From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

US equity markets have stabilized since June as macro headwinds have abated. 

This has brought on more bullish chart setups and a longer list of new highs.

While it’s nothing to get too excited about yet, it’s definitely a departure from the environment we’d been in.

Today, we’ll cover a stock that recently joined the Hot List and looks ready to join the new 52-week highs list next.

There’s been a noticeable lack of Hot List activity, as insiders seem to be sitting out the latest rally.

Today is no different, as we have a single Form 4 and one 13G.

This is our ASC Research Q3 2022 Playbook.

Investors have a lot of questions right now. With sentiment and at some of the most pessimistic levels in history, what will it take for some of these trends to change in the second half of the year? I believe some major trends are already changing.

The Playbook takes a step back and looks at things from a more Structural perspective. If you're specifically looking for more tactical opportunities, you can check out this week's Live Mid-Month Conference Call.

Here's what we'll be discussing in our Q3 Playbook:

• Stocks (International & U.S.)
• U.S. Sectors & Industries
• Market Breadth & Sentiment
• Commodities
• Currencies
• Intermarket Analysis
• Cryptocurrencies
• New Trade Ideas
• Overall Strategy

The Auto sector has been the flavor of the season. And by the looks of it, the season isn't over yet! We're here today to discuss another popular stock from this sector.

Shares of Apple stock just went out at the highest levels in history relative to the S&P500.

This is what we refer to as "Relative Strength".

Apple had originally peaked relative to the market almost 2 years ago towards the end of the summer of 2020.

That's when the Apple's underperformance first began.

And now here we are making new all-time highs once again:

We retired our "Five Bull Market Barometers" in 2020 to make room for a new weekly post that's focused on the three most important charts for the week ahead.

This is that post, so let's jump into this week's edition.

Warren Buffett filed his latest Form 4 yesterday, as Berkshire Hathaway $BRK continues to accumulate shares of Occidental Petroleum $OXY.

The additional 1.94 million shares leaves him with an ownership percentage just shy of 20%.

This is the video recording of the July 2022 Mid-month Conference Call.

We discussed:

• 34 Straight Weeks Of More New Lows Than New Highs
• Strong Negative Correlation between Stocks & Dollars
• DJIA & DJTA holding short-term support so far
• S&P500 Remains Below overhead supply
• Small-caps & Financials testing significant support levels
• Europe's STOXX 600 back to 2000/2007 highs
• Apple hits new All-time Relative Highs
• US 10yr & 30yr Yields run into 2018 highs
• Breakevens & EW Commodities peaked months ago before Yields
• Still no expansion in the new 20 day highs or 63 highs lists
• Commercial Hedgers remain historically long Crude Oil
• Gold, Silver & Gold Miners break down to new 52-week lows
• 10yr Minus 3-mo Yield Curve breaks down to follow 2s-10s
• Bitcoin & Ethereum hold above former cycle peaks
• New Trade Ideas: Both Long & Short

From the desk of Steve Strazza @sstrazza

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.

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.

Director David S. Taylor of Delta Air Lines $DAL revealed a purchase of 10,000 shares in the airline company, valued at just under $300,000.

Meritage Group LP filed a 13G revealing an ownership stake of 5.70% in the cloud-based business management platform Coupa Software $COUP.

Do you see what happens when the US Dollar is falling?

Stocks and Crypto go up.

This IS the catalyst.

Do you want to know what will get stocks and crypto back into bull markets?

It's not the fed, it's not the president, it certainly isn't a former president, it isn't a war or any kind of "news" event.

It's the US Dollar. Period.