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 Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Welcome to our latest Minor Leaguers report.

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 Kimmy Sokoloff

Happy New Year, and welcome to 2023!

What I try to do at the start of the year is to not allow my bias cloud my judgment. I try to stay focused on price and let the market guide me. I'm not overly bullish. But I will let the market tell the story, and I will follow along.

The market is the leader, and I'm just the follower.

So, as they say, let the journey begin.

The most notable insider activity on today's list came in separate Form 4 filings by the CEO and one of the directors of B. Riley Financial $RILY.

Over $900,000 worth of stock purchases were reported by the two insiders.

For over a decade, stocks in the United States outperformed Commodities by a long shot.

In fact, Commodities underperformed for so long, that many investors even forgot that they were an asset class.

"Stocks and Bonds JC!", they would tell me.

And I would say, "No kids, it's Stocks, Bonds AND Commodities".

Was 2022 such a hard year in the market like the media keeps telling you?

Or was it just a normal year that was hard, because every year is hard?

I think about this a lot.

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 which you can check out here.

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.

Here’s this week’s list:

The largest insider transaction on today’s list comes in a Form 4 filing by director Roxanne Austin, who revealed a $2 million purchase in CrowdStrike Holdings $CRWD.

CRWD is trading at its lowest level in years as it looks to find support at its key former highs from 2019.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

First and foremost, a very happy and healthy New Year to all! Wishing you and your family a year of happiness, health, and prosperity.

That was a nice bounce overall in the market. Hopefully it holds.

We're officially half the way through this year's Santa Claus Rally.

I like to check in on this one as it goes on because of the impact it's had on past markets.

It's a week full of trades!.

There are so many opportunities out there in this stock market that keeps on grinding higher.

The bulls continue to get rewarded throughout the back half of the year and we see no evidence of that slowing down.

Yesterday's Long Tesla Call is setting up nicely.

Over in our Trading Room, we traded $TSLA from the long side both yesterday and already this morning, successfully both times.

The longer-term trade looks ready to trigger as well.

In the meantime, I bought this Micron $MU that I think also provides us with a favorable risk vs reward opportunity.

Durable Capital Partners makes another appearance on our list, as the hedge fund continues to increase its position in Duolingo $DUOL.

This time, Durable Capital bought a total of $2.4 million worth of DUOL.