Welcome back to Under the Hood, where we'll cover all the action for the week ended October 14, 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.
How come so many investors get mad that an index, which was designed to buy more of the best stocks and less or none of the worst stocks, owns more of the best stocks and less or none of the worst stocks?
The S&P500 is up over 21% since the October low last year. In fact, last week marked the 1 year anniversary of this bull market.
Meanwhile, the Nasdaq100 is up 40% over the past 12 months (because it's a bear market?)
During this time, Technology is up 46%, Communications is up 42% and Industrials are up 22% - representing the 3 best performing groups of stocks.
One of the relative trends we must regularly evaluate is the relationship between large-caps and small-caps.
Sometimes large-caps outperform. Other times, it’s the little guys leading the way.
This ratio tells us which ones we should be focusing on.
The chart below shows the Russell 1000 Large-Cap ETF (IWB) relative to the Russell 2000 Small-Cap ETF (IWM) breaking out of a monster-basing formation.
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.
The negative correlation between equities and the dollar remains intact, representing a fundamental piece of the current intermarket puzzle.
When the dollar strengthens, stocks tend to fall under selling pressure. On the flip side, stocks often enjoy strong bull runs when the dollar trends lower.
Banks are considered one of the world's most important industry groups as they provide an excellent overview of the economic environment and overall risk appetite toward markets.
After suffering a deep decline in Q1, prices carved out a tradable low, rebounded, and settled into a well-defined trading range.
However, these laggards continue to be a concern for the financial sector and the broader market as the charts look vulnerable heading into earnings season.
Here we have Money-Center Banks $KBE, Regional Banks $KRE, and Community Banks $QABA, all of which are below their AVWAPS from the May lows:
