When you look at Consumer Discretionary stocks as a group, you think "Wow this is the worst sector on the planet".

How can there be any winners coming out of here?

But there are. And there always will be.

First, look at the sector itself relative to the S&P500 going out last month at the lowest levels in over 10 years.

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Despite some messy action from the broader market in recent months, risk appetite remains elevated.

How do we know?

The stocks that investors are betting against the most are making big moves... to the upside.

And we know just what to do in these environments.

We look to our freshly squeezed universe and find the most heavily shorted stocks. We wait for momentum to come into these names, and we ride them higher while the shorts get squeezed.

We got new short data recently, so let's talk about how we're playing it.

Our scan is quite simple. It is designed to identify stocks with the most aggressive short positions. When a stock is shorted, it means incremental buyers are waiting in the wings to close out their bearish bets.

We love this, as new buyers are the one true catalyst for higher prices.

When shorts are proven wrong, they become buyers of the stock. In many cases, this happens as momentum flows into these names and fuels massive short-covering rallies.

How many times do these people tell you that the market is rigged?

Well, if you actually believe that then why wouldn't you just bet on the companies that profit most from the rigging?

I don't see the problem.

If you can't beat them, join them!

Here is the NYSE Broker Dealers Index making new all-time highs.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

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. 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

From the Desk of Steve Strazza and Alfonso Depablos

The largest insider buy on today's list comes via a Form 4 filing by THRC Holdings LP.

The investment firm reported a purchase of $9.3 million in ProFrac Holding Corp $ACDC.

From the Desk of Steve Strazza and Alfonso Depablos

The largest insider buy on today's list comes via a Form 4 filing by Petco Health and Wellness Company $WOOF director Cameron Breitner.

Breitner reported the acquisition of 750,000 shares of WOOF, equivalent to $2,354,325.

Software is supposed to be one of the leaders of the Nasdaq.

But this time around, it's one of the groups trying to drag it down.

Look at the new highs this year in the Nasdaq, but Software continuing to put in a series of lower highs, and possibly its first lower low this week.

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Dividend Aristocrats are easily some of the most desirable investments on Wall Street. These are the names that have increased dividends for at least 25 years, providing steadily increasing income to long-term-minded shareholders.

As you can imagine, the companies making up this prestigious list are some of the most recognizable brands in the world. Coca-Cola, Walmart, and Johnson & Johnson are just a few of the household names making the cut.

Here at All Star Charts, we like to stay ahead of the curve. That's why we're turning our attention to the future aristocrats. In an effort to seek out the next generation of the cream-of-the-crop dividend plays, we're curating a list of stocks that have raised their payouts every year for five to nine years.

We call them the Young Aristocrats, and the idea is that these are "stocks that pay you to make money." Imagine if years of consistent dividend growth and high momentum and relative strength had a baby, leaving you with the best of the emerging dividend giants that are outperforming the averages.

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.

Now, we're also highlighting lagging stocks on a recurring basis.

Welcome to the Short Report.

This is the video recording of the May 29, 2024, Hot Corner Insider Weekly Strategy Session.

From the Desk of Steve Strazza and Alfonso Depablos

The largest insider buy on today's list comes via a Form 4 filing by THRC Holdings, LP.

The investment firm revealed a purchase of $4.3 million in ProFrac Holding Corp $ACDC.

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza.

Welcome back to Under the Hood, where we'll cover all the action for the two weeks ended May 10, 2024. This report is published bi-weekly, in rotation 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.