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:

Coinbase Global $COIN co-founder and director Fred Ehrsam is back on our list with another Form 4 filing for just under $2 million worth of shares.

He’s bought approximately $76 million worth of COIN in the last 10 days.

From the desk of Steven Strazza @Sstrazza and Ian Culley @Ianculley    

When it comes to the bond market, credit spreads are always top of mind. They provide critical information regarding the liquidity and stress of the largest markets in the world.

While most of us aren’t full-time bond traders, in many cases we turn to these assets to offset the risk associated with the equity side of our portfolios. That’s fine.

But when credit markets come under stress, it affects all asset classes, especially equities. We’re seeing this now.

Earlier in the month, we noted that these crucial spreads were widening to their highest level since late 2020 as the high-yield bond versus Treasury ratio $HYG/$IEI hit new 52-week lows. 

It’s no coincidence that the major stock market averages fell to their lowest level in over a year as this was happening.

This is why we pay close attention to credit spreads. They give us information about the health of other risk assets.

The largest insider buy on today’s list is a Form 4 filing by Jan Barta of Pale Fire Capital.

Barta revealed an additional purchase of roughly $5.3 million in Groupon $GRPN as he continues to increase his position in the stock.

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.

This is the video recording of our May 25, 2022, Inside Scoop Weekly Strategy Session.

Yesterday, Nelson Peltz’s Trian Fund Management filed a 13D revealing the purchase of an additional 16 million shares of the fast food chain, Wendy's $WEN.

This brings Trian’s total interest to just shy of 20%.

Buried in the footnotes of the filing, Trian also disclosed that it advised the board of directors it’s exploring a potential transaction.

From the desk of Steven Strazza @Sstrazza and Ian Culley @IanCulley

The US dollar is front and center as risk assets hang in the balance.

Earlier in the month, we placed the Australian and Canadian dollars on breakdown alert as they completed major topping patterns.

US dollar strength was expanding at the time, and the AUD and CAD were the last dominos to fall.

Or so it seemed.

What started as strong downside resolutions for these top commodity currencies quickly turned into potential failed breakdowns.

Now that the most resilient currencies are snapping back against King Dollar, it's compromising the broad US dollar rally and could usher in a more favorable environment for risk assets. 

Let’s discuss what it means for stocks and commodities if these failed breakdowns resolve higher.

Here’s a chart highlighting the recent action in the Canadian dollar and Australian dollar futures:

The largest insider transaction on today’s list is a Form 4 filing by Winder Investment, which reported an additional $1.8 million purchase in Sensient Technologies $SXT.

The firm now owns more than 6 million shares, representing a 12.4% ownership interest in the specialty chemicals 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 to our latest Minor Leaguers report.

We’ve had some great trades come out of this small-cap-focused column since we launched it back in 2020 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 the first year or so, we focused only on Russell 2000 stocks with a market cap between $1 and $2B.

That was fun, but we wanted to branch out a bit and allow some new stocks to find their way onto our list.

The way we did this is simple…

To make the cut for our new Minor Leaguers list, a company must have a market cap between $1 and $4B.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Our Top 10 Charts Report was just published.

In this weekly note, we highlight 10 of the most important charts or themes we're currently seeing in asset classes around the world.

A Record-Setting Slide

The S&P 500 just booked its seventh consecutive down week. This is only the fourth time in history that the index has registered so many consecutive losing weeks. 

When we look back at the last three instances, the forward returns are mixed. The last time we experienced so many consecutive losing weeks was in the middle of the dot-com bubble crash in 2001. This was not a good time to buy stocks. 

On the other hand, when this happened back in 1970 it coincided with a major bottom. As for the instance in 1980, the forward returns were excellent, but a multi-year bear market followed soon after.

While this stat doesn’t give us an actionable signal over any material timeframe, it does suggest that markets are due for a relief rally.