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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.

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...

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.

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.

We expanded our universe to include some mid-caps.

To make the cut for our 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 universe.

The same price and liquidity filters are applied. Then, as always, we sort by proximity to...

This is the weekly post that aggregates all the charts we put together throughout the week and organizes them all into one, easy to flip through deck.

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. You can click here to check it out.

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:

Click table to enlarge view

We filter out any laggards that are down -5% or more relative to the S&P 500 over the trailing month. ...

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

I love it when a pattern carries both bullish and bearish implications. It could break out or break down. Either direction works for me.

That’s the beauty of the setup. 

For traders, the directional move doesn't matter. We can prepare for both outcomes. And, lucky for us, sugar futures look ready to swing either way.

Check out the weekly continuation chart of sugar:

Sugar posted a big base breakout followed by a year-long consolidation. This chart looks similar to gasoline, crude oil, and copper – which have all broken down to retest their respective 2018 highs.

It’s reasonable to imagine sugar futures do the same. But we have to see the move before we can take action.

Here’s a daily chart of the most actively traded contract (March 2023):

...

From the Desk of Ian Culley @Ianculley

If you can pry your eyes from the UK gilt and Credit Suisse articles, you’ll find it’s not all doom and gloom across the bond market – especially high-yield debt in the US.

A quick warning before we continue: You probably won’t see a similar message on the financial news. It’s just too optimistic for the current environment. It wouldn't get enough clicks.

But facts are facts. And right now, high-yield bonds are hooking higher, while stocks are also rising.

Check out the dual-pane chart of the Fallen Angel High-Yield Bond ETF $ANGL and the S&P 500 $SPX: 

ANGL tends to bottom with the S&P 500 at significant turning points. That’s because high-yield bonds are risk assets more akin to small-caps than investment-grade debt or Treasury bonds. 

A sustained breakdown in ANGL implies growing risk aversion among investors. But that’s not what we’re witnessing...

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 The Hall of Famers, The  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 Short Report.

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

The US dollar has been under pressure for the past five days, and investors are dancing in the streets.    

I get it. A weaker dollar sits at the top of every stock market bull’s wish list. When the dollar goes down, stocks tend to go up. But don’t forget – betting against the dollar has only brought pain this year.

So, instead of joining the celebrations, I nailed down a clear-cut strategy for selling dollar weakness. 

Spoiler Alert: Early sell signals are already starting to fire!

This is the video recording of our October 3rd Monthly Charts Live Strategy Session

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza.

Welcome back to Under the Hood, where we're covering all the action for the week ended September 30, 2022. This report is published bi-weekly and rotated with The Minor Leaguers.

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.

Watch this video for a behind-the-scenes look at our process.

Whether we’re measuring increasing interest based on large institutional purchases, unusual options...

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.

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...

This is the weekly post that aggregates all the charts we put together throughout the week and organizes them all into one, easy to flip through deck.