AJB Capital

While the market's in a holding pattern with the Iran situation and tonight's 8 PM deadline on the Strait of Hormuz, there are still things moving out there.

We've been building a backend tool called the LaunchPad. Wanted to walk you through what it does and why it matters, because we're going to start sharing this more regularly.

The LaunchPad screens for quality and value names based on the relationship between the 8-day and 20-day moving averages. The 8-day tells you what's happening right now. The 20-day is the bigger trend, about a month of trading. When the 8-day starts curling up into the 20-day with rising volume, that's our setup. It's telling you that recent buying pressure is starting to overpower the broader trend, and the algorithms are recognizing the pattern and piling in.

Once the 8 crosses up through the 20, that's the launch. The name tends to move fast. If the 8-day curls back down before it crosses, that's a failed launch. Drop it and move on.

What we like to see is a n

What we're seeing here is a bit of a reset on price around the 20-day moving average. We're looking for direction, and the low volume environment (very low on spy and iwm) is enabling a drift upward...