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:

The largest insider transaction on today’s list is a Form 4 filing by two members of the Starbucks $SBUX board of directors, chair Mellody Hobson and member Richard Allison.

They reported purchases of SBUX worth a combined $5.9 million.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

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.

Here’s this week’s list:

The largest insider buy on today’s list comes from Sarepta Therapeutics $SRPT Director Michael Andrew Chambers.

Chambers reported the acquisition of roughly 57,100 shares, equivalent to $5.9 million.

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Although volatility has returned to equity markets this week, we continue to see pockets of strength in a variety of areas and individual stocks from our Inside Scoop universe.

While many of the strongest names continue to struggle in terms of breaking out and sustaining new highs, just as many are showing impressive resilience despite the broad market weakness.

Here we’ll outline a trade setup in a small-cap stock that’s coiling near fresh highs.

In lieu of this week’s Strategy Session, we’ll also run through some of the names from our Inside Scoop universe that stand out.

H Partners Management filed a Form 4 reporting the purchase of roughly $4.6 million in the theme parks corporation Six Flags Entertainment $SIX.

The hedge fund now has a total stake in SIX of more than 11.50%.

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Welcome to the 2 to 100 Club.

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.

The largest insider transaction on today's list is a Form 4 filing by Sameer Gandhi, a director at Freshworks $FRSH.

Gandhi reported a purchase of FRSH stock worth $11.5 million.

The most significant insider activity on today's list comes in a Form 4 filing by Kelcy Warren, the executive chairman of Energy Transfer $ET.

Warren reported a purchase worth roughly $29.2 million.

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 Steve Strazza @sstrazza

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.

We also weed out hedging activity and ensure there are no offsetting trades that either neutralize or cap the risk on these unusual options trades.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Our Top 10 Charts Report was just published.

In this weekly note, we highlight 10 of the most important charts or themes we're currently seeing in asset classes around the world.

Finding Support with Fibonacci

US equities appear to be regaining ground after giving back some of their gains from this summer. Following the corrective action of the last few weeks, the Nasdaq 100 ETF has finally found support at the 61.8% Fibonacci retracement level of the June-to-August advance. These levels represent a logical place for demand to show up and halt prices from falling further. We’re watching closely to see what kind of follow-through we get in the coming days. If this was really the bottom, we should see a higher high in the near future. On the other hand, a break below 294 would signal increased downside risk and likely lead to a retest of the June lows. From a tactical standpoint, this is our line in the sand for the Nasdaq 100.