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...

Ok, we're going to head abroad and as far away from election risk as we can.

In fact, we're to head to Sweden for today's trade. Is that far enough away?

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

1. New position in XME.
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!

Uncle Warren strikes again!

In a fresh Form 4 filing, Berkshire Hathaway reveals a substantial new purchase in Sirius XM Holdings Inc. $SIRI, scooping up a cool $60,692,844 in shares.

This marks Berkshire’s third buy in recent months, solidifying Buffett’s position with a whopping 112,504,729 shares, an ownership stake now amounting to 33% of Sirius XM’s outstanding shares.

Here’s The Hot Corner, with data from October 31, 2024:

Mario Gabelli's GAMCO Investors shook things up today with a 13D filing, revealing a notable increase in its ownership of Mueller Industries $MLI, from 2.92% to 4.08%. 

With this latest move, MLI now claims the top spot in GAMCO’s portfolio.

Global markets sold off hard yesterday, dragging crypto lower.

Does that worry me?

Consumer Discretionary stocks are a reliable gauge of risk appetite and market health.

Consider these as automobiles, retail, and homebuilding—industries that offer products and services consumers purchase with their discretionary income.

When investors favor these stocks, it indicates a higher level of risk-seeking behavior.

One simple way to assess them is by comparing their performance to the broader market.

The chart below illustrates Large Cap Consumer Discretionary Sector relative to the S&P 500, potentially forming a major 10-year top.

Notice how this ratio has been holding near its lower bounds for quite some time.

If you believe the bull market still has legs, the expectation would be for discretionary stocks to start outperforming.

On the other hand, if you bet this top completes, you expect risk assets to come under pressure.

So, what do you think?

I would love to hear your thoughts on this!

Alfonso

Below is the 5th ASC Mastermind Course. In this course, I discuss sentiment and seasonality, and how we use it to further our analysis.

Here at Breakout Multiplier, we're all about booking big gains—and our Peloton $PTON play just hit it out of the park.

A month ago, we scooped up the 11/15 $7 calls for a cool $0.16.

By October 18th, we'd already sold half for a triple. This set us up to let the rest ride into earnings, while already securing a profit on the full position.

In other words, if the remaining calls went to zero (which they did not), we still made money on this trade.

Today, Peloton's ripping, up over 30% on the heels of earnings, and our calls are going through the roof, trading as high as $2.00 in today’s session.

That’s right—a 12-bagger, a whopping 1,000%+ return!

Here's the replay and chartbook from today's stream. Note that we do these videos live every Thursday at 11 a.m. ET, and I answer questions in the chat room.

Be sure to join us and maximize your return potential.  

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

1. New position in XOP.
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

Welcome to The Junior International Hall of Famers.

With the goal of finding more bullish setups, we have decided to expand one of our favorite scans and broaden our regular coverage of the largest US-listed international stocks, or ADRs.

This scan is composed of the next 100 largest stocks by market cap, those that come after the top 100 and are thus covered by the International Hall of Famers universe.

Many of these names will someday graduate and join our original International Hall Of Famers list. The idea here is to catch these big trends as early on as possible.

Let’s dive right in and check out what these future big boys are up to.

This is our Junior International Hall of Famers list:

Click table to enlarge view

And here’s how we arrived at it…

We removed laggards which are down 5% or more relative to the ACWI Ex. U.S. Index $ACWX over the trailing...

Why does it seem like every time I remind a group of people about the underperformance from Technology stocks, they're always surprised to hear it.

It's like they don't even know that Large-cap Tech stocks have been underperforming for most of the year, and Small-cap Tech has been underperforming for 18 months.

Is this not common knowledge?

Large-cap Tech was actually down in Q3. And then it started out Q4 with a flat September. 

Small-cap Tech is somehow down for all of 2024, despite the Small-cap Russell2000 Index being up double digits this year.

That's the exact definition of underperformance. 

Now, let's keep in mind what Technology even is...

The S&P500 Technology Index includes stocks like Apple, Microsoft and Nvidia as its largest components.

Google and Meta are NOT in Technology. They're both in the Communications index along with Netflix.

Large-cap Communications are actually the best performing sector so far in 2024. This group is very different than "Tech":

Communications are outperforming the S&P500, Nasdaq100 and even Utilities (which became cool this year). 

When...

In a standout insider transaction, Control Empresarial de Capitales S.A., the investment powerhouse owned by Carlos Slim, disclosed another hefty purchase of PBF Energy Inc $PBF. 

According to a fresh Form 4 filing, Slim’s firm shelled out an impressive $11,657,328 to boost its stake to more than 21.50%.

Even though PBF doesn't look good from a technical perspective, insider moves from major players can reveal a lot.

So, it makes sense to keep an eye on PBF, waiting patiently for the trend to reverse in our favor.

Here’s The Hot Corner, with data from October 30, 2024:

Two directors of The Bancorp Inc $TBBK revealed purchases of their own stock, totaling $477,376.

In addition to that, former director and top individual shareholder James Ayers reported an acquisition of 4,000 shares of FB Financial Corporation $FBK in its latest Form 4 filing.

We need to talk about SoundHound.

This setup was so nice that we bought the calls twice.

As it turns out, it was the right move. We sold the double yesterday.

But, we’ve got a lot of questions about this one along the way. And the truth is, nothing we did here was out of the ordinary. This sort of scenario will happen a lot with the Breakout Multiplier system, so it’s important we discuss it.

I put on trades that go to zero all the time. 

I am unaffected by these losers. In fact, when I see zeros stacking up, I get excited. I know I’m that much closer to a big winner. 

It’s a game of numbers. I’ve been doing this for a long time.

But the way I lose is even more blatant sometimes.

I will put on the same exact trade over and over again, until it works, or the setup is invalidated.

This almost always boils down to a matter of timing. When I find myself putting on the same...

As we inch closer to the election, the "change-of-narrative" plays still hold interest to me -- both as hedges to my overall bullish positioning, and as alpha generators.

Today's trade is in a "junky" solar name that has gotten beaten down with the rest of it's sector as investors are pricing in a Trump victory that would be perceived as bearish for the Solar Industry.

But what if a Trump victory results in an inverse "sell the news" type of event and the selling pressure gets lifted from this sector? Or, better yet, what if the pollsters are wrong (it's happened before!) and Harris comes out victorious? Wouldn't that result in an immediate narrative shift for this sector? And if that happens, junky stocks like today's trade could potentially offer a tremendous amount of alpha.

With the election right around the corner, we think banks are offering an extra spicy setup.

Bank of America $BAC is the perfect vehicle to express a bullish thesis on this theme.

The primary trend has recently shifted higher, and price has been consolidating in a triangle since it peaked back in July.

Our volatility squeeze indicator (weekly) has crossed higher off an extreme low, suggesting some big momentum could be coming.

If we get a valid resolution from this multi-week coil, the follow-through move should earn us a quick double.

And then we’ll have the election reaction which will dictate whether we book a big gain on the remaining position.

That is why we are only going out to December with these calls. It gives us about three weeks to get the move we're looking for, and allows the election to be the catalyst for it before the theta decay window kicks in.