We debuted a new scan recently- The Outperformers.

The Outperformers is our newest scan that pinpoints the very best stocks in the market. It’s the fastest, easiest way to find quality names that are primed for major moves.

The goal is that as the market rally progresses, the sector rotation within the market will reflect in this scan. So while our Top/Down Analysis helps us with the broader view of the market, this Bottom/Up scan makes sure that we catch the slightest change in sentiment.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza 

We held our November Monthly Strategy Session last night. Premium Members can access and rewatch it here.

Non-members can get a quick recap of the call simply by reading this post each month. 

By focusing on long-term, monthly charts, the idea is to take a step back and put things into the context of their structural trends. This is easily one of our most valuable exercises as it forces us to put aside the day-to-day noise and simply examine markets from a “big-picture” point of view.

Let’s dive in and discuss three of the most important charts and/or themes from this month’s call.

From the desk of Willie Delwiche.

From the desk of Willie Delwiche.

We’ve made some changes to our ASC+Plus Dynamic Portfolios. 

With the weight of the evidence turning more bullish, we have increased our equity exposure in the cyclical and tactical opportunity portfolios. 

Within these portfolios we have also moved away from equity areas that are struggling to participate in the rally and re-focused exposure on areas that are experiencing upside momentum.

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

Risk assets are on the rise.

Energy futures are resolving higher from multi-year bases. Stocks are pressing to new highs all along the cap scale. And the more cyclical, value-oriented markets are catching a bid and becoming leadership groups again -- think financials and energy.

It appears everything is falling into place. But a few pieces are still missing… 

For instance, you might assume the US dollar is under pressure as commodities and stocks outperform.

But it’s not. 

In fact, the dollar made new 52-week highs not long ago and has since consolidated at the top of its range while riskier areas of the currency market have struggled to catch a bid.

We’ve highlighted the US Dollar Index and the mixed signals coming from developed currencies in recent posts.

Today, we’re going to turn our...

The buzzword over the last few days has been the "Metaverse", but what is it, and why should we care?

Breaking all the headlines last week was the big tech news that Facebook was changing its name to Meta, realigning it with its future goals and ambitions. The metaverse is seen as the next iteration of the internet through virtual reality, primarily as a new way of experiencing the world of social media.

Following all this talk, virtual reality and gaming cryptocurrency protocols have caught a nice bid, with Decentraland and Sandbox up over +320% and +250%, respectively, since the Facebook Connect event.

And just take a look at the explosion in google searches about the metaverse:

This has acted as an immediate tailwind for the crypto and decentralized protocols pushing this technology and has certainly been a pocket of the asset class that is garnering plenty of attention.

We may not be early to this...

Monthly Charts are very important to us. As a team, we regroup several times, but monthly charts put us on the same page, without having to discuss it.

Process is an important aspect of any activity. And so, Monthly Charts analysis is an important aspect of our research. Without this, it is easy to get swayed in the short-term moves and get carried away by them.

You can sign up for our Monthly Strategy Call and get the whole update of the market. We're here to provide a glimpse of what's going on.

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 October 29, 2021. This report is published bi-weekly and rotated on-and-off 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...

This is the video recording of our November 1, 2021 Monthly Charts Live Strategy Session

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 move in their direction and make them a pretty penny...

From the desk of Willie Delwiche.

Key Takeaway: Index strength fueled by new found momentum. New highs lists are expanding, but not very rapidly. Persistent inflation, sputtering growth are a headache for the Fed.

• Consumer Discretionary has been the top-performing large-cap sector on a short-term basis and was one of only two large-cap sectors to make new highs last week (Information Technology was the other). The sector’s relative strength at the large-cap level is not echoed among mid and small-caps, but it is still fairly broad-based (it’s equal-weight ranking matches its cap-weight ranking).
• Energy and Financials have lagged on a short-term basis, but remain at the top of our relative strength rankings across size levels.