From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

That was a very slow day.

Fortunately, we did have some decent winners inside the live trading room.

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.

You go on the twitter and all you see are people complaining about what a bad year this is for stocks, how bad the stock market is, recessions, bear markets, the Fed, blah blah blah.

I don't understand. What's everyone so angry about?

Stocks continue to do well. In fact, the back half of this year has been one of the better ones that we've ever seen.

Look how well most sectors have done since the market bottomed in June:

The most significant insider transaction on today’s list comes in a 13D from Deerfield Asset Management’s James Flynn.

Flynn increased his ownership stake in Terns Pharmaceuticals $TERN by 1%.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

Futures are indicating higher this morning. I'll be watching to see how they hold up.

It's a short week, and probably a light week as far as trading volume.

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:

Today officially marks the beginning of the Santa Claus Rally.

As we already discussed earlier this month, the SCR period runs during the final 5 trading days of the year and the first 2 of the following year.

So due to the holiday schedule, the 2022 SCR goes from today December 23rd through Wednesday January 4th.

The average performance during these 7 days is 1.33% and is positive 79.2% of the time. This is a big difference from all the other 7 day periods throughout the year, that only average 0.24% returns. They're also positive less than 60% of the time.

So we've found that there's real alpha during this period.

The largest insider transaction on today’s list is a Form 4 filing by Agree Realty Corporation $ADC Director John Rakolta Jr.

Rakolta reported a purchase of ADC shares worth $785,180.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

Happy Holidays to all!

The Santa Claus rally begins today, and the market did a decent reversal yesterday from the lows. What a save.

Now, for today, I'd like to see $SPX 3,800 hold for a move to 3,850. The real test will be back above 3,875.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

Yesterday was a one-hit wonder for longs. Today was pretty ugly.

The market is showing who's in charge.

The $SPX broke through support levels at 3,850 and 3,800. Next support is at 3,744.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

Futures down some after yesterday's nice move to the upside.

It could be a consolidation day, but I would like $SPX 3,850 held today. 

The largest insider transaction on today’s list came in a Form 4 filing from Durable Capital Partners.

The hedge fund reported an additional purchase of $8.7 million in Duolingo $DUOL.