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

It reveals an additional purchase of roughly $7.8 million in Insight Enterprises $NSIT, as ValueAct continues to increase its position in the tech stock.

From the desk of Steven Strazza @Sstrazza and Ian Culley @IanCulley

The US dollar is on the ropes as global currencies bounce back.

After failing to hold its breakout earlier in the month, the USD looks vulnerable against a growing number of currencies.

The pound and euro are catching higher. The Swiss franc is rebounding off its recent lows. And the commodity-centric Australian and Canadian dollars remain resilient.

We can add the Mexican peso to this list, as the USD/MXN cross broke down to fresh 52-week lows yesterday. This breakdown supports the near-term bearish argument for the dollar.

And it also offers a great trade setup. 

Let’s take a look.

Here’s a chart of the USD/MXN pair:

Last week, George Soros filed a 13G revealing the purchase of 9,425,000 shares of the small-cap automotive semiconductor company indie Semiconductor $INDI.

This brings Soros Fund Management's total interest to 9.20%, making it the largest shareholder of the company.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza.

Welcome back to our latest Under the Hood column, where we'll cover all the action for the week ended May 27, 2022. This report is published bi-weekly and rotated with our Minor Leaguers column.

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

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

Our Top 10 Charts Report was just published.

In this weekly note, we highlight 10 of the most important charts or themes we're currently seeing in asset classes around the world.

Major Levels

The Dollar Index and rates are the two most important charts on the planet right now, and they’re both rolling over. If these two critical areas of the market catch lower, it should provide a much-needed boost to a stock market still grappling with selling pressure. A weaker dollar lifts all risk assets, while lower rates should impact the most beaten down areas, primarily tech. If these tops resolve lower and stocks don’t catch a bid, it raises an important question: What will it take for stocks to rally?

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Check out this week's Momentum Report, our weekly summation of all the major indexes at a Macro, International, Sector, and Industry Group level.

By analyzing the short-term data in these reports, we get a more tactical view of the current state of markets. This information then helps us put near-term developments into the big picture context and provides insights regarding the structural trends at play.

Let's jump right into it with some of the major takeaways from this week's report:

* ASC Plus Members can access the Momentum Report by clicking the link at the bottom of this post.

Macro Universe:

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

While we managed to string together a handful of up-days at the end of last week, markets have been selling off aggressively since April. Sellers remain in full control as the list of indexes resolving lower from distribution patterns continues to grow.

Finding favorable long setups in this tape hasn’t been easy. And because Inside Scoop is a “long-only” scan, there’s been little for us to do in the current environment.

Despite this, insiders have been very active in recent weeks as we continue to see more and more come out to buy the dip.

Many of the names seeing insider interest are in severe downtrends and have already endured significant technical damage.

With that said, there are still long opportunities. We just have to look a little harder, and get a bit more creative.

Today, we have a long-term base breakout as well as a short-term mean-reversion setup. While these are very different, both offer significant upside potential with limited risk.

From the desk of Steven Strazza @Sstrazza and Ian Culley @Ianculley   

Nobody likes inflation.

The costs of day-to-day necessities rise. Long-forgotten and disliked sectors of the market start to outperform. And many of the cool tech names that were a must-own for every portfolio turn into a pile of hot garbage.

Now that everyone – even the Fed – agrees the current inflationary environment isn’t transitory, cries of a near-term top in inflation have emerged. 

Yes, breakevens and inflation expectations have peaked and are beginning to roll over. Whether this will turn into a substantial downturn in the coming weeks and months is anyone’s guess.

Instead of playing the guessing game, we’re focused on commodities – the assets that benefit most from inflationary pressures. 

Here’s what we’re seeing.

This is a chart of our equal weight commodity index overlaid with the 10-year breakeven inflation rate:

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:

Coinbase Global $COIN co-founder and director Fred Ehrsam is back on our list with another Form 4 filing for just under $2 million worth of shares.

He’s bought approximately $76 million worth of COIN in the last 10 days.

From the desk of Steven Strazza @Sstrazza and Ian Culley @Ianculley    

When it comes to the bond market, credit spreads are always top of mind. They provide critical information regarding the liquidity and stress of the largest markets in the world.

While most of us aren’t full-time bond traders, in many cases we turn to these assets to offset the risk associated with the equity side of our portfolios. That’s fine.

But when credit markets come under stress, it affects all asset classes, especially equities. We’re seeing this now.

Earlier in the month, we noted that these crucial spreads were widening to their highest level since late 2020 as the high-yield bond versus Treasury ratio $HYG/$IEI hit new 52-week lows. 

It’s no coincidence that the major stock market averages fell to their lowest level in over a year as this was happening.

This is why we pay close attention to credit spreads. They give us information about the health of other risk assets.