From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

As this summer’s relief rally gains momentum, the new highs list is gaining and growing along with it.

For long-only universes like The Hot List, this is great news.

Why?

Because we finally have a good amount of bullish chart setups to choose from again. For a few months there, we were struggling to find solid opportunities for putting on long exposure.

We’ve been patiently waiting for evidence that the market is turning. And while we’re not out of the woods yet, conditions have improved significantly since June.

Let’s dive in and talk about some health care stocks that have our attention right now. 

Insiders are buying up regional banks this week.

Independent Director Robert Stallings reported an additional  purchase of $1.2 million in Texas Capital Bancshares $TCB, as he continues to build his position.

The president and CEO of Heritage-Crystal Clean $HCCI reported a purchase of 150,000 shares, roughly equivalent to $4,000,000 worth of stock.

The only 13D on our list today was filed by Inclusive Capital Partners LP.

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.

This is the video recording of our July 27, 2022, Inside Scoop Weekly Strategy Session.

Elliott Management, one of the largest and longest-tenured activist funds on Wall Street, is back on our list with its second big splash in two weeks.

Earlier this month, Elliott Management became the largest shareholder in Pinterest $PINS with a roughly 9% stake.

The largest insider transaction on today’s list is a Form 4 filing by Director Lorence H. Kim, who reported a purchase of roughly $1 million in Revolution Medicines $RVMD.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza.

Welcome to the latest edition of Under the Hood, where we'll cover all the action for the week ended July 22, 2022. We publish this report bi-weekly and rotate it 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

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.

Materials Hook Higher

Procyclical areas of the stock market are bouncing back after the recent bout of selling pressure. The Equal-Weight Materials ETF RTM is a prime example as it reclaims a critical level of former support. Now that these raw material and commodity-related stocks are back within their prior ranges, we're watching commodities closely to see if they follow suit. As long as RTM is holding above its shelf of former lows from last year, our equal-weight commodity index is most likely finding support at its respective level. On the flip side, the search for a floor in commodities is likely to continue if the recent rebound in materials is only a dead cat bounce. Ultimately, these two charts should resolve in the same direction.

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:

We’ve seen very little insider activity the past few weeks and today is no different, as we have just a single Form 4 on our Hot List.

This lack of interest is reflected in the ratio of insider sells to insider buys, which just hit its highest level since early 2021.