The largest insider transaction on today's list is a Form 4 filing by H Partners Management, which reported an $11.6 million purchase in the theme park Six Flags $SIX.

The hedge fund has a total stake of 11.50% as well as a seat on the board.

Gas prices are going up?

Good.

That means our Energy stocks are probably doing well.

You see, we don't have any control over the cost of Energy. I don't work for the government. I'm not in the Energy business.

I don't know the first thing about drilling for Oil or Gas.

I'm just a random dude with a computer and some smart drinking buddies.

So for me, I have 2 choices:

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.

The stock making its way to today's post is part of the Capital Goods sector that has been performing well for a while now.

And guess what? We have a breakout! Do you know which stock we're talking about?

The largest insider splash on today’s list is a Form 4 filing by Gregory Bailey, an independent director at Biohaven Pharmaceutical $BHVN.

Bailey reported the purchase of approximately $5.6 million in his company’s stock.

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @sstrazza

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.

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza.

Welcome back to Under the Hood, where we'll cover all the action for the week ended August 19, 2022. This report is published bi-weekly and rotated with The Minor Leaguers.

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.

The largest insider buy on today's list is a Form 4 filing by Bill Gates, who revealed an additional purchase in Ecolab $ECL worth $19 million.

This is the third Form 4 filed by Gates in the last five days, as he continues to add to his position.

The market has set the stage.

From a seasonal perspective, the back half of the year should be strong.

When you consider the bearish sentiment readings we're coming off of this summer, a massive shift in sentiment into year end makes perfect sense.

We've seen the breadth improvement, as we get more and more stocks making new short-term highs, and now sector rotation has started to kick in.

SO WHAT'S THE CATALYST?

From the Desk of Steven Strazza @Sstrazza

Stocks have enjoyed a powerful rally off their summer lows, as bulls have been in control for about two months now.

A lot of technical damage has been repaired during this time. 

The outlook from sentiment and seasonality assure us the environment is ripe for a bottom. 

Breadth thrusts are stacking up and suggesting we could be in the early stages of a new bull market.

And risk appetite is gradually reentering the market, supporting the bullish price action.

Today, we'll review one of our favorite intermarket relationships, the discretionary versus staples ratio. 

By comparing these two consumer segments, we garner valuable insights about the current market environment and risk appetite in particular.

Here's the large-cap Consumer Discretionary $XLY versus Consumer Staples $XLP ratio:

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

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.

Here’s this week’s list:

The 13D that has everyone’s attention today is not going to be on our list. That’s because we’re looking for insider buying, not insider selling.

Which brings us to meme stock master and Gamestop $GME Chairman Ryan Cohen.