This is one of our favorite bottom-up scans: Follow the Flow. In this note, we simply create a universe of stocks that experienced the most unusual options activity — either bullish or bearish, but not both.
We utilize options experts, both internally and through our partnership with The TradeXchange. Then, we dig through the level 2 details and do all the work upfront for our clients.
Our goal is to isolate only those options market splashes that represent levered and high-conviction, directional bets.
We also weed out hedging activity and ensure there are no offsetting trades that either neutralize or cap the risk on these unusual options trades.
What remains is a list of stocks that large financial institutions are putting big money behind.
And they’re doing so for one reason only: because they think the stock is about to move in their...
We’ve had some great trades come out of this small-cap-focused column since we launched it back in 2020 and started rotating it with our flagship bottom-up scan, Under the Hood.
For the first year or so, we focused only on Russell 2000 stocks with a market cap between $1 and $2B.
That was fun, but we wanted to branch out a bit and allow some new stocks to find their way onto our list.
We expanded our universe to include some mid-caps.
To make the cut for our Minor Leaguers list, a company must have a market cap between $1 and $4B.
And it doesn’t have to be a Russell component — it can be any US-listed equity. With participation expanding around the globe, we want all those ADRs in our universe.
The same price and liquidity filters are applied. Then, as always, we sort by proximity to...
Check out this week's Momentum Report, our weekly summation of all the major indexes at a Macro, International, Sector, and Industry Group level.
By analyzing the short-term data in these reports, we get a more tactical view of the current state of markets. This information then helps us put near-term developments into the big picture context and provides insights regarding the structural trends at play.
Let's jump right into it with some of the major takeaways from this week's report:
* ASC Plus Members can access the Momentum Report by clicking the link at the bottom of this post.
Macro Universe:
Our macro universe struggled this week as 77% of our list closed lower with a median return of -1.60%.
Lumer $LB was the big winner this week, booking a 7.95% gain.
The biggest loser was the US 10-Year Yield $TNX, which fell about 24 basis points on the week.
There was a 2% improvement in the percentage of assets on our list within 5% of their 52-week highs – currently at 4%.
In this weekly note, we highlight 10 of the most important charts or themes we're currently seeing in asset classes around the world.
Equites Suggest Rates Roll
It’s not just commodities and the bond market that are disagreeing with the action from yields these days. We're not getting confirmation from the stock market either. The Equities For Rising Rates ETF (EQRR) always offers excellent information to either support or contradict what we’re seeing from the bond market. When we overlay EQRR with the US 10-Year Yield (TNX), they look almost identical.
What this chart tells us is that the stocks that tend to do well in a rising rate environment could not hold their former highs and are now stuck below overhead supply. This lack of confirmation supports our outlook for a pause and some corrective action from yields in the near future.
We retired our "Five Bull Market Barometers" in 2020 to make room for a new weekly post that's focused on the three most important charts for the week ahead.
This is that post, so let's jump into this week's edition.
Nifty FMCG is finally back in action. A close above the eight-month base adds positively to this sector. Today we're here to share a long idea from the same sector.
As we turn the page of another quarter in cryptocurrencies, we leave behind one of the most volatile 3-month periods the asset class has ever seen in its brief history.
Losing a whopping 56%, Bitcoin saw its second worse quarter in its history. Meanwhile, Ethereum lost 67% of its value in this period. By all accounts, this is now one of the most severe crypto bear markets by loss realization, wealth destruction, and capital leaving the ecosystem.
Our Hall of Famers list is composed of the 150 largest US-based stocks.
These stocks range from the mega-cap growth behemoths like Apple and Microsoft – with market caps in excess of $2T – to some of the new-age large-cap disruptors such as Moderna, Square, and Snap.
It has all the big names and more.
It doesn’t include ADRs or any stock not domiciled in the US. But don’t worry; we developed a separate universe for that which you can check out here.
The Hall of Famers is simple.
We take our list of 150 names and then apply our technical filters so the strongest stocks with the most momentum rise to the top.
Let’s dive right in and check out what these big boys are up to.
Here’s this week’s list:
And here’s how we arrived at it:
We filtered out any stocks that are below their May 10, 2021, high, which is when new 52-week highs peaked for...