Stocktwits Top 25 – Week 18 📉

ST Top 25 S&P 500

The Stocktwits Top 25 S&P 500 list was all upside this week, which operates in contrast to last week.

The biggest winner on the list was Devon Energy, which gained +19.8%.

On the flip, the biggest “loser” wasn’t a loser at all: Archer-Daniels-Midland maintained its spot on the list with a +0.19% jump.

Last week’s new entries — Vertex Pharmaceuticals and Corteva — fell off the list this week. They made room for Diamondback Energy, Phillips 66, and the W.R. Berkley Corporation. 

The list was largely in contrast to the rest of the index, which traded down -0.18% on the week. Overall, the S&P 500 Momentum Meter was up +9.55% this week. Check out how that fares YTD…

The Large-Cap Nasdaq 100

The Large-Cap Nasdaq 100 list was not as lucky as the Top 25 S&P list this week…

We’ll start with the biggest loser: Splunk. It fell more than -15% and fell off the N100 Top 25 list.

The second biggest loser? Palo Alto Networks. It lost -10.05%, but remained on the list.

Come to think about it, there were very few winners on the Nasdaq 100 list this week. The gains were marginal among the most successful stocks of the year.

Just look at the top five stocks: they were all up between +0.6% and +2.96% this week.

Oh well, I guess you’re really a winner if you’re above the #14 position… As you can see, most stocks are just trying to stay in the green.

The Top 25’s momentum meter was down -0.59% this week, which was still better than the -1.33% drop in the index. This implies the top stocks in the index did better than the broader index.

The Growth-Centric Russell 2000

America’s favorite growth stock index wasn’t too bad this week. In fact, there were more gainers in the list than losers!

The biggest winner was CVR Energy, up more than +30% this week. The next-closest gainer was +16.4% on the list, and that was Target Hospitality Corp.

The list’s biggest losers? The four companies which fell off the list. Hey, the R2K list is competitive. We’re saying goodbye to Evolus, Propetro Holding Corp, Intrepid Potash, and Veru Inc. The latter two experienced double-digit losses this week and fell below the R2K list’s threshold for inclusion (which as of this week was +66.34%.)

Of course, Lantheus Holdings also stood out on the list. It was down -3.33% this week. It was one of the bigger losers.

As for the momentum? Well, for investors in the top-performing R2K companies, the profits loomed this week. The momentum meter for the list was +3.19%, compared to the index which was down -1.29% this week.

Explaining Our New Methodology

The Stocktwits momentum lists are among our fan favorite franchises, especially in The Daily Rip. Hundreds of thousands of you read these lists every week to find out which stocks are kicking it into high gear.

That’s why it’s so important to get these lists right — and we received a lot of feedback from users and readers who voiced concerns. Among those concerns were that our data was incomplete, it was missing constituents (especially from the R2K), and that it didn’t take into consideration afterhours trading on Friday and premarket trading on Monday.

For some context: we’ve calculated this list using scripts inside of thinkorswim, a software favorite among ardent traders. However, there were some critical limitations within thinkorswim which led to many of these errors.

That called for modernization. Our team decided to rebuild our week-to-week list using the =GOOGLEFINANCE app in Sheets. We would then pull the comprehensive list of index holdings directly from ETFs which track the indexes. We don’t need to get into the nitty-gritty, but this solved all of the problems that we could practically see.

We are enormously confident in our methodology for bringing the Stocktwits audience this very important list every week.

However, there is one very big change we want to observe: the way in which our WTD/weekly return is calculated. Going forward, this figure will be calculated using today()-8. In other words, when we pull this data on Friday after hours, it will look back at the full week of returns — rather than just the moves from Monday at the open.

We’ll give you an example to make it real. Here’s Occidental Petroleum Corporation, the top list on the Top 25 S&P 500 list. When you go on Google Finance and look at its 5 day performance, you will see a different number than the number we’ve calculated…

That’s because, from what we understand of looking at different sources, performance is calculated without respect to moves in afterhours on Friday. It might not even consider the premarket moves on Monday… it will just book where the stock opens at, which will certainly carry differentials between Friday AH and Monday open.

So, to resolve this, we have decided to start pulling data from Friday’s close. In other words, Friday to Friday. We think this is a more inclusive and considerate way to measure performance. You can also check our work each week by clicking on a stock’s 1M and checking its close on Friday to its close on Friday (just click and drag, like we did below.)

So, practically speaking… what does this mean for you? Well, we believe that this will be especially valuable for stocks which make big moves in afterhours on Friday and premarket on Monday, which some software might lose track of. 

More importantly, we know that our serially bullish community use these lists to make informed decisions as it pertains to momentum investing, among other things. That’s why we’re making these changes (even if they might seem perplexing at face) and communicating them so transparently.

Next week, the previous week scores will be back. We’ll also start listing stocks which have fallen off the list — “OUT” —  along with components which are new to the list. As always, we’ll maximize this list to have the greatest value add…