From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

I think it could be a decision day for the indices, and we're either setting up for a ripper or a decent drop.

The $SPX needs to get above 3,972. If it does, we can see 4,000-plus.

Otherwise, we can see 3,922, then 3,860.

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza 

While there have been some real winners during the recent rally, the run off the lows from this fall has also left many stocks behind.

Value stocks, cyclicals, and blue-chip names have prospered for the past two months, as groups like financials and industrials have been the latest beneficiaries of sector rotation. 

At the same time, mega-cap technology and the most-speculative growth areas of the market have continued to show relative weakness.

To be clear, it’s not like these stocks have been crashing lower while the rest of the market rallies. Of course, many have participated in the upside action.

But, on balance, the performance from growth stocks has been lackluster.

The disparity between the growth-heavy Nasdaq 100 and the value-heavy Dow Jones Industrial Average perfectly illustrates what’s taken place:

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

Overall, the market acted weak today.

The $SPX remained below its eight-day moving average, which is at 3,972. This index came close to touching support at 3,933.

The co-founder and executive chairman of Energy Transfer $ET, Kelcy Warren, reappears on our list today.

Warren reported an additional buy of roughly $16 million.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

Futures are up this morning.

What we want to see if this market is going to head higher is that we get above $SPX 3,977.

Support is at SPX 3,956, then 3,933.

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.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza.

Welcome back to our latest Under The Hood column where we'll cover all the action for the week ended November 25, 2022. This report is published bi-weekly and rotated on-and-off with our Minor Leaguers column.

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 Kimmy Sokoloff

It was a down day for the market. Things felt sleepy, or just a little slow.

People are probably still traveling back from the holiday.

The largest insider buy on today’s list comes in a Form 4 filing by the co-founder and executive chairman of Energy Transfer $ET.

In his fifth filing since August, Kelcy Warren revealed an additional purchase of roughly $6.1 million.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

The market is currently pulling into the $SPX 4,000 support level.

If we break below it here, we can head to SPX 3,981.

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

The Dow Jones Industrial Average has rallied 19.60% since its September 30 closing low. On Friday, the large-cap blue-chip index notched another major achievement by reclaiming its pivot highs from August.

The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq 100 haven't fared nearly as well, as both are only up a little more than 10% from their respective lows.

However, when we look outside the US, countries like Germany and the UK are enjoying their biggest win streaks since early 2018.

For risk assets to finally put in a durable low, we need participation from stocks outside the US. We're finally getting it.

Amid all the bullish developments, we want to give the Nasdaq and S&P some time to get things in gear and play catch up.

In the meantime, we're starting to find more and more long opportunities in individual issues. This speaks to improving market internals.

We're also seeing more and more insiders and institutions buy into the rally over the past two months. This speaks to improving sentiment.

Are you noticing?

More stocks are working to the upside.

More of our upside objectives are getting achieved.

Many of our shorts never even get triggered.

A lot of breakouts are holding.

What type of market environment would you describe that as?

Well, we're seeing the most stocks on the NYSE above their 200 day moving average since March.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average just went out at new 6-month highs.

So did the S&P Financials Index.

None of these strike me as characteristics of downtrends.