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 October 18, 2023, Hot Corner Insider Weekly Strategy Session.

From the Desk of Steve Strazza and Alfonso Depablos

The largest insider buy on today’s list comes in a Form 4 filing by Joseph Edelman's Perceived Advisors hedge fund.

The investment firm reported a purchase of roughly $20 million in Cerevel Therapeutics Holdings $CERE.

This is the video recording of the October 2023 Mid-month Conference Call.

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza.

Welcome back to Under the Hood, where we'll cover all the action for the week ended October 14, 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.

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 Steve Strazza and Alfonso Depablos

The largest insider buy on today’s list comes in a Form 4 filing by Artal Group.

The firm reported a purchase of $15 million in Scholar Rock Holding Corporation $SRRK.

Have you noticed how everyone forgot about Healthcare stocks?

All it took was 2 years of no progress for everyone to lose track of just what a monster this trade has been for so long.

Just to put things in perspective, here's what Healthcare as a sector has done over the past 20 years:

From the Desk of Steve Strazza and Alfonso Depablos

The largest insider buy on the list comes in a Form 4 filing by Working Capital Advisors (UK) Ltd.

The investment advisory firm revealed a purchase of $166,774 in Funko Inc $FNKO.

How come so many investors get mad that an index, which was designed to buy more of the best stocks and less or none of the worst stocks, owns more of the best stocks and less or none of the worst stocks?

The S&P500 is up over 21% since the October low last year. In fact, last week marked the 1 year anniversary of this bull market.

Meanwhile, the Nasdaq100 is up 40% over the past 12 months (because it's a bear market?)

During this time, Technology is up 46%, Communications is up 42% and Industrials are up 22% - representing the 3 best performing groups of stocks.

From the Desk of Alfonso Depablos @Alfcharts

One of the relative trends we must regularly evaluate is the relationship between large-caps and small-caps.

Sometimes large-caps outperform. Other times, it’s the little guys leading the way. 

This ratio tells us which ones we should be focusing on. 

The chart below shows the Russell 1000 Large-Cap ETF (IWB) relative to the Russell 2000 Small-Cap ETF (IWM) breaking out of a monster-basing formation.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

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: