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.

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.

What remains is a list of stocks that large financial institutions are putting big money behind… and they’re doing so for one...

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Welcome to our latest Minor Leaguers report.

We’ve already had some great trades come out of this small-cap-focused column since we launched it late last year and started rotating it with our flagship bottom-up scan, Under the Hood.

We recently decided to expand our universe to include some mid-caps…

For about a year now, we’ve focused only on Russell 2000 stocks with a market cap between $1 and $2B. That was fun, but it’s time we branch out a bit and allow some new stocks to find their way onto our list.

The way we’re doing this is simple…

To make the cut for our new 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...

This week we’re looking at a short setup in the Oil and Gas space. We've seen growing weakness in the stocks of this sector and are looking at the setups here.

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

From the desk of Steven Strazza @Sstrazza and Grant Hawkridge @granthawkridge

Outside of the large-cap averages in the US, most stocks have been stuck in sideways trends for much of 2021. We’ve seen breakouts fail in both directions over the past two months, as sloppy price action continues to govern the broader market.

As we discussed in our last intermarket post, this range-bound action has not just been the case for stocks on an absolute basis. We’re seeing the same thing from commodities, cryptocurrencies, and even our risk-appetite ratios. Risk assets have simply been a mess.

Let's take a look at one of our favorite risk-appetite ratios, as there's been an important development in the discretionary versus staples relationship. 

Here is large-cap consumer discretionary $XLY versus consumer staples $XLP: 

Notice how this ratio was rallying aggressively coming into 2021. Now think back to what stocks and other risk assets were doing during this time. Everything was working, right?

Consumer discretionary...

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Our Hall of Famers list is composed of the 100 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. Check it out here.

The Hall of Famers is simple.

We take our list of 100 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:

• Filter out any stocks that are below their May 10th high, which is when new 52-week highs...

We have a new Options trade up this week.

We're buying an $MMC April 170/200 Bull Call Spread for around a $7.50 debit all in. This means we’re long the 170 calls and short an equal amount of 200 calls..

Check out our short video with the thought process behind these trades:

The US Dollar has been at the center of attention for the past few weeks. And who can deny the move that has come through in the Dollar Index?!

While the Dollar has halted its montser move for now, the dollar currency pairs are moving in a direction that's worth noting.

So let's take a look at Dollar with the INR.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

When investing in the stock market, we always want to approach it as a market of stocks.

Regardless of the environment, there are always stocks showing leadership and trending higher.

We may have to look harder to identify them depending on current market conditions… but there are always stocks that are going up.

The same can be said for weak stocks. Regardless of the environment, there are always stocks that are going down, too. 

We already have multiple scans focusing on stocks making all-time highs, such as Hall of Famers, Minor Leaguers, and the 2 to 100 Club. We filter these universes for stocks that are exhibiting the best momentum and relative strength characteristics. 

Clearly, we spend a lot of time identifying and writing about leading stocks every week, via multiple reports. Now, we’re also highlighting lagging stocks on a recurring basis.

Welcome to the...

We debuted a new scan recently- The Outperformers.

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.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

On Monday night we held our December Monthly Conference Call, which Premium Members can access and rewatch here.

In this post, we’ll do our best to summarize it by highlighting five of the most important charts and/or themes we covered, along with commentary on each.

Let’s get right into it!

We talk a lot about relative strength around here.

"Which are the strongest stocks and sectors?"

"Buy high and sell higher!"

"What's on the new 52-week high list?"

"How many new highs are we seeing?"

These are all questions we're regularly asking. Like every day.

But at the same time, it's important to understand what's not working. And what are the implications of those things not working?

There are two main groups on my radar.