I was talking to a colleague this morning and I told him I feel as if I do my best analysis when I'm writing about exactly what I'm doing in the market.

So today’s post is about Solana and why I’m closing my entire position… at least, for now.

Solana has been my largest and most profitable investment of the current cycle. It’s made up over 50% of my crypto exposure for the past 12-15 months.

But I’ve sold just about all of it over the course of the past few weeks.

As most of you know, I try to invest alongside the primary trend.

I got into the trend reversal on time, and now, I feel it's time to leave the party. With each passing day, I feel more and more like I’m overstaying my welcome.

Here’s what SOL looked like when I added the bulk of my bull market exposure over a year ago:

My cost basis in the trade is around 30. That is exactly where the primary trend flipped from sideways to higher.

You don’t need any special tools to measure this kind of thing. It is shown above with a rounding bottom reversal to new highs, confirmed by the...

With $VIX currently sporting a 20-handle, it feels like a good time to add some delta-neutral exposure to the portfolio.

So I'm scanning the list of liquid sector ETFs to see which one's offer good premiums and potential range-bound trading action.

Here's what I found:

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

1. No new positions today.
2. Defensive adjustment to XLE position.
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

Welcome to The Minor Leaguers.

We've had some great trades come out of this small-cap-focused column since we launched it back in 2020 and started rotating it with our flagship bottom-up scan, Under the Hood.

For the first year or so, we focused only on Russell 2000 stocks with a market cap between $1 and $2B.

That was fun, but we wanted to branch out a bit and allow some new stocks to find their way onto our list.

We expanded our universe to include some mid-caps.

Nowadays, to make the cut for our Minor Leaguers list, a company must have a market cap between $1 and $4B.

And it doesn't have to be a Russell component — it can be any US-listed equity. With participation expanding around the globe, we want all those ADRs in our universe.

The same price and liquidity filters are applied. Then, as always, we sort by proximity to new...

We're back on The Morning Show today LIVE on Stock Market TV!

If you want to know what's moving markets this week, and how we're thinking about profiting from it, then the Morning Show is for you!

Today's guest is fellow twin-boy dad Todd Gordon, Portfolio Manager at Inside Edge Capital. Todd is an old pal, veteran trader and world class skier. You're not going to want to miss this conversation!

Join us today...

Carl Icahn tops today’s list with a significant transaction in CVR Energy $CVI disclosed via a Form 4 filing.

Icahn purchased 878,212 CVI shares for approximately $16 million.

CVR Energy is one of Icahn’s top holdings, and this move underscores his long-term conviction in the company. It also reinforces his influence in the energy sector.

There’s interesting institutional activity on today’s list too, with Think Investments submitting a 13G filing for TaskUs Inc $TASK. 

The filing disclosed an initial ownership stake of 16.90%, signaling the firm’s bullish outlook on TaskUs and its potential.

Here’s The Hot Corner, with data from January 10, 2025:

In another Form 4 filing, Ecor1 Capital revealed a purchase of $2,974,818 in Zymeworks Inc $ZYME.

Today's number is... 19

My RORO Risk Range Summary, which includes 19 Risk-On versus Risk-Off ratios, has shifted to slightly favor risk-off assets.

Here is the chart:

(right-click and open image in new tab to zoom in)

Let's first break down what the chart shows:

This RORO Risk Range Summary compares the current trading ratios of 19 risk pairs to their 52-week range, represented by black diamonds, and their range position from one month ago, shown as gray triangles. The right side indicates Risk-On, while the left side indicates Risk-Off.

The Takeaway: When evaluating Risk-On versus Risk-Off ratios, I find the weight of the evidence approach to be very useful. 

In my RORO Risk Range Summary, the risk pair comparisons indicate a slight tilt toward Risk-Off assets over the past month. For 11 out of 19 pairs, the ratios are closer to their Risk-Off component, suggesting a weakening risk appetite.

Furthermore, 12 out of the 19...

Consumer discretionary stocks have been the best stocks over the intermediate term.

The Discretionary Sector SPDR $XLY is leading all other sector indexes over the trailing three and six months.

When we dive beneath the surface, this strength is being driven by a variety of retail stocks.

The largest retailers have led the charge for discretionary, as is the case for most sectors.

Here is the market cap weighted VanEck Retail Index $RTH, trading just off all-time highs:

The largest holdings here are Amazon $AMZN, Walmart $WMT, Costco $COST, and Home Depot $HD. 

It’s all the big boys. These mega-cap names dominate the discretionary sector.

But even the equal weight SPDR Retail Index $XRT is completing a primary trend reversal and embarking on a fresh uptrend.

The largest holdings of this ETF couldn’t be more different than RTH. The top names in XRT are as offensive as they come, including Gamestop $GME, Chewy $CHWY, and Warby Parker $WRBY. It also has high-fliers like Abercrombie $ANF and Urban Outfitters $URBN in its top...

The Mötley Crüe song title comes to mind: Same Ol' Situation. 

It's always the same questions. Every bull market.

How much higher can stocks possibly go? Was that last high the top? Why is the economy not as strong as the stock market? 

That's the thing. We want to pay attention to what's happening around us. Because we've seen it before and we'll see it again. It's just humans being humans. 

I like to turn to the data and weigh the evidence so we can try to make the most informed decisions possible.

The way I see it, this has been a bull market for quite some time, well into year 3 now. Whenever a lagging sector has been most vulnerable to break down from a major top, the opposite has happened.

The money has come in and bought them up. We just saw that in Consumer Discretionary in the back half of last year...

We've been pounding the table on Walgreens Boots Alliance as one of the best potential short squeezes in the entire market. We nailed it!

The stock rallied nearly 30% on Friday for its best earnings reaction ever. 

This isn't an isolated event. Short sellers are getting squeezed all over the place.

Healthcare is one sector that is particularly ripe for a short squeeze. It's home to some of the most hated stocks in the world.

Stocks like Progyny are precisely what we're looking for, and here's why:

• It failed to resolve a massive distribution pattern, proving this stock isn't a zero (at least not yet).
• With 15% short interest and a 7x days-to-cover ratio, there's plenty of juice to spark a short squeeze.
• Short interest is making new 52-week highs, adding to our conviction in the offside positioning.
• Healthcare stocks are some of...

We had a discussion in the All Star Options chatroom yesterday about differences of opinion that got my mind spinning in a very positive way.

Sometimes, we traders might get a little offended when we've done the work to come up with a trade idea and share it with others -- then someone else offers a hot take on why the originator of the idea might be wrong. For some of us, we get momentarily annoyed, then we forget it and move on. For others, the "new information" causes us to abandon our trade thesis all together, sending us back to the drawing board in a state of frustration.

In the worst case, the originator of the idea gets offended, defensive, and perhaps even verbally abusive. And then both sides engage that way and nothing good comes from it.

I'd argue my best response is to meet the counter-intelligence as an opportunity to dig deeper to see if perhaps I missed something? If I find that I have, great! I'm better for it. If not, then I'll just end up feeling better about my opinion.

But the real meta thought here is this: WE WANT PEOPLE TO DISAGREE WITH OUR IDEAS.

Disagreement is the very basis of our profit...

We're in the 3rd year of a bull market and sector rotation continues to be a dominant theme that's driving stock prices higher, and probably more importantly, not allowing them to go lower.

Stocks making new lows is a big deal, and it's a prerequisite in order to have a bear market or a downtrend of any kind. As we discussed this week, the current market lacks this key characteristic - that is new lows. You can't have a market correction without them. It's just math.

Also during corrections, you regularly see rotation into the more defensive stocks, like Consumer Staples. You don't have that either. In fact, Consumer Staples just closed at new all-time lows relative to the S&P500.

...

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.

Sector rotation continues to be a major driving factor in this market.

We talked about it earlier this week in our LIVE Strategy Session. 

While some sectors and industry groups have been taking a breather, after these historic runs, other stocks have been catching a bid - things like Medical Equipment, Airlines and now Energy stocks.

The one constant, however, is the rotation OUT of Consumer Staples.

This defensive sector consistently outperforms when stocks are under pressure, and when it's a less than ideal environment to be putting risk on in equities.

This is the opposite of that.

Look at the new all-time lows for Consumer Staples relative to the S&P500:

And while Consumer Staples tend to underperform in healthy environments, it's the Consumer Discretionary stocks that outperform the broader markets during the good...

The commodity bears are going into hibernation.

Today was the best day in years for commodities relative to stocks and bonds. 

Inflation expectations are hitting a fresh 30-month high, with crude oil's price breaking out to 10-week highs.

We think this is the beginning of a much longer period of commodity outperformance.

A few weeks ago, we told you a big move in the energy markets was coming. We think this recent price action has marked the beginning of that move.

In addition, we outlined why we're buying copper futures last week, and so far, that trade has been a home run.

What's next?

We think aluminum futures are up next....

The market of stocks has been a chop fest for the past month, prompting me to keep a close eye on market internals.

While trends in the major indexes remain unaffected, short-term weakness has been steadily creeping in beneath the surface.

The average 52-week drawdown of S&P 500 stocks has reached -18.2%. This means the average stock is experiencing its sharpest decline in over a year.

This kind of internal weakness begs the question of whether this is just a standard corrective wave within an ongoing bull market? Or are we witnessing the start of something more consequential, and even deeper drawdowns are ahead?

While there’s no need for alarm just yet, it’s crucial to stay mindful of how market participation is shifting.

We were super bullish on banks in the back half of last year.

They were the ultimate Trump trade ahead of the election.

The SPDR Bank Index $KBE rallied 45% from its summer lows to its Q4 highs.

We wrote about the strong correlation between banks and Trump’s odds to win the election last year. That was the signal for almost all of 2024. If you called the election right, you nailed the bank trade.

And we did just that.

But today’s action in the banks looks a lot different than it did just a few months ago.

We no longer have election odds to trade on, and the market seems to have priced in all the potential deregulation gains… and then some.

SPDR Bank Index is down almost 17% from its December highs.

...

This chart, hands down, is one of my all time favorites. It tells the entire story.

Bond yields hit their first long term cycle bottom in the 1940s. Then we had the stagflation of the ’70s, followed by the blow off top in 1982. From there, a nearly 40 year downtrend in yields that ended in 2020.

After that, yields have been grinding higher.

Now, if there’s ever going to be a year where bond yields take a breather, it’s probably this one. 

But here’s the thing. In an environment where inflation refuses to back off, any dips in yields are likely to be short lived.

And let me make this crystal clear… just like I’ve been saying for the last five years: Long bond yields are going to have a hard time breaking lower.
 

And as always, be sure to download this week’s Bond Report

 Allstarcharts Team

Find the Winners in Retail’s Report Card. Jeff Macke’s free retail stock report is your key to...

As stocks continue to slide, there are certain sectors and individual names that are beginning to reveal their strength.

It is times like these that offer better than average potential rewards to risk if we mind our risks carefully.

Today's trade is in a stock that looks to be emerging from a two-year consolidation that has come at the end of a massive 10-year base!

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

1. No new positions today.
2. Defensive adjustment to XOP position.
3. No exits since the last report.
4. Current status of open campaigns.
5. Volatility Snapshot.

Let’s dig in!