We got just a little bit of Dollar weakness starting in mid-July and stocks ripped higher. Thousands of points added to the Dow, Ethereum doubled and the average stock on the Nasdaq rallied over 40%.
We saw one of the most historic short-squeezes in history. And all it took was just a little bit of Dollar weakness. It wasn't even that much.
But then once that Dollar strength came back last month, the bid in stocks and crypto disappeared.
The most significant insider transaction on today's list comes in a 13D from Carl Icahn, who increased his ownership stake in Southwest Gas $SWX by 1%.
Icahn now owns 9.7% of outstanding shares, up from the 8.7% he reported on August 16.
Welcome back to Under the Hood, where we'll cover all the action for the week ended September 2, 2022. This report is published bi-weekly and rotated with our Minor Leaguers report.
What we do here is analyze the most popular stocks during the week and find opportunities to either join in and ride these momentum names higher, or fade the crowd and bet against them.
We use a variety of sources to generate the list of most popular names.
There are so many new data sources available that all we need to do is organize and curate them in a way that shows us exactly what we want: a list of stocks that are seeing an unusual increase in investor interest.
Watch this video for a behind-the-scenes look at our process.
Whether we’re measuring increasing interest based on large institutional purchases, unusual options...
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...
The most significant insider activity on today's list comes in a Form 4 filing by Juan Delgado-Moreira, vice-chairman of Hamilton Lane Incorporated $HLNE.
Delgado-Moreira reported a purchase worth roughly $1 million.
The Outperformers is our newest scan that pinpoints the very best stocks in the market. It’s the fastest, easiest way to find quality names that are primed for major moves.
The goal is that as the market rally progresses, the sector rotation within the market will reflect in this scan. So while our Top/Down Analysis helps us with the broader view of the market, this Bottom/Up scan makes sure that we catch the slightest change in sentiment.
Remember when the stock market peaked in February 2021?
That's when the New highs list peaked. That's when the Nasdaq Advance-Decline line peaked. That's when Chinese Internet Peaked. That's when Biotech peaked. That's when all the ARKK funds peaked.
February 2021 is when everyone had a SPAC.
Remember SPACs?
This group of "Special Purpose Acquisition Companies" was a poster-child for the excess environment of Q1 2021.
These SPACs were the biggest pieces of hot garbage on the market. And everyone wanted them.
And then the market peaked and their prices came tumbling down.
Now here we are, 18-months later. And they've just decided to delist the SPAC ETF $SPAK.
Our International Hall of Famers list is composed of the 100 largest US-listed international stocks, or ADRs.
We’ve also sprinkled in some of the largest ADRs from countries that did not make the market cap cut.
These stocks range from some well-known mega-cap multinationals such as Toyota Motor and Royal Dutch Shell to some large-cap global disruptors such as Sea Ltd and Shopify.
It’s got all the big names and more -- but only those that are based outside the US. You can find all the largest US stocks on our original Hall of Famers list.
The beauty of these scans is really in their simplicity.
We take the largest names each week and then apply technical filters in a way that the strongest stocks with the most momentum rise to the top.
Based on the market environment, we can also flip the scan on its head and filter for weakness.
Let’s dive in and take a look at some of the most important stocks from around the world.
Bryant R. Riley, chairman and CEO of B. Riley Financial Inc $RILY, and director Randall E. Paulson both filed Form 4s reporting purchases for a combined $3.7 million. Both executives have been frequent buyers all year.
Arthur Laffer, the former Reagan administration economic adviser known for the Laffer Curve, filed a Form 4 revealing a share purchase in NexPoint Residential Trust $NXRT.