”embed” style=”1″ dimensions=”640×360″ width=”640″ height=”360″ align=”center” margin_top=”0″ margin_bottom=”20″ ipad_color=”black”][/video_player] The money supply is on the move, that’s for sure… but not into consumers’ pockets. Industrials, as tracked by the SPDR XLI ETF are up more than 24% over the past six months. Aerospace and defense, as tracked by the iShares ITA ETF are up nearly 20% in the same six-month timeframe. That’s growth. Those consumers I mentioned, on the other hand, are living paycheck to paycheck – roughly three in four Americans, as reckoned by a Payroll.org survey. I expect that means trouble for the retail sector, as tracked by, say, the XRT ETF. It’s seen growth this year, too, but as the number of strapped Americans creeps… and then rockets… higher, it’s ripe for a fall. And I see several juicy setups out there to play this decline…

[video_player type=”embed” style=”1″ dimensions=”640×360″ width=”640″ height=”360″ align=”center” margin_top=”0″ margin_bottom=”20″ ipad_color=”black”][/video_player] A market like this, where stocks move a little higher and then gently drift lower, can be really deceptive. There’s not much you can read into a market that’s down… a point. Financials are down a little, tech is all over the place and news-driven, energy is massively unchanged… The advance/decline line is… slop-tastic. It’d be very easy for a trader to see things that aren’t there right now. Very easy for a trader to get caught with their pants down. The expected move has markets penned in in a ridiculously tight range at the moment, but volatility is out there. I’ll show you what I mean with a look at the SPX, which is just riding the upper edge of the expected move. Watch…

[video_player type=”embed” style=”1″ dimensions=”640×360″ width=”640″ height=”360″ align=”center” margin_top=”0″ margin_bottom=”20″ ipad_color=”black”][/video_player] I was singing a decidedly cautious tune last week, especially compared to the week before… But then, on Friday, a very weak payroll report slammed a strong bid under stocks. Bad news is good news (again). Market players hope the sign of a softening economy will mean a more dovish Fed in the near future. I’m not convinced that’s the case at all – and you shouldn’t be, either. Don’t mistake that for gloom: I still believe stocks can rally from here, and I’ll show you why. And I’ll show you the key technical levels stocks have to clear to keep the bull running. Bonds also loom large in whether or not stocks can power on. That said, I’m finding some nice setups in all of this, and that’s what we’re going to look at right now…

[video_player type=”embed” style=”1″ dimensions=”640×360″ width=”640″ height=”360″ align=”center” margin_top=”0″ margin_bottom=”20″ ipad_color=”black”][/video_player]   The S&P 500 ended today’s session a little more than 1% higher than where it started. Not bad… but before you get too giddy, consider that gold equaled the market’s one-session gain and silver, the “junior metal,” blew them both clean out of the water. At the same time, trading volume in equities has been very light. And so we have precious metals leading the markets and anemic volumes. That’s not exactly a ringing endorsement that the next bullish leg up is beginning. True, JPow and the Fed are… kinda-sorta… leading the market on that lower rates are ahead, but that’s nothing to count on – and it’s certainly not a trading thesis. Here’s where you should be looking…

[video_player type=”embed” style=”1″ dimensions=”640×360″ width=”640″ height=”360″ align=”center” margin_top=”0″ margin_bottom=”20″ ipad_color=”black”][/video_player] No matter how you slice it, we’ve had an extraordinarily volatile week; stocks were reeling like so many drunks from data to the Fed to earnings to data. Apple, a juggernaut of the S&P 500, took off on an earnings miss yesterday because, “Hey – no worries, $110 billion in buybacks are coming.” (If all else fails, and no one wants to buy your crap, just buy it yourself!) Today, markets jumped higher in part because of very weak jobs numbers. “Hey – no sweat, maybe the Fed will cut rates sometime.” Within moments of the report hitting the wire this morning, all the volatility was sucked out of the room – a volatility vacuum that seemed to take common sense with it. But I’m here to tell you, nothing good will come in the medium- or long-term from a

[video_player type=”embed” style=”1″ dimensions=”640×360″ width=”640″ height=”360″ align=”center” margin_top=”0″ margin_bottom=”20″ ipad_color=”black”][/video_player]   The Federal Reserve and its chairman, its various and sundry governors, presidents, and number-crunchers are (in)famous for… not really saying much when it actually counts. Yesterday, for instance, Chairman Powell said… nothing new or unexpected or particularly useful: Rates aren’t getting cut anytime soon, they’re going to stay the same. We knew that. But when we read between the lines of “rates aren’t getting cut anytime soon, they’re going to stay the same,” quite a few things become clear. I think a non-statement like this actually makes a great case for focusing on non-cyclical and non-discretionary equities. Likewise, we can avoid or even fade the discretionaries. Hear me out – this video will be new and useful for folks looking to cash in despite the central bank…

[video_player type=”embed” style=”1″ dimensions=”640×360″ width=”640″ height=”360″ align=”center” margin_top=”0″ margin_bottom=”20″ ipad_color=”black”][/video_player] The markets rallied strongly after the Fed non-announcement today (an 80-handle move at one point)… only to fall right out of bed in the last 30 minutes or so of trading. We saw a really dramatic, volatile reversal. Volatility futures actually fell as Powell was talking but then picked back up again later in the session. On the other hand, there was no real reason for markets to rally after Powell’s non-statement in the first place – the reaction was pure conjecture. So we’re going to start tonight’s video in a weird spot – the SPX. Understanding what’s going on there is going to be instrumental for dealing with risk for the rest of the week.

[video_player type=”embed” style=”1″ dimensions=”640×360″ width=”640″ height=”360″ align=”center” margin_top=”0″ margin_bottom=”20″ ipad_color=”black”][/video_player] I’m a little concerned with the bullish trend we’ve seen shaping up lately. Lower highs are starting to creep into the equities picture. The trouble in Japan with the yen and the lack of change in policy there could be starting to spill over across financial markets; global capital is seeking refuge in the dollar. I don’t mean to suggest it’s all doom and gloom – it isn’t. There are some bright spots, which we’ll talk about in a second. We’ll talk about how to prepare for the congestion I see coming up, how to avoid getting caught up in the chop, and some steps we can take to manage risk properly. Let’s get started…