We've been talking about how the major strength in the current market has been coming through in IT. But what we also noticed is that while Nifty Pharma wasn't looking pretty on an absolute basis, the relative strength is pointing in a different direction.

Pharma has been gaining our attention for the past few weeks. This post will see if broad participation is back in Pharma or just a few value weightage stocks are gaining higher.

Today we're introducing a new series of posts that we will include in our general analysis.

We're calling this the BASH Series. What does this mean and what do we do?

We look at stocks in the market that are experiencing extreme moves, and we share our views. So we will tell you what we'd do: Buy, Avoid, Sell, or Hold. And that's how we arrive at BASH (you have to make acronyms that make a word. Just sticks better, so bear with it. Haha!)

Today we're here to discuss RBL Bank Bank. So let's do just that.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza.

Welcome back to our latest Under the Hood column, where we'll cover all the action for the week ended December 24, 2021. This report is published bi-weekly and rotated with our Minor Leaguers column.

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.

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.

Wall Street sell side analysts are coming out with their 2022 forecasts.

And we all know how accurate those tend to be ;)

In the latest float of the bear parade, wall street's sell side analysts are putting out some of the most bearish forecasts in recent memory.

From the WSJ,

And we already know that Individual investors (AAII) and Financial Advisors (II) are much more bearish going into 2022 than they were over the prior two years.

This week we’re looking at a long setup in the market's favourite bullish space, IT.

IT has been displaying strength even in a sideways market. Such strength is crucial to note.

Let's take a look at what we have today!

As we enter the final week of the year, what's on your mind?

Let us know. We love to hear from you!

I'll go first.

People are so scared. They're afraid of their own shadows.

And they're quick to blame others instead of looking in the mirror.

At first glance, this might seem sad. But sad for who?

Just because you're angry doesn't mean the rest of us have to be.

I see it as opportunity.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Our International Hall of Famers list is composed of the 50 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 50 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:

We debuted a new scan recently which goes by the name- All Star Momentum.

All Star Momentum is a brand new scan that pinpoints the very best stocks in the market. This time around, we have incorporated our stock universe of Nifty 500 as the base. Among the 500 stocks that we follow, this scan will pump out names that are most likely to generate great returns.

While we go through our lists of sectors and stocks on a weekly basis, we thought of launching a product that would highlight the names that are the strongest performers in our universe and those that are primed for an explosive move.

Just like The Outperformers scan, this is a list of stocks belonging to the sectors that display relative strength in the market at any given point in time. Since sector rotation is the lifeblood of a bull market, we will be ahead of the curve before the gears keep shifting.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Welcome to the 2 to 100 Club.

As many of you know, something we've been working on internally is using various bottom-up tools and scans to complement our top-down approach. It's really been working for us!

One way we're doing this is by identifying the strongest growth stocks as they climb the market-cap ladder from small- to mid- to large- and, ultimately, to mega-cap status (over $200B).

Once they graduate from small-cap to mid-cap status (over $2B), they come on our radar. Likewise, when they surpass the roughly $30B mark, they roll off our list.

But the scan doesn't just end there. We only want to look at the strongest growth industries in the market, as that is typically where these potential 50-baggers come from.

It's not a secret around here that market breadth started to deteriorate in February.

If you recall, that's when everyone had a SPAC.

The IPO index peaked, ARK Funds, Biotech, the new highs list, etc all stopped going up.

That was over 10 months ago.

But more recently, market breadth is getting all the attention. Everyone is a breadth expert now, you notice?

I'm even getting software developers asking me about my breadth analysis wishlist so they can build it for me. Which I love and I certainly appreciate, but just goes to show you another sign of the times.

The way I see it, if you're trying to get defensive NOW because of breadth deterioration, I think you might be looking at it completely wrong.