The largest insider transaction on today's list comes to us in a Form 4 filing by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway $BRK.A.

Buffett continues to grow his position in Occidental Petroleum $OXY. He just revealed an additional purchase that brings his total ownership to 226 million shares, representing a 12.15% interest.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Stocks are having a tough time these past few weeks. Selling pressure is not just accelerating; it’s spreading.

Even the leaders aren’t providing shelter from this latest storm…

A lot of the commodity stocks we’ve been focusing on for long exposure in recent months are experiencing significant volatility and are now back below our risk levels.

We want to be patient and wait for the dust to settle for most of these trades.

While this is the case for the majority of stocks right now, there are always pockets of strength.

The most obvious among them right now is energy. The resilience from energy continues to impress us.

Today, we’re going to outline long ideas in a popular exploration & production name as well as an international bank stock.

Let’s get to it.

From the desk of Steven Strazza @Sstrazza and Ian Culley @IanCulley

While most uptrends have come under pressure in 2022, the US dollar has remained as strong as any.

This dollar strength, particularly at the index level, is nothing new. We've been discussing it.

It's been taking place all year, driven by the major pairs such as the euro, the yen, and the pound.

However, something new is the burgeoning strength beneath the surface, even outside of the big developed market currencies. We've been seeing dollar internals improve drastically in recent weeks.

And now we're seeing momentum accelerate for the US Dollar Index $DXY. Today, DXY is on track for its largest single-day gain since the pandemic crash more than two years ago.

All of the evidence suggests this dollar strength is the real deal.

Let's talk about what it means and how we want to position for it.

Here's the US Dollar Index ripping to its highest level in almost 20 years:

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

The US Dollar Index $DXY is ripping to its highest level in 20 years today.

We just covered this dollar strength and what it means in our Currency Report, which you can read here.

We talk about the implications of a stronger dollar on risk assets, particularly stocks.

While this rally in the dollar is definitely not a good thing for stocks in the US or abroad, we see these intermarket relationships dislocate all the time.

Could stocks and the dollar rally higher together? Sure! Commodities and the dollar have already been doing this for several quarters now...

Let's talk about that quick.

The most significant insider transaction on today's Hot List is a Form 4 filing by the president and chairman of Warner Bros Discovery $WBD.

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.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

We held our May Monthly Strategy Session on Tuesday. ASC Premium Members can click here to access the recording and the chartbook.

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.

This is the video recording of our May 4, 2022, Inside Scoop Weekly Strategy Session.

The CEO, chairman, president, and three directors of B. Riley Financial Inc $RILY filed Form 4s revealing purchases of their own stock.

Of the six insiders, the largest splash was made by chairman and CEO Bryant Riley himself. He reported purchasing over $10 million worth of shares.

Whenever we see this many insiders buying at the same time, we want to pay close attention.

What do they know?

The largest insider transaction on today’s list is a Form 4 filing by Simon Groom, who reported an additional $43 million purchase in the broadcasting company iHeartMedia $IHRT.

The chief financial officer at General Motors $GM, Paul Jacobson, revealed a purchase of roughly $1,357,650 worth of his own company's stock in a Form 4.

CFO activity always catches our attention as not many employees know and understand a company’s financial condition better.

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 April 29, 2022. This report is published bi-weekly and rotated 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.

The largest insider transaction on today’s list is a Form 4 filing by George Simeon, director of Nkarta Inc $NKTX, who reported a $10 million purchase.