AlphaPicks On Wall Street - April 24th

A new week brings new thoughts and preparations.

It was a quiet week. The S&P 500 was flat. Futures opened the week at 4174 and closed the week just below 4157. The dollar started the week rising higher on Monday but stayed within that range all week, with the index (DXY) between 101.53 and 102.23. Volatility (VIX) also remained relatively quiet but ended slightly down by Friday.

The slowly dying VIX has many opinions about it. Many think it is “broken”. Others think we’re in for a big move up with equities quickly selling off. But there is only one thing we are sure of… A dying VIX will give us much smaller moves intraday.

Traders need volatility to make money. And last week was slow.

However, we saw several of our ideas play out nicely. Here’s a quick rundown:

XBI 78.20 > 81.00
NVDA 265.00 > 273.30
SHOP 46.40 > 49.80
USDJPY 134.05 > 135.10

As we start a new week, here are our top watches and game plans for the next five trading days.