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 which you can check out here.

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:

And here’s how we arrived at it:

• We filtered out any stocks that are below their May 10th 2021 high, which is when new 52-week highs peaked...

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

The biggest theme on our Hot List and Inside Scoop tables has been the strength from commodity stocks.

Since we launched the column, we’ve discussed the strength from energy stocks like Occidental Petroleum $OXY, agricultural stocks like Corteva $CTVA, and industrial metal names such as Freeport-McMoRan $FCX.

These names have all recently broken out and continue to show leadership. When the same theme continues to work, we want to continue to bet on it.

And that’s exactly what we’re doing with today’s setup.

Revolution Medicines $RVMD director Thilo Schroeder is back on our list for the third time in just two weeks with another Form 4 filing.

Following last week’s $3.4 million buy, he revealed an additional $5.5 million purchase in his latest filing.

There’s a handful of large Form 4 purchases on today’s list.

Robert Gervis, director of Aspen Aerogels $ASPN, purchased $4.5 million of stock.

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 column...

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

It's beginning to feel more and more like a risk-on environment out there.

Commodities are ripping higher. Stocks are digging in at critical levels. And defensive assets such as Treasury bonds and the Japanese yen are in freefall.

Despite the market volatility this year, investors continue to be rewarded for buying stocks over bonds. This has been the case for two years now, and there's no evidence it will change anytime soon.

When we look to our risk indicators and risk appetite ratios, the majority are still stuck in a range. With the stocks versus bonds ratio resolving to fresh highs, we're thinking the rest may soon follow.

But first and foremost, the price action from this classic intermarket relationship suggests that stocks are still the place to be.

Let’s take a look.

Here’s a chart of the S&P 500 $SPY versus US T-Bond ETF $TLT:   

What this ratio really...

This is the video recording of our March 23, 2022, Inside Scoop Weekly Strategy Session.

There are a handful of interesting Form 4 filings on today’s list.

One name that stands out is the popular meme stock GameStop $GME.

Monday night we held our March Monthly Conference Call, which Premium Members can access and re-watch here.

In this post, we’ll 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

The unwind is on in the aussie!

After accumulating a historic net-long position last fall, commercial hedgers are scrambling to cover. Over the past four weeks, the smart money has trimmed its long exposure to roughly half of what it was.

This is reflected in our most recent Commitment of Traders Heatmap, which you can view here.

When positioning flips at extremes – like we’re seeing now in the Australian dollar – we want to look for opportunities to ride the emerging trend. In other words, we want to bet in the direction that commercial hedgers are currently unwinding away from. 

In the case of AUD, they recently had a historic net long position. As such, we’re looking for bullish technical characteristics to see if a long setup makes sense here.

It just so happens that things are really coming together for the aussie chart lately. We love when technicals and sentiment line up like this.

...

Today’s Hot List is a short one.

As the market takes a pause following four straight up days, options traders are using puts to fade the bounce in UP Fintech Holdings $TIGR and HP $HPQ.

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… and they’re doing so for one reason only: because they think the...