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US equities remain under pressure as the major indexes break below key VWAPs anchored to their lows.

Meanwhile, critical polarity levels are serving as stiff resistance across key sectors and industry groups, capping last week’s bounce.

Whether it’s Semiconductors, Financials, or Software, buyers continue to struggle in reclaiming the broken support levels from earlier this month.

The SPDR Financial Sector $XLF is a textbook example of this theme. 

After briefly pushing back above the neckline of this top, XLF is now getting rejected right around 48.

That means an increasing supply is overwhelming the buyers near those prices.

Sellers are defending critical levels with...

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First of all, congrats to Goldman Sachs, now the largest component in the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

The last time a bank headlined the Dow was JP Morgan back in 1998.

That’s pretty cool, but that’s all it is. Just a fun fact.

I would say it’s a sign of the times that a tech stock didn’t fill the shoes of UNH, but the Dow is a bit funky in the sense that it is price-weighted instead of cap-weighted.

Speaking of Papa Dow, let’s talk about what’s next for the major averages following the latest beating for US equities.

All the large-cap indexes violated their VWAPs anchored from the April 7 pivot lows this morning. They all tested these levels and held just last week. 

That’s been the line in the sand for me as far as a retest of the lows is concerned. 

With every day the S&P, Nasdaq, and Dow are below these VWAPs, the higher the likelihood we’re headed back to the lows...

Gold miners keep squeezing higher.

Why the short sellers are betting against this uptrend is beyond us.

As the great market analyst, Charlie Munger said:

"If people weren't so often wrong, we wouldn't be so rich."

Thank you, short sellers... We love you!

With a slew of important earnings coming up over the next few weeks, we're going to start getting a real sense of the negative impacts of the f-d up policy communication strategy out of "The Administration."

We're going to see more dialed back forward guidance, and meaningful impacts to bottom lines.

I think Amazon might soon find itself at the front lines of this discussion. Their earnings release, scheduled for May 1st, may kickstart that conversation. And I don't think it goes well.

How could it?

When D.C. can’t get its act together, Wall Street feels it.

I’ve seen it happen more times than I care to count: confusion out of the White House sets off a chain reaction that ripples all the way down to public company earnings—and right into your portfolio.

It starts with poor policy direction or, worse, unclear communication. When nobody really knows what the administration’s long-term plan is (or if there even is one), businesses get stuck. It’s not just annoying for executives—it’s paralyzing. You can’t confidently launch a new product line, expand into new regions, or hire that next wave of talent if you don’t know whether the...

With a slew of important earnings coming up over the next few weeks, we're going to start getting a real sense of the negative impacts of the f-d up policy communication strategy out of "The Administration."

We're going to see more dialed back forward guidance, and meaningful impacts to bottom lines.

I think Amazon might soon find itself at the front lines of this discussion. Their earnings release, scheduled for May 1st, may kickstart that conversation. And I don't think it goes well.

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...

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

1. Adding new position in TLT.
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!

We just heard from the largest homebuilder in the United States, D.R. Horton $DHI.

They missed top and bottom-line expectations, but the market reacted positively.

Price rallied 3.16% with a sweet reaction score of 1.73. It was the best earnings reaction on Friday.

Paul Romanowski, the CEO, said the following about the quarter:

 "Although inflation and mortgage interest rates remain elevated, our net sales orders increased 46% for the first quarter and 14% from the prior year quarter as the supply of both new and existing homes at affordable price points is still limited, and the demographics supporting housing demand remained favorable."

This is drastically different than the prevailing narrative about the company.

Many on Wall Street have gotten overly bearish on the homebuilding industry, and we think the stocks are sold out over the short term.

Let's talk about what else happened with their reports.

Today's number is... 24.5

The average bulls have fallen to 24.5, the lowest level since the lows of the ‘cost of living crisis’ in October 2022.

Here’s the chart:

 Let's break down what the chart shows:

• The blue line in the top panel represents the price of the S&P 500 index.
• The green line in the middle panel shows the average bulls from the Investors Intelligence (II) and the American Association of Individual Investors (AAII).
• The red line in the bottom panel shows the average bears from the II and the AAII.

