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 Kimmy Sokoloff

It was a slow day for the market, and then, late in the day, we started to ramp higher.

I'd  think $QQQ would take a breather soon, as this index is the most extended.

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza.

Welcome back to Under the Hood, where we'll cover all the action for the week ended March 31, 2023. 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.

I've argued for years that the Dow Jones Industrial Average is the world's most important stock market index.

It's a list of the most important stocks in the most important country on the planet.

Find me a better index.

You can't. I've looked.

And when you look underneath the surface at the components of the Dow, you'll notice that its Advance-Decline line is pressing up against all-time highs.

Today’s most significant insider transaction report is a Form 4 filing by Ares Management.

Ares revealed an additional purchase of roughly $2.9 million in Frontier Communications Parent $FYBR.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

Happy April...

And what a move the market has made!

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

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:

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

What a week, what a day...

The market was full speed ahead for the end of the quarter.

Stocks stopped going down a long time ago.

In bear markets stocks go down in price.

In bear markets you get more and more stocks making new lows.

In bear markets the indexes don't keep putting up major gains quarter after quarter.

And so what's been happening in the current market environment?

The most significant insider transaction on today’s list comes in a Form 4 filed by RA Capital Management.

The hedge fund revealed a purchase of roughly $14.7 million of Dice Therapeutics $DICE, increasing its ownership stake to 16%.

The S&P500 is on track to put up another terrific quarter of returns - up over 5% so far for Q1 2023.

And remember, this comes after rallying over 7% in Q4 2022.

These are very impressive results for equities, despite all the gloom and doom they're telling your parents on the evening news.

Funny, as strong as stock market returns have been in America the past 2 quarters, European equities have been exponentially stronger.

The Euro STOXX 50 is up over 13% in Q1. And this comes after a monster quarter in Q4 last year where Europe rallied 25%.

These are some of the greatest stock market returns of all time.

Meanwhile, the glorified gossip columnists are telling you it's a crisis.

You see the difference?

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

Today is quarter's end, and they surely window-dressed this week. Hey, we might even continue higher from here.

$SPY is nearing next resistance at 405, and after that is 408.