The consumer mood darkens ahead of Retail Earnings. Time to make a shopping list.

In today’s Daily Digest, we’ll review the following:

1. No new positions today.
2. Rolled XME position to April options.
3. Closed SMH at profit target.
4. Current status of open campaigns.
5. Volatility Snapshot.

Let’s dig in!

The most significant insider activity on today’s list comes from Perceptive Advisors LLC, which just filed a Form 4 revealing a $20 million buy in Solid Biosciences $SLDB.

Here’s The Hot Corner, with data from February 21, 2025:

Click the table to enlarge it.

Bristol-Myers Squibb $BMY CEO Chris Boerner stepped up to purchase $110,000 worth of stock.

It’s always important to watch CEO buys, as a chief executive knows their company better than anyone.

And, finally, over in Washington, Rep. Rick Allen of Georgia reported a $15.000 to $50,000 purchase of AutoZone $AZO.

Senator Ashley Moody of Florida made even bigger moves, disclosing purchases of:

• $50,000 to $100,000 in Micron Technology $MU;

• $100,000 to $250,000 in Applied Materials $AMAT; and 

• ...

Today's number is... 1

Last week, the bears demonstrated that they are still active, with one-month lows for the S&P 500, 400, and 600 started to expand.

Here’s the chart:

Let's break down what the chart shows:

• The blue line in the top panel is the S&P 500 index price.
• The black line in the second panel shows the percentage of S&P 500 stocks making one-month lows.
• The red line in the third panel shows the percentage of S&P 400 stocks making one-month lows.
• The gray line in the bottom panel shows the percentage of S&P 600 stocks making one-month lows.

The Takeaway: On Friday, all major indices fell by over 1.5%. This was a show of force from the bears. With this widespread weakness, we observed one-month new lows rising across all market capitalizations.

While the overall evidence still suggests a bullish trend, Friday marked a possible turning point...

More country ETFs are beginning to climb up the ETF Power Rankings. Beginning 2025, global stocks have actually outperformed the United States.

While this has been a secular downtrend in global relative to the United States, we are entering into a unique market environment of higher interest rates and widening market breadth among differing sectors. While these trends take a long time to reverse, we could be seeing the early stages of a structural reversal in this dynamic.

Just take a look at the ratio of global stocks breaking higher relative to the United States over the last few months.

Do you think this is the beginning of something more serious or will the US begin outperforming once again?

Reach out if you have any thoughts, we'd love to hear them!

Look, I get it—this topic comes up again and again, and it can be a bit of a head scratcher.

I keep saying it: inflation is sticky, and the dollar is rolling over.

Yet people ask, "How does that work with a 75% rolling correlation between the dollar and yields recently?"

And that’s a valid question.

Check out this chart—it’s a visual reminder that correlations aren’t set in stone. There are times when the numbers move in harmony and other moments when the link just falls apart.
 

Markets evolve, and so do these relationships.

Here’s the honest truth: correlations are fickle by nature. They can look tight one minute and then unravel the next.

Relying on a strong historical link is like betting on a coin toss coming up heads every time—it’s risky and can easily lead you astray.

Here's our latest Freshly Squeezed table: 

As you can see, Gorilla Technology $GRRR, Super Micro Computer $SMCI, and Innodata $INOD are at the top of the scan. They've been ripping!

Now, let's talk about today's setup.

The Financial sector has been home to some of the best uptrends in recent years. 📈

Names like Interactive Brokers (a fan favorite around here) have rallied over 500% since the 2020 trough.

It has been a historic bull run. 

One of the stocks that haven't participated in this cycle is the $2.6B company from Chicago, GCM Grosvenor $GCMG.

It was established in 1971 but went public for the first time via SPAC in late 2020.

The company manages nearly $80B in assets across various alternative investment strategies, including private equity, credit, real estate, and more.

In bull markets, this company prints money. 

As you can see, GCM Grosvenor has resolved a textbook bearish-to-bullish reversal pattern versus the broader market. 

This means the stock should outperform its peers for...

This is the weekly post that aggregates all the charts we put together throughout the week and organizes them all into one, easy to flip through deck.

We’re halfway through Q1, and February is historically a weak month for stocks.

But here’s the key—seasonal weakness doesn’t usually kick in until the second half of the month. And that’s exactly where we are now.

In other words, if stocks struggle these next few weeks, it wouldn’t be a surprise based on historical standards. 

Maybe the market hit a rough patch, or maybe it shrugs off this seasonal trend altogether.

Either way, here’s my focus.

I’ll be watching for the groups that hold up best—the ones that stay strong even as the market chops around.

Because when the broader market wobbles, but certain areas show resilience, that’s the real relative strength signal. And that is where some of the best trading opportunities arise.

I’m ready for it.

Alfonso

Stocks are under pressure in the US. Today marks the worst performance of the year for the S&P 500.

But, here’s the thing. It shouldn’t come as a surprise. US stocks haven’t been the leaders for a while.

