From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza and Alfonso Depablos @AlfCharts

Our Hall of Famers list is composed of the 150 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 which you can check out here.

The Hall of Famers is simple.

We take our list of 150 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:

The largest insider buy on today’s list is a Form 4 filing by Vishay Precision Group $VPG Director Wes Cummins.

Cummins revealed a purchase of VPG worth $802,067.

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

As our Premium Members already know, we have a laundry list of scans that we run internally on an almost daily basis.

Different market environments, naturally, are more conducive to certain scans and less so to others.

We think our “Freshly Squeezed” scan is perfect for the current market. With so many individual issues in massive drawdowns as the broader market begins to turn a corner, there are going to be some serious short-covering rallies in some of the most beaten-down names.

In fact, it’s already starting to happen. Infamous meme stock, AMC Entertainment $AMC was up 25% at its highs today (not on a closing basis).

Our scan is quite simple. It is designed to identify stocks with heavy short positions. When a stock is heavily shorted, it means there are natural incremental buyers. Bulls need incremental buyers, as this is the only way price can move higher. When shorts are proven wrong, they have to buy their shares back to close out their position. 

The CEO, the CFO, and the chief technology officer of Hillman Solutions Corp $HLMN all filed Form 4s reporting insider buys.

The three C-suite offers combined bought $1.5 million worth of HLMN shares.

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.

But we also highlight lagging stocks on a recurring basis.

Welcome to the Short Report.

This is the video recording of our November 30, 2022, Inside Scoop Weekly Strategy Session.

The largest insider transaction on today’s list is a Form 4 filing by General Atlantic LP.

The hedge fund reported an additional purchase worth roughly $7 million in HireRight Holdings Corp $HRT.

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza 

While there have been some real winners during the recent rally, the run off the lows from this fall has also left many stocks behind.

Value stocks, cyclicals, and blue-chip names have prospered for the past two months, as groups like financials and industrials have been the latest beneficiaries of sector rotation. 

At the same time, mega-cap technology and the most-speculative growth areas of the market have continued to show relative weakness.

To be clear, it’s not like these stocks have been crashing lower while the rest of the market rallies. Of course, many have participated in the upside action.

But, on balance, the performance from growth stocks has been lackluster.

The disparity between the growth-heavy Nasdaq 100 and the value-heavy Dow Jones Industrial Average perfectly illustrates what’s taken place:

The co-founder and executive chairman of Energy Transfer $ET, Kelcy Warren, reappears on our list today.

Warren reported an additional buy of roughly $16 million.

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @sstrazza and Alfonso Depablos @Alfcharts

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.

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 November 25, 2022. 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.

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.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Check out this week's Momentum Report, our weekly summation of all the major indexes at a Macro, International, Sector, and Industry Group level.

By analyzing the short-term data in these reports, we get a more tactical view of the current state of markets. This information then helps us put near-term developments into the big picture context and provides insights regarding the structural trends at play.

Let's jump right into it with some of the major takeaways from this week's report:

* ASC Plus Members can access the Momentum Report by clicking the link at the bottom of this post.

Macro Universe: