From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Check out this week's Momentum Report, our weekly summation of all the major indexes at a Macro, International, Sector, and Industry Group level.

By analyzing the short-term data in these reports, we get a more tactical view of the current state of markets. This information then helps us put near-term developments into the big picture context and provides insights regarding the structural trends at play.

Let's jump right into it with some of the major takeaways from this week's report:

* ASC Plus Members can access the Momentum Report by clicking the link at the bottom of this post.

Macro Universe:

In today’s action, there was a large inside purchase reported by Sequoia Capital in the food delivery company DoorDash $DASH.

Sequoia has been a long-time investor in the stock.

In other insider purchases, Durable Capital Partners reported a buy worth roughly $5 million in Duolingo $DUOL.

And an Ambarella $AMBA director disclosed a purchase of just over $1 million in his company’s stock.

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway $BRK.A also disclosed more buying in Occidental Petroleum $OXY.

From the desk of Steven Strazza @Sstrazza and Ian Culley @Ianculley

Commodities have been on a tear, with the Bloomberg Commodity Index recently posting its best week since 1970 and the CRB Index rallying more than 25% year to date.

Despite the broad strength from commodities, Dr. Copper – a key economic barometer – has yet to break out like so many of its peers. 

After making a new all-time high last Friday, buyers were unable to sustain the move, and price retreated into its former range.

While it’s great to see so many other contracts trending higher, bulls really need to see copper join the mix. If this is truly a new commodity supercycle, it better break out from this consolidation. 

It is that important to the overall asset class.

Let’s break down the various technical scenarios for copper’s recent move and discuss what they mean for the entire space.

First, the move could have been a premature breakout:

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

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.

And here’s how we arrived at it:

We continue to see insider buying in a lot of the same names.

And the Baker brothers are making an appearance on The Hot List, as we suggested during our recent webinar. 

From the desk of Steven Strazza @Sstrazza and Grant Hawkridge @granthawkridge

Sideways has been the theme for most risk assets since they peaked in the first half of last year. Markets have become increasingly messy in the time since.

If we’re talking about US equities, the market is as bifurcated as it’s been in years.

All we mean by this is that depending on what group a stock is in, it could be in a nice uptrend, but it could also be in an ugly downtrend. Stocks and other risk assets are literally moving in opposite directions these days, and doing so with some serious momentum.

At the index level, you can see this split market reflected by trendless ranges. 

When we look to our risk-appetite ratios and indicators for information, we’re not getting much as the vast majority are still stuck in the same ranges they’ve been in for the better part of 12-months.

So, risk assets are a mess and most of our risk indicators are also a mess. Makes sense, right?

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Welcome to the first issue of The Inside Scoop.

We’ve seen a lot of interesting insider activity since we started publishing our scans last week.

So far this year, commodity stocks have been in a league of their own. Energy and cyclical names have continued to rally higher, while just about everything else – especially growth – continues to slide lower.

In the spirit of this split market, today we’ll discuss a number of stocks showing leadership that we think have more upside in the tank. But we’ll also cover a lagging growth stock that we think we can book some quick gains in on a mean-reversion move.

Also, make sure to check out our Hot List Radar report, which includes all the stocks we’re watching that recently experienced bullish insider buying.

Let’s dive in.

We have a couple of billionaire sightings toward the top of today’s Hot List.

And we also have some congressional activity in the energy space to report.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

When investing in the stock market, we always want to approach it as a market of stocks.

Regardless of the environment, there are always stocks showing leadership and trending higher.

We may have to look harder to identify them depending on current market conditions… but there are always stocks that are going up.

The same can be said for weak stocks. Regardless of the environment, there are always stocks that are going down, too. 

We already have multiple scans focusing on stocks making all-time highs, such as Hall of Famers, Minor Leaguers, and the 2 to 100 Club. We filter these universes for stocks that are exhibiting the best momentum and relative strength characteristics. 

Clearly, we spend a lot of time identifying and writing about leading stocks every week, via multiple reports. 

Now, we're also highlighting lagging stocks on a recurring basis.

Welcome to The Short Report.

From the desk of Steven Strazza @Sstrazza and Ian Culley @Ianculley  

Benchmark rates around the world have been rolling over as uncertainty sweeps across markets.

Despite the growing pessimism among investors, global yields are digging in at critical levels and bouncing higher in recent sessions. 

We discussed how international yields – particularly those in developed Europe – confirmed the new highs in US rates earlier in the year. 

Today, we’re going to check in on some of those same yields and see if this is still a piece of confirming evidence for rates here in the US.

With the US 10-year hovering around its breakout level at last year’s highs we’re looking for any clues we can get for whether or not these new highs are here to stay.

If the new highs in global yields are holding, that would go a long way in supporting the upside resolution in the US 10-Year.

On the other hand, if we start to see more and more yields around the world fail and roll over, the US will likely follow.

Let’s start with the US 10-year yield:

We’re probably not going to follow Nancy Pelosi into American Express $AXP or PayPal $PYPL.

And Warren Buffett’s recent purchase of a large stake in Occidental Petroleum $OXY doesn’t necessarily indicate an opportunity for us, either.

Moves by these big names are just good information.

From the desk of Steven Strazza @Sstrazza and Ian Culley @IanCulley

US dollar strength is broadening as global currencies lose critical levels against it.

Last week, we outlined crucial support levels in the EUR/USD pair. Those levels have since given way, as sellers have taken control of this major forex cross.

Today, we’re going to highlight two other USD pairs that recently sliced through key levels, further paving a path of least resistance that favors the US dollar.

First up is the British pound, GBP/USD:

The pound has been carving out a distribution pattern for the past year.