The US major averages have been stuck sideways for about three months while equities around the world have been moving higher.

Outside of India and Taiwan, you won’t find a worse-performing country than America this year. We’re literally at the bottom of the leaderboard.

It’s almost crazy to think at this point… but after 15 years of US outperformance, could the rest of the world be taking the driver's seat?

First, let’s talk about the technical outlook. There is a growing list of individual countries that have already been outperforming the US. But, that’s not what we’re looking to find out. We want to know if it is finally time for ex-US equities, broadly speaking, to assume a leadership role.

We've been obnoxiously bullish on soft commodities recently. 

And it's for a good reason. 

Coffee just broke out of a nearly 50-year basing pattern. It's hard to bearish when the price is making new all-time highs.

But the group is becoming bifurcated.

Orange juice futures were the early leader in the soft space. The price made a new all-time high in 2022.

Unfortunately (for the bulls), the uptrend in OJ seems to be over, at least for now.

As you can see, orange juice futures resolved a nearly 50-year basing pattern in 2022. This pattern is almost identical to coffee futures. ...

In today’s Daily Digest, we’ll review the following:

1. New position in ARKK.
2. No adjustments are needed today.
3. No exits since the last report.
4. Current status of open campaigns.
5. Volatility Snapshot.

Let’s dig in!

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

We filter out any laggards that are down -5% or more relative to the S&P 500 over the trailing month.

Then, we...

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Dividend Aristocrats are easily some of the most desirable investments on Wall Street. These are the names that have increased dividends for at least 25 years, providing steadily increasing income to long-term-minded shareholders.

As you can imagine, the companies making up this prestigious list are some of the most recognizable brands in the world. Coca-Cola, Walmart, and Johnson & Johnson are just a few of the household names making the cut.

Here at All Star Charts, we like to stay ahead of the curve. That's why we're turning our attention to the future aristocrats. In an effort to seek out the next generation of the cream-of-the-crop dividend plays, we're curating a list of stocks that have raised their payouts every year for five to nine years.

We call them the Young Aristocrats, and the idea is that these are "stocks that pay you to make money." Imagine if years of consistent dividend growth and high momentum and relative strength had a baby, leaving you with the best of the emerging dividend giants that are outperforming the averages.

By...

Even though this stock blasted off following earnings last week, it might just be getting started. The second "take" is what I'm here for.

However, with the immediate catalyst in the rear-view mirror, I will proceed going forward under the assumption that there may be some well-deserved consolidation in store while the stock works its way higher over the next 6 months.

So I'm going to attempt to get paid to ride out any potential wait.

Walmart $WMT reported a double beat but got beaten down as a result.

It was a bad day to own the stock. 

Our retail analyst, Jeff Macke, wrote a fantastic deep dive about the report. If you haven't seen it already, you can check it out here. 

The bottom line? Jeff found the quarter worse for Walmart's peers as they continue to invest heavily in the business. They are crushing competitors like Target.

In addition, the company is the largest private employer in the United States. This adds up to be a massive overhead expense.

With the AI revolution accelerating, they are a huge beneficiary. They're automating all kinds of labor, which is expected to expand margins.

Let's talk about what else happened 👇

*click the image to enlarge it

As you can see, Hasbro had the best reaction score on Thursday, and Walmart had the worst. 

Walmart was also the largest company to report. It reported a double beat but fell 6.5% with a...

Arcus Biosciences $RCUS is ripping higher this morning, up around 8%, after Gilead Sciences just dropped nearly $15 million on the stock.

With today’s buy, Gilead seems to be doubling down on its bet on RCUS. Whether it’s a vote of confidence in Arcus or a sign of something bigger brewing, we’re paying attention to.

Here’s The Hot Corner, with data from February 20, 2025:

GAMCO Investors increased its stake in SuRo Capital Corp $SSSS from 0.90% to 5.30%, signaling growing confidence in the small-cap asset management firm.

Over in regional banks, Bank Leumi Le Israel picked up $9.35 million worth of Valley National Bancorp $VLY.

Meanwhile, Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC Private Ltd boosted its position in BBB Foods $TBBB, taking its stake from 1.10% to 5.14%.

Honestly, not much to note here so this will be brief.

The same industry groups continue to lead higher, like Internet $FDN, Cloud $SKYY, Broker Dealers $IAI, and Cyber Security $HACK. Further, the precious metal miners have also transitioned back into leaders.

The same groups are winning. Nothing's changed.

Have a good weekend, folks!

Something that stands out week to week is how persistently green the Ark funds have been in their leadership.

This is a market environment that is rewarding speculative growth companies, and as shown below they are outperforming their alternatives in the same theme/industry. In other words, we're at a point in the cycle where traders are being rewarded for adopting higher risk through less established stocks.

And it's this market environment that is greatly rewarding our Breakout Multiplier trades.

Our three most hottest trades in recent weeks have been an 18x in $HIMS, an 11x in $EH, and an 8x in $PDD.

These are monster gains.

If you want the next alert, we have a 40% expiring today.