The market continued to melt up Thursday off explosive economic numbers again and interest rates plummeted. This looks like a classic scramble for exposure in "quality" names into earnings. As we usually tend to see during earnings season, overall flow was mixed but kept a bullish lean throughout the session. There were several solid sweeps but we are officially in the hands of the "earnings gods", so take every single bet out there with a grain of salt. 

On the sentiment front

Short-term sentiment ends up back into the sell side, while intraday sentiment is not as cooked, thanks to a few lengthy pauses and VIX bargain hunting throughout the day yesterday. 

Intermediate-term sentiment remains unfavorable as a whole but not every indicator is flashing a sell signal. The lack of full participation out there has prevented a few signals from spitting out Euphoria and "all in" readings. For example, AAII bull-bear ratio is scorched while the fear greed indicator remains at neural as the chart shows below. 

As mentioned above, we are in the hands of the "earnings gods" here and that's likely going to have more of any immediate impact over sentiment in the short term but we can sure use just a little breather. 

We look forward to this earnings season for potential signs of any rotation into some of the names with better setups out there. From absolute laggards to stronger names that have already started their digestive process over the past couple of weeks, not everything is toasted out there. The lack of full participation out there and major rotation leaves a good amount of stuff out there that's not as hot as the major indices continue to show. 

A good example, pull up a chart of the IWM, which is in the midst of a really constructive breather following that psychotic move that started late last year. Wouldn't it be fantastic to get our hands on some non-stoppable actions again when a few of those little guys at decent entry spots. That's why we stress not getting too bearish here. On the other way, sure the market could see a nice rinse off any sell catalyst that may show up, and the more we continue to melt up, the more cautious of a rinse we become, but the stuff to mostly be worried about is in anything that has gone up in a straight line over the past weeks. 

A sentiment rinse may affect even the issues that haven't rallied as hard over the short-term but they will likely hold up better and could see more rotation eventually. That's where the opportunities show up. Remember, Chairman Powell has still left the faucet of liquidity running as the FED's balance sheet is at new all-time highs, he's made it fairly clear that will be the case until things get back to some sort of normalcy. 

Bottom line

So the game remains rigged for the time being,  with some tactical heat plus the start of earnings season here, it's a good time to be patient and keep both eyes wide open for some post-earnings clues. And more importantly not get distracted by all the noise and build a bias that will ultimately provide potential opportunities. 

Notable bettings toward broader market indices ETF on 4/15

Today's option volume of 36.1m contracts was 3% above recent average levels, with calls leading puts 17 to 10. Single stock and Index products saw relatively heavy volume, while ETF flow was moderate. 

Individuals breakdown by sectors (4/15 notable bets)

Most active sectors included Financials, Basic Materials and Health Care, while Utilities and Telecommunications were relatively light. Of the 3923 stocks with listed options, 2305 (59%) closed higher, and 1513 (39)% lower. Among the 500 most liquid single stocks, 30day implied volatility was higher for 144 and lower for 312. Unusual total option volume was observed in $Advanced Micro Devices Inc(AMD.US)$, $Bank of America Corporation(BAC.US)$, $NVIDIA Corp(NVDA.US)$, $Plug Power Inc(PLUG.US)$ and $QuantumScape Corp(QS.US)$.

Tech

Industrial

Consumer Cyclical

Financial

Communication Services

Healthcare

Energy

Real Estate

Basic materials

Consumer Defensive

Utilities