From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza.

Welcome back to Under the Hood, where we'll cover all the action for the week ended December 22, 2023. This report is published bi-weekly, in rotation with The Minor Leaguers.

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.

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.

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

The buzz around gold’s new all-time high is growing – and for good reason.

New all-time highs will likely become a regular occurrence in the coming quarters. 

But while gold makes headlines, my attention is on silver mining stocks…

In today's Daily Digest, we'll review:

1. No new position today.
2. Defensive adjustment in XLV.
3. No exits since the last report.
4. Current status of open campaigns.

Let's dig in!

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

The buzz around gold’s new all-time high is growing – and for good reason.

New all-time highs will likely become a regular occurrence in the coming quarters. 

But while gold makes headlines, my attention is on silver mining stocks…

Check out the Silver Miners ETF $SIL carving out a potential double bottom:

SIL is printing fresh six-month highs as it trades back above its June peak.

From the Desk of Steve Strazza and Alfonso Depablos

The most significant transaction on today’s list comes in a Form 4 filing by John Rakolta Jr,, director of Agree Realty Corporation $ADC.

Rakolta reported a ADC purchase with a total value of $832,627.

This is the weekly post that aggregates all the charts we put together throughout the week and organizes them all into one, easy to flip through deck.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Our International Hall of Famers list is composed of the 100 largest US-listed international stocks, or ADRs.

We've also sprinkled in some of the largest ADRs from countries that did not make the market cap cut. 

These stocks range from some well-known mega-cap multinationals such as Toyota Motor and Royal Dutch Shell to some large-cap global disruptors such as Sea Ltd and Shopify.

It's got all the big names and more–but only those that are based outside the US. You can find all the largest US stocks on our original Hall of Famers list.

The beauty of these scans is really in their simplicity.

We take the largest names each week and then apply technical filters in a way that the strongest stocks with the most momentum rise to the top.

Based on the market environment, we can also flip the scan on its head and filter for weakness.

Let's dive in and take a look at some of the most important stocks from around the world.

Here's this week's list:

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

Metals are dominating the commodity space.

The rotation between energy and base & industrial metals colors the commodity markets as we near 2024.

Crude oil has slipped through buyers' hands since interest rates peaked in October. That much is obvious… 

But don’t short crude oil and its distillates just because copper and gold are catching a bid…

Check out the commodity subgroup performance since the US 10-year yield $TNX peaked in the fall:

Energy has clearly cooled, while precious and base metals have led the pack.

This makes sense as rates fall. But markets don’t move in a straight line.

The bull market continues, and the broadening out of participation continues to widen. Today's trade is in a Chemicals company that is beginning to show some relative strength and has two upside targets that could potentially be met, if conditions cooperate.

We'll reduce our position as the closer target, and hold the rest for a run at the big prize!

In today's Daily Digest, we'll review:

1. No new position today.
2. Defensive adjustment in XBI.
3. No exits since the last report.
4. Current status of open campaigns.

Let's dig in!

From the Desk of Steve Strazza and Alfonso Depablos

The most significant transaction on today’s list comes in a Form 4 filing by Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway.

Buffett reported another purchase in Occidental Petroleum Corp $OXY, this time with a total value of $312 million.