Abdiel Capital filed a Form 4 yesterday revealing a purchase of an additional 105,500 shares in the software company Appian Corp $APPN.

The firm also made a large purchase in February in the amount of roughly $6.5 million. It now owns nearly 6 million shares of APPN, representing an ownership stake of approximately 14%.

Another software stock, Shift4 Payments $FOUR, had insider activity reported, as the chairman of the board and CEO, Jared Isaacman, filed a Form 4 revealing a purchase worth approximately $1.7 million. 

Isaacman now owns 334,742 shares of FOUR.

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.

We recently decided to expand our universe to include some mid-caps…

For the first year or so, we focused only on Russell 2000 stocks with a market cap between $1B 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.

The way we did this is simple…

To make the cut for our new Minor Leaguers list, a company must have a market cap between $1B and $4B.

And it doesn’t have to be a Russell component–it can be any US-listed equity. With participation expanding around the globe, we want all those ADRs in our universe.

The same price and...

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 stock is about to...

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.

False Start of Failed Breakout?

The markets have been a bifurcated mess for more than a year now. During this time the relative strength from commodities and commodity-related stocks has stood out. Both have been on a tear and continue to rip higher. But despite the broad strength in commodities, Copper has gone nowhere since many risk assets peaked in May of last year.

That changed last week when Copper printed fresh all-time highs. Those new highs were short-lived though, as price quickly slipped back within its prior range. So was last week’s move in Copper a false start or a failed breakout? As any good technician, we want to err in the direction of the underlying trend, which is higher. But, we need to see prices agree before we have any conviction. For now, we want to remain patient and look to the key risk ratios and the bond market for clues to Copper’s next directional move. The direction in which...

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 this week, with 85% of our list closing lower with a median return of -1.95%.
• This week, US 10-Year Yield $TNX was the winner, closing with a massive 16.24% gain.
• The biggest loser was Copper $HG, with a weekly loss of -6.35%.
• There was an 11% drop in the percentage of assets on our list within 5% of their 52-week highs – currently at 19%.
• 13% of our macro list made fresh 4-week highs,...

In today’s action, there was a large inside purchase reported by Sequoia Capital in the food delivery company DoorDash $DASH.

Sequoia has been a long-time investor in the stock.

In other insider purchases, Durable Capital Partners reported a buy worth roughly $5 million in Duolingo $DUOL.

And an Ambarella $AMBA director disclosed a purchase of just over $1 million in his company’s stock.

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway $BRK.A also disclosed more buying in Occidental Petroleum $OXY.

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

Commodities have been on a tear, with the Bloomberg Commodity Index recently posting its best week since 1970 and the CRB Index rallying more than 25% year to date.

Despite the broad strength from commodities, Dr. Copper – a key economic barometer – has yet to break out like so many of its peers. 

After making a new all-time high last Friday, buyers were unable to sustain the move, and price retreated into its former range.

While it’s great to see so many other contracts trending higher, bulls really need to see copper join the mix. If this is truly a new commodity supercycle, it better break out from this consolidation. 

It is that important to the overall asset class.

Let’s break down the various technical scenarios for copper’s recent move and discuss what they mean for the entire space.

First, the move could have been a premature breakout:

We also call...

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.

And here’s how we arrived at it:

• We filter out any stocks that are below their May 10, 2021 high, which is when new 52-week highs peaked for the S&P 500.
...

We continue to see insider buying in a lot of the same names.

And the Baker brothers are making an appearance on The Hot List, as we suggested during our recent webinar. 

From the desk of Steven Strazza @Sstrazza and Grant Hawkridge @granthawkridge

Sideways has been the theme for most risk assets since they peaked in the first half of last year. Markets have become increasingly messy in the time since.

If we’re talking about US equities, the market is as bifurcated as it’s been in years.

All we mean by this is that depending on what group a stock is in, it could be in a nice uptrend, but it could also be in an ugly downtrend. Stocks and other risk assets are literally moving in opposite directions these days, and doing so with some serious momentum.

At the index level, you can see this split market reflected by trendless ranges. 

When we look to our risk-appetite ratios and indicators for information, we’re not getting much as the vast majority are still stuck in the same ranges they’ve been in for the better part of 12-months.

So, risk assets are a mess and most of our risk indicators are also a mess. Makes sense, right?

Let’s...

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Welcome to the first issue of The Inside Scoop.

We’ve seen a lot of interesting insider activity since we started publishing our scans last week.

So far this year, commodity stocks have been in a league of their own. Energy and cyclical names have continued to rally higher, while just about everything else – especially growth – continues to slide lower.

In the spirit of this split market, today we’ll discuss a number of stocks showing leadership that we think have more upside in the tank. But we’ll also cover a lagging growth stock that we think we can book some quick gains in on a mean-reversion move.

Also, make sure to check out our Hot List Radar report, which includes all the stocks we’re watching that recently experienced bullish insider buying.

Let’s dive in.

We have a couple of billionaire sightings toward the top of today’s Hot List.

And we also have some congressional activity in the energy space to report.