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.
From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza and Alfonso Depablos @AlfCharts
We love our bottoms-up scans here at All Star Charts. We tend to get really creative when making new universes as we want to be sure they will deliver us the best opportunities the market has to offer.
However, when it comes to our latest project, it couldn't be any simpler!
With the goal of finding more bullish setups, we have decided to expand one of our favorite scans and broaden our regular coverage of the largest US stocks.
Welcome to The Junior Hall of Famers.
This scan is composed of the next 150 largest stocks by market cap, those that come after the top 150 and are thus covered by the Hall of Famers universe. Many of these names will someday graduate and join our original Hall Of Famers list. The idea here is to catch these big trends as early on as possible.
There is no need to overcomplicate things. Market cap is a quality filter at the end of the day. It only grows if price is rising. That's good enough for us.
As many of you know, something we've been working on internally is using various bottom-up tools and scans to complement our top-down approach.
It's really been working for us!
One way we're doing this is by identifying the strongest growth stocks as they climb the market-cap ladder from small- to mid- to large- and, ultimately, to mega-cap status (over $200B).
Once they graduate from small-cap to mid-cap status (over $2B), they come on our radar. Likewise, when they surpass the roughly $30B mark, they roll off our list.
But the scan doesn't just end there.
We only want to look at the strongest growth industries in the market, as that is typically where these potential 50-baggers come from.
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.
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.
I’ve had the pleasure of driving cross country multiple times, covering every inch of I-10.
I made so many memorable moments on those drives …
I pushed through white-out conditions in Kansas. (My brother had an appointment with the State Department in Washington D.C., and we couldn’t stop.)
I "accidentally" crossed into Juarez, Mexico, which turned into one helluva time!
And I picked up more than one speeding ticket on the reservation (highway patrol doesn’t play in Navajo country).
I somehow made it coast to coast every time.
While many details of those treks slip away with the years, I’ll always remember the Alamo.
I know, it’s funny. I didn't even go inside.
To be clear, my memory of the Alamo has nothing to do with the historic battle or the revisionist histories that have been written and rewritten since.
Instead, I picture a meager fort in the twilight – nothing more. A truly humble beacon of strength.
The understated image resurfaces in my mind's eye this week as I plan and plot the best way to trade gold.
From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza and Alfonso Depablos @AlfCharts
Our Hall of Famers list is composed of the 150 largest US-based stocks.
These stocks range from the mega-cap growth behemoths like Apple and Microsoft – with market caps in excess of $2T – to some of the new-age large-cap disruptors such as Moderna, Square, and Snap.
It has all the big names and more.
It doesn’t include ADRs or any stock not domiciled in the US. But don’t worry; we developed a separate universe for that. Click here to check it out.
The Hall of Famers is simple.
We take our list of 150 names and then apply our technical filters so the strongest stocks with the most momentum rise to the top.
Let’s dive right in and check out what these big boys are up to.
