From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

The market is taking a breather.

We still have a lot of earnings to contend with this week.

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.

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...

The only insider transaction on today’s list comes in a Form 4 filing by the CEO of Triumph Group $TGI, Chong Chan Teo.

Teo reported a small purchase of TGI shares worth $101,095.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

We're turning the corner into the last stretch of summer.

The market has been very resilient through all negative news.

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 Kimmy Sokoloff

Today we close out July, and what a month it's been.

The indices trickled higher continuously throughout.

The fact that Energy hasn't even broken out yet really stands out to me.

Energy, and commodities in general, have been left for dead this year.

Investors have forgotten about that third asset class: Commodities.

It's not just stocks and bonds kids.

There are Commodities too!

Here's the Energy Sector Index, flat over the past 15 years.

It still hasn't even broken out:

The largest insider transaction on today’s list comes in a Form 4 filing by John H. Stone, president and CEO of Allegion plc $ALLE.

Stone revealed a purchase of ALLE shares worth roughly $2 million.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

Futures are up this morning, go figure!

It's like Groundhog Day.

We have another busy earnings week ahead.

I still don't think the second half of 2023 is going to look like the first half.

A lot of things could be different.

Let's remember, in the back half of 2022 almost every stock and sector was already going up, EXCEPT for Mega-cap growth.

And then in early January, they got the rotation they were looking for, and it became Tech and Growth as the leaders of this Bull Market.

Now that we're in Month #14 of this Bull Market regime, and we've seen several cycles of rotation already, I think it's time for another one.

First of all, take a look at the Nasdaq100 $QQQ currently running into former resistance from late 2021, that preceded the failed breakout and ensuing collapse:

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. Click here to check it out.

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:

Click table to enlarge view

We filter out any laggards that are down -5% or more relative to the S&P 500 over the trailing month. 

Then...

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

I started at the top last week, laying out my bullish energy thesis with five charts.

Energy commodities are reclaiming critical levels. They’re outperforming their alternatives. And buyers continue to support a healthy demand for crude oil distillates.

What’s not to like?

Today, I’m drilling down to individual stocks, highlighting five trade setups I didn’t cover in last Wednesday’s What the FICC episode…

And these stocks look ready to rip!

First up is oil services. I like this group of stocks because the oil services ETFs $OIH and $XES are the strongest among industry groups.

Here’s Schlumberger LTD. $SLB, the $81B behemoth:

We highlighted SLB in early January in our Hall of Famers column. It's carved out a six-month base below our risk level since.

...