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.

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 the stock is about to move in their direction and make them a pretty penny.

Then we flip through our list of stocks flashing...

This morning, the big market news is that Twitter $TWTR and Elon Musk are getting close to striking a deal for the eccentric billionaire to take the company private.

This is a dramatic turn of events from just last week, when the company announced it had adopted a “poison pill” to ward off Musk’s takeover efforts.

The latest reports suggest a deal could be finalized as early as today.

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.

We recently decided to expand our universe to include some mid-caps…

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.

The way we did this is simple…

To make the cut for our new 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...

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

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 which you can check out here.

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:

And here’s how we arrived at it:

• Filter out any stocks that are below their May 10th, 2021 high, which is when new 52-week highs peaked for...

The largest insider buy on today's list is a Form 4 filing by Jan Barta of Pale Fire Capital.

Barta now owns 2,658,550 shares of Groupon $GRPN, which represents an ownership stake of approximately 9%.

This is our ASC Research Q2 2022 Playbook.

With the current market environment giving us many mixed messages, what better time to dive in and see what's happening underneath the surface?

• Stocks (International & U.S.)
• U.S. Sectors & Industries
• Market Breadth & Sentiment
• Commodities
• Currencies
• Intermarket Analysis
• Cryptocurrencies
• New Trade Ideas
• Overall Strategy

In the activist world, Bill Ackman announced that Pershing Square exited its position in Netflix $NFLX, as the stock was plunging lower by 35% on the heels of a disappointing earnings report.

It’s estimated that the hedge fund lost over $400 million on the position, which was just purchased back in January.

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.

We'll publish this...

For this week's trade, buying $XLI January 130 calls for 35 cents or cheaper.

Get the full details, risk management procedures and targets for this trade here:

This is the video recording of our April 20, 2022, Inside Scoop Weekly Strategy Session.

The only insider buy on today's Hot List is a Form 4 filing by the CEO of Solo Brands $DTC, who reported a purchase of roughly $486,200.

In the options market, there was bullish options activity in the social media platform Pinterest Inc $PINS and in the retail pharmacy operator Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc.

Today’s Hot List is a short one.

Durable Capital Partners continues to build its position in the language-learning website and mobile app Duolingo Inc $DUOL.