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:

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

We held our November Monthly Strategy Session Wednesday night. Premium Members can access and rewatch it here.

Non-members can get a quick recap of the call simply by reading this post each month.

By focusing on long-term, monthly charts, the idea is to take a step back and put things into the context of their structural trends. This is easily one of our most valuable exercises as it forces us to put aside the day-to-day noise and simply examine markets from a “big-picture” point of view.

With that as our backdrop, let’s dive right in and discuss three of the most important charts and/or themes from this month’s call.

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. 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

From the Desk of Steve Strazza and Alfonso Depablos

Today’s largest insider transaction is another Form 4 filing by George A. Borba Jr,, director of CVB Financial Corp $CVBF.

Borba reported a CVBF purchase worth $1.6 million.

From the Desk of Steve Strazza and Alfonso Depablos

Today’s largest insider transaction is another Form 4 filing by Charles Bryan Daniels, director of Fifth Third Bancorp $FITB.

Daniels reported an FITB purchase worth $1,503,495.

This is the video recording of our November 1st Monthly Charts Live Strategy Session

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.

This is the video recording of the November 1, 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 David S. Taylor, director of Delta Air Lines $DAL.

Taylor reported a purchase of 10,000 shares, equivalent to $307,500.

From the Desk of Steve Strazza and Alfonso Depablos

Today’s most significant insider transaction is another Form 4 filing by Marcus Lemonis, director of Overstock.com $OSTK.

Lemonis reported an OSTK purchase worth $595,933.

OSTK also saw bullish flow in the options market.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza.

Welcome back to Under the Hood, where we'll cover all the action for the week ended October 27, 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 seeing an unusual increase in investor interest.