From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

The market gapped up nicely and held strong today.

We've got CPI in the morning, so be on your toes.

This is the video recording of our January 11, 2023, Inside Scoop Weekly Strategy Session.

The only Form 4 on today’s list was filed by the chairman and CEO of Erasca $ERAS, who revealed a purchase of $231,420.

Aequim Alternative Investments filed a 13G reporting a passive ownership stake of just over 5% in the oil & gas explorer, Chesapeake Energy $CHK.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

Yesterday we saw a lot of whipsaw.

And then we had a slow grind higher to finish the day above the 50-day moving average on $SPY at 389.92.

Historically, Industrial stocks are the ones with the highest positive correlation with the overall market, among all the S&P sectors.

Financials are obviously important. We don't have bull markets around here without them.

Technology has also been important, considering it has the highest weighting among all the sectors in the U.S.

But when you run the numbers, it's actually Industrials that comes out on top.

Industrials are officially the market's most important sector.

And so when we take a look at how they're behaving, I'm still not seeing the weakness that most investors keep telling me is coming.

In fact, look at Industrials breaking out to new multi-year highs relative to the rest of the market:

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza and Alfonso Depablos @AlfCharts

It's a new year, but the same leadership groups continue to outperform.

As Charlie Dow taught us long ago, trends persist, so this is no real surprise.

All we can do about it is keep leaning on these outperforming groups.

We have a handful of stocks that fit this bill today. Let's get right into it.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

Lots of volatility today.

We dipped down to $SPY's 21-day moving average at 386 and bounced, which was nice.

First Santa Claus showed up for his rally.

Now the "First 5 Days" of the year were up (+1.37%).

That's 2 for 2 so far in the January Trifecta.

So now what's next?

The January Barometer is the last leg of the early year triple crown.

"As January goes, so goes the rest of the year". According to my handy Stock Trader's Almanac, the S&P500 has an 83.3% hit rate for the full year when January is in the green.

So with more and more positive signs for stocks, it really shouldn't be a surprise to anyone.

The biggest Form 4 filing on today’s hot list is from Artal Group S.A., which revealed the purchase of 48,774 shares in small-cap biotech company Scholar Rock Holding Corporation $SRRK.

That’s equivalent to $455,090. 

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

This morning, $SPY is around the 386 level, which is right at the 21-day moving average.

We have Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell speaking early this morning, so the market might be whippy.

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza.

Welcome to Under the Hood, where we'll cover all the action for the week ended January 6, 2023. This report is published bi-weekly and rotated 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.

Click here for a behind-the-scenes look at our process.

Whether we’re measuring increasing interest based on large institutional purchases, unusual options activity, or simply...

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...