From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Welcome to The 2 to 100 Club.

In this scan, we look to identify the strongest growth stocks as they climb the market-cap ladder from small- to mid- to large- and, ultimately, to mega cap status (over $200B).

Once they graduate from small-cap to mid-cap status (over $2B), they come on our radar. Likewise, when they surpass the roughly $30B mark, they roll off our list.

But the scan doesn't just end there.

We only want to look at the strongest growth industries in the market, as that is typically where these potential 50-baggers come from.

Some of the best performers in recent decades – stocks like Priceline, Amazon, Netflix, Salesforce, and myriad others – would have been on this list at some point during their journey to becoming the market behemoths they are today.

When you look at the stocks in our table, you'll notice we're only focused on Technology and Growth industry groups such as Software, Semiconductors, Online...

Eric Balchunas was on the Morning Show today.

I always love to hear his thoughts as he’s one of the best in business when it comes to ETFs.

He really made a lot of good points today. You can watch the replay here.

One thing that stood out to me was what he said about the new iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF $IBIT.

Eric said that the success in the first year of IBIT is hard to find a sports analogy for. It’s even better than Michael Jordan'...

I’ve been pounding the table on speculative growth.

And I’ve received a good deal of pushback on it. Some peers, customers, and even members of our analyst team don't love the idea.

But that’s ok. Recency bias is real. These have been the worst stocks in the market this cycle.

But let me bring you back to a time when they were the best…

It was early fall of 2020.

The flagship ARK fund had already tripled off the pandemic lows. It would double again from there.

2020 set a record for new IPO issuances, only to top it with another 1,000 new offerings in 2021.

Retail trading was experiencing a modern-day renaissance driven by young traders and hot stocks. 

Start-ups like Robinhood and eToro were thriving. Everyone was stuck at home, YOLO’ing to pass the time.

We were tracking the popularity of stocks among...

initially covered this meme coin in May and it's up +500% since.

Today it looks to be completing a successful breakout.

Here's the chart.

The underperformance from Technology stocks continues.

And keep in mind that you've been seeing it in Large-caps for most of this year, but you've been seeing the underperformance from Small-cap Technology for over 18 months.

Small-cap Tech peaked in the summer of 2023 relative to the rest of the small-caps:

It's really been a disappointment for Technology investors.

Granted, there are Tech stocks working, but they are few and far between, compared to what we have seen in the past.

Look at the returns of these Technology ETFs relative to the performance in Bitcoin over the past month:

If we want to own "Technology", then I think there are better places to do that than buying the Tech ETFs or the indexes in general.

I think we want to pick our spots

In the latest Trade Alert to members of ASC Crypto, the best Crypto Miners, which are NOT considered "Technology", are highlighted with details for best entry and exits.

They are categorized as "Capital Markets". And there were multiple trade alerts this...

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. 

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

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

Let’s dig in!

We're now well into Year 3 of this bull market. 

So the question becomes: Is this fresh breakout the beginning of the next leg higher for equities?

Or is this market behavior evidence of exhaustion and it's time to get out?

Let me remind you of the "Fab 5" charts from the beginning of 2024 that helped determine whether we were starting a new leg higher this year or if it was time to bail.

The breakouts coming into this year, specifically in Broker Dealers, Technology, Industrials, Homebuilders and Semiconductors were the most important...

Bitcoin is surging toward $90,000.

Memecoins are ripping across the board. 

DOGE is up over 100% since the election.

BTC miners are squeezing higher.

Everyone is talking about shitcoins I’ve never heard of.

NFTs are back.

It’s all working in crypto land right now. As it turns out, the ultimate election trade was in digital assets, and not the traditional market.

We recently discussed gold achieving its second target since it put the finishing touches on a massive base earlier this year.

It wasn't clear how the price would react to our target, but sure enough, the sellers showed up right on cue.

But the weight of the evidence continues to suggest this bull market has legs and it's better to spend our time looking for buying opportunities, not selling opportunities.

Let's talk about the recent price action and what it means for our portfolios:

We're in the midst of a fierce leg higher for risk assets.

The S&P 500 is making new all-time highs, speculative stocks are on fire, small caps are ripping, and Bitcoin is well on its way to $100k.

As a result, many of our recent positions are multi-baggers.

Let’s review a few of them.

Last week, we put on some trades in Bitcoin miners as we believed they were ideal vehicles to ride the post-election rally in crypto.

As part of this strategy, we picked up $MARA 12/20 $25 calls and $CLSK 11/29 $15 calls. We paid about $1.15 for each.

We were already long MARA and RIOT calls with an 11/22 expiration. There is a juicy short interest in all of these names.

We liked MARA so much that we wanted to double down on it and...

It's easy to over-complicate things. 

I generally try to avoid that. Today's trade might be the simplest thing I do: follow a trend.

When a chart is going from the bottom left to the upper right, who am I to call a top in something like that? What kind of arrogance must I have to think I'm the one who can call the turn?

Let somebody else be the hero. I'm going to follow the trend until it ends.