To add to that sentiment shift, here is the our internal sentiment composite which includes data from Individual Investors, Advisories, Active Investment Managers, Volatility and the Options Market.
As you can see last year saw some of the most pessimistic levels in history, giving us one of the greatest buying opportunities we've ever seen.
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.
For the first year or so, we focused only on Russell 2000 stocks with a market cap between $1 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.
We expanded our universe to include some mid-caps.
To make the cut for our Minor Leaguers list, a company must have a market cap between $1 and $4B.
I always laugh at that one, even as I write this note.
That’s probably because I’ve spent the better part of the past twenty years chasing waves – but I don’t share this Hollywood version of a stoner-surfer ethos regarding life.
But I do follow this mindset when it comes to markets…
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.
No matter how you measure volatility, there is no ignoring the fact that the daily moves (both realized and expected) have shrunk dramatically in the cryptocurrency space, most notably in granddaddy Bitcoin $BTC.
Here's Strazza this morning on twitter:
Implied volatility can remain muted for as long as it wants to. It's not going to expand on my schedule. But at least when we're range bound and options prices are relatively cheap, we can position ourselves further out in time to take advantage of the next big move.
