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

Welcome to our latest RPP Report, where we publish return tables for various asset classes and categories, along with commentary on each.

Looking at the past helps put the future into context. In this post, we review the absolute and relative trends at play and preview some of the things we’re watching to profit in the weeks and months ahead.

We consider this our weekly state of the union address as we break down and reiterate both our tactical and structural outlook on various asset classes and discuss the most important themes and developments currently playing out in markets all around the world.

In our last report, we pounded the table on our position that markets are a total mess these days. Another theme we hit on was how many significant risk assets were trading at or below critical levels of overhead supply.

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 reason only: because they think the stock is about to move in their direction and make them a pretty penny.

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 August 20, 2021. This report is published bi-weekly and rotated on-and-off 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.

This week we’re looking for a long setup in the Consumer Goods Sector. FMCG is a defensive sector and tends to outperform the market in a broadly weak environment.

Let's take a look at this name.

We analyze a lot of data here at Allstarcharts.

Stocks in the U.S. and around the world, Interest Rates both domestic and global, Commodities, Currencies and an infinite amount of Intermarket Relationships that help us identify trends across assets.

Price is what pays. Not just around here, but also for you reading this, as well as every other investor on the planet.

Nothing else is going to pay you.

So when it comes to "What is the best Technical Indicator?"

The answer is Price.

Now, in order to supplement our price analysis, we include things like Momentum and Breadth studies, Relative Strength, Sentiment, Seasonality, Volatility and a bunch of new tools and strategies that we continue to develop as markets evolve over time.

Sentiment can be a tricky one.

I think anyone who has been in markets for a while would agree.

The short answer is that there is NO single sentiment indicator that will tell you when to buy or sell stocks, or any other asset class for that matter.

Where Sentiment really stands out to me is when it is at a historic extreme, which by definition, is not very often.

The buyers stepped up when they had to.

This could have been disaster for the Stock Market, but instead it's just more of the same: A Hot Hot Mess.

I think a great way to explain what happened this week is with the Equally-weighted S&P500. Remember, this version of the index is not heavily weighted towards those monster companies.

This index gives an equal weighting to each of the components:

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 bottoms-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.

Some stocks are going up in value.

Most stocks are not.

If there's been one theme that we keep seeing for most of the year, it's that.

Sure, some stocks are doing well. Most stocks aren't, as we discussed here.

You can really see it in the Nasdaq Advance-Decline line, as it sits at new 8-month lows:

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 reason only: Because they think the stock is about to move in their direction and make them a pretty penny.

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 bottoms-up scan, "Under The Hood."

To make the cut for our Minor Leagues list, a company must have a market cap between $1 and $2B. There are also price and liquidity filters. Then, we simply sort by proximity to new highs in order to focus on the best players.

The goal is to catch the strongest names while they’re small and still have serious upside potential. If any of these stocks ever climbs the ranks to the big leagues, the returns could be huge. We’re looking at 5-10x moves just to break into large-cap land!

Let’s dive into this week’s report and see what’s happening in some of the hottest stocks in the Minor Leagues.