Monday night we held our April Monthly Conference Call, which Premium Members can access and rewatch here.

In this post, we’ll do our best to summarize it by highlighting five of the most important charts and/or themes we covered, along with commentary on each.

Let’s get right into it!

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

A couple weeks ago we pointed out that the stock market was questioning the rise in rates.

Defensive areas we would expect to underperform in the current environment such as utilities and REITs are actually outperforming.

And the names we would expect to do well – specifically banks – can’t seem to catch a bid on either absolute or relative terms.

This is concerning from a broader intermarket perspective. But it’s not the complete story.

While our stock market ratios are not supportive of higher rates, when we look within the bond market, we’re seeing the opposite.

Not only is there a synchronized global rally in interest rates, but the intermarket evidence from our bond market ratios supports this action and indicates a healthy degree of risk appetite. 

Today we're going to highlight one of those bond market ratios – high-yield vs. investment-grade debt.

Let’s take a look.

Here’s an overlay chart of the US 10-year yield and the junk versus investment-grade...

In the activist world, Bill Ackman announced that Pershing Square exited its position in Netflix $NFLX, as the stock was plunging lower by 35% on the heels of a disappointing earnings report.

It’s estimated that the hedge fund lost over $400 million on the position, which was just purchased back in January.

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.

We'll publish this...

This is the video recording of our April 20, 2022, Inside Scoop Weekly Strategy Session.

The only insider buy on today's Hot List is a Form 4 filing by the CEO of Solo Brands $DTC, who reported a purchase of roughly $486,200.

In the options market, there was bullish options activity in the social media platform Pinterest Inc $PINS and in the retail pharmacy operator Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc.

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

The US Dollar Index $DXY resumes its relentless march higher.

But the full story surrounding the dollar’s dominance is a bit more complicated.

Lately, we’ve been pounding the table about the narrow scope of the DXY, as 83% of its weightings come from just three currencies – the yen, the pound, and the euro.

All three continue to lose ground versus the dollar, and this is exactly what's driving the rally at the index level.

On the other hand, the USD has not performed as well against other currencies – especially emerging markets and commodity-centric ones. 

While this remains the case, we’re starting to see USD strength expand beyond the major components of the DXY. We're also seeing some nice long-term patterns materialize that favor the US dollar.

A great example is the rounding bottom in the US dollar-Korean won cross – USD/KRW.

Here’s a zoomed...

Today’s Hot List is a short one.

Durable Capital Partners continues to build its position in the language-learning website and mobile app Duolingo Inc $DUOL.

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 April 15, 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.

Watch this video for a behind-the-scenes look at our process.

Whether we’re measuring increasing interest based on large...

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.

What remains is a list of stocks that large financial institutions are putting big money behind.

They’re doing so for one reason only: because they think the stock is about to move in their...

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:

• Our macro universe was red again this week, as 66% of our list closed lower with a median return of -0.63%.
• This week, crude Oil $CL was the winner, closing with an 8.84% gain.
• The biggest loser was Lumber $LB, with a weekly loss of -6.41%.
• There was a 5% drop in the percentage of assets on our list within 5% of their 52-week highs – currently at 23%.
• 15% of our macro list made fresh 4-week highs, 9% made new 13-...

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.

Tech Weighs Heavy on US Stocks

US equities have outperformed their global counterparts for the better part of the last decade. This is largely attributed to the vast differences between the weighting and composition of US and international markets – mainly, the heavy weighting toward technology in the US and the relative absence of tech outside the US.

The overlay chart of Tech vs. the S&P 500 and the S&P 500 vs. the ACWI All World Index ratios tell the story. Tech dominance in the US strongly correlates with US dominance over global markets. With tech taking the brunt of the recent selling pressure, it calls into question the continued outperformance of US equities. This reiterates the possibility that what has worked for the past decade may not work in the years that lie ahead. Position accordingly…

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