Welcome back to Under the Hood, where we'll cover all the action for the week ended August 31, 2023. This report is published bi-weekly and rotated 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.
Seasonality is not the most heavily-weighted data point in my analysis.
It doesn’t even make the top three: price, price, and price.
Nevertheless, tracking seasonal patterns has proven quite valuable in past experiences, especially regarding commodities. (We discussed it today on What the FICC, outlining three strong seasonal tailwinds heading into the fall. Check it out below.)
Raw materials are clearly affected by the earth’s rotation around the sun.
And while these trends fail to produce explicit entry or exit signals, they do provide insight into potential market conditions (not unlike sentiment or COT positioning).
I use seasonality to help guide my focus to those areas of the market that deserve additional attention. Areas such as…
From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza and Alfonso Depablos @AlfCharts
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.
US Treasuries have stopped falling – for the moment.
But it’s a mixed bag.
Short setups for long-duration bonds remain in play despite pullbacks underway, while the shorter end of the curve never managed to break down.
It’s messy.
So, let’s run through the US Treasury futures for an updated read on the bond market.
First up is the 30-year T-bond:
The 30-year has broken below a shelf of former lows at approximately 123. It’s a short as long as it’s below that level with a measured target of 113’15.
But the 30-year is finding support at last year’s lows, bouncing higher toward our line in the sand.