The Takeaway: You need bulls in bull markets to buy stocks...That's just math.

And today we're seeing the opposite of that.

The average number of bulls has dropped to its lowest level since October 2022, while the average number of bears has reached its highest level since that same month.

This tells me that optimism in the market has vanished, and the recent volatility has really led to a notable level of pessimism.

With bullish sentiment at such low levels and bearish...

The most notable insider buy today comes from John Hess, director at Goldman Sachs $GS. 

Hess, the CEO of Hess Corp, just filed his first Form 4 since joining Goldman’s board last June.

Goldman gives directors seven years to hit the 5,000-share mark. But Hess isn’t waiting, scooping up 3,904 shares right away.

Here’s The Hot Corner, with data from April 17, 2025:

Click the table to enlarge it.

Meanwhile, value legend Mario Gabelli just made a move in Standard Motor Products $SMP.

GAMCO Investors filed a 13D boosting its stake from 3.30% to 6.24%.

Finally, Rep. Bruce Westerman of Arkansas continues to build exposure in tech leaders, reporting purchases in the following names:

• Alphabet $GOOGL;
• Amazon $AMZN...

Markets are starting to find their footing after a turbulent stretch.

While the recent bounce in U.S. equities has lacked conviction—leaving some investors uneasy—the global picture tells a different story. Many international markets are showing strong signs of risk appetite, with impressive rebounds underway.

Take Greece, for example. $GREK has already clawed back most of its recent losses, staging a notable recovery.

This kind of bullish follow-through isn’t isolated. We're seeing similar strength across Europe, Latin America, and Oceania.

So while U.S. markets may be hesitating, globally the tone is far more constructive.

Every weekend, I review our insider activity tracker looking for the most interesting and bullish buys — and let me tell you, this week was packed with a lot of action.

Let’s break it down:

We’re talking about members of Congress — the folks with access to briefings the rest of us never see — stepping in and loading up on some of the biggest names out there:

• Advanced Micro Devices $AMD
• BlackRock $BLK
• Cboe Global Markets $CBOE
• Apple $AAPL
• Meta Platforms $META

That’s real exposure, and it tells us these political insiders think these stocks are going higher. 

AMD and BLK were larger buys than we’re used to seeing in congressional filings. 

At the same time, one of the sharpest money managers in the game just made a big move. 

Gamco Investors, led by Mario Gabelli,...

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.

There's so much happening in the commodities markets right now. 

Orange Juice futures just ripped 50% in several days and triggered our buy signal.

Crude Oil futures have resolved a textbook multi-year distribution pattern and triggered our sell signal.

To name a few...

We're also on the cusp of getting a fresh buy signal in Soybean Oil futures.

"Big Oil" wants more renewable diesel - from 3.3 to over 5 billion gallons.

If that's the case, demand will skyrocket for grains across the board.

The first week of 2025 was the largest 1-week rate of change since 1983 for Soybean Oil futures.

We love to call the beginning of each year "whipsaw hunting season."

This is where trends that are overextended, in either direction, tend to...

Wow. This conversation with Trading Psychologist Andrew Menaker covered so much meaningful ground — if you’re a trader who’s serious about leveling up, emotionally and mentally, this one is a must-listen.

Here are just a few of the highlights we explored:

🔹 Intention vs. Expectations – We talked about the subtle but critical difference between trading with intention versus trading with expectation. Intention keeps you grounded in process and presence, while expectations often drag you into attachment, disappointment, and emotional volatility. They may look similar, but they feel very different — and the difference matters.

🔹 Intuition as a Signal – One of the most powerful themes was learning to identify and trust your own intuition. Not as a mystical force, but as a reflection of your accumulated pattern...

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...

So, we’re well off the highs in the VIX—but a 30-handle is still considered elevated by historical standards.

Why does that matter?

VIX above 30 typically signals that there’s still plenty of undigested stress and uncertainty swirling around in the markets. It tells us that fear hasn’t fully cleared, and the waters are still too choppy for comfort. Historically, when VIX is at these levels, it’s often during periods of heightened news