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.

Some of the best performers in recent decades – stocks like Priceline, Amazon, Netflix, Salesforce, and myriad others – would have been on this list at some point...

From the Desk of Steve Strazza and Alfonso Depablos

Today’s largest insider transaction is another Form 4 filing by Exxon Mobil Corporation $XOM director and ValueAct Capital founder Jeff Ubben.

Ubben reported an XOM purchase worth $26 million, bringing his total share count to 2,077,000.

Relative strength can be really powerful because stocks often tip their hand before making their big moves.

When the overall market is under pressure and a stock is making new 52-week highs, something is usually going on.

We're seeing it in Uber, which we just bought yesterday.

UBER is making new 52-week highs and is currently valued at over $100 Billion. Meanwhile, people keep telling me stocks are in a bear market.

Those people must be looking at LYFT instead...

This is the video recording of the November 8, 2023, Hot Corner Insider Weekly Strategy Session.

From the Desk of Steve Strazza and Alfonso Depablos

Today’s largest insider transaction is another Form 4 filing by Bahram Akradi, founder and CEO of Life Time Group Holdings $LTH.

Akradi reported an LTH purchase worth $1,142,934. His last purchase was in August.

The Nasdaq100 index just went out at the highest levels in history relative to the much broader Russell3000 Index.

Technology represents about 50% of the Nasdaq100, with Apple's weighting coming in at 11% of the index and Microsoft currently at just over 10%.

But the Nasdaq100 is a good representation of these mega-cap names, because Amazon, Google, Meta and Tesla all carry huge weightings. Remember, none of these stocks are in the Tech Index.

So the Nasdaq100 broadens it out to what most people consider "Tech".

Here's the QQQ hitting new all-time highs relative to Russell3000:

From the Desk of Steve Strazza and Alfonso Depablos

Today’s largest insider transaction is another Form 4 filing by the president and CEO and a director of Sarepta Therapeutics $SRPT.

Together, the two executives bought SRPT shares for a total of $5,9 million.

Everyone knows that it's a market of stocks.

Sometimes investors forget that there are 500+ stocks in the S&P500, 30 stocks in the DJ Industrial Avg and approximately 3000 stocks in the Russell3000.

This is all free and public information.

But still, investors forget, especially during times when it's most important to remember.

That's just human nature.

We take things for granted until we need them the most.

This quarter has been a prime example.

You see, while the S&P500 and other indexes were making new lows last month, the list of stocks making new lows had already peaked in early October.

We discussed the lack of new 52-week lows already...

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.

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.

What remains is a list of stocks that large financial institutions are putting big money behind.

And they’re doing so for one reason only: because they think...

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 now, a company must have a market cap between $1 and $4B.

And it doesn't have to be a Russell component — it can be any US-listed equity. With participation expanding around the globe, we want all those ADRs in our universe.

The same price and liquidity filters are applied. Then, as always, we sort by proximity to new highs in...

From the Desk of Steve Strazza and Alfonso Depablos

Today’s largest insider transaction is another Form 4 filing by the CEO and the CFO of Lumen Technologies $LUMN.

Together the two executives bought LUMN shares worth a total of $1,519,450.

A lot has been made about the underperformance from small-cap stocks this year.

The permabears in particular really enjoy using this one as an excuse for missing out on one of the most epic rallies in market history

"But the small-caps"....they cry.

So yes, let's address it. How about those small-caps?

Zoom out. It's a clean series of higher highs and higher lows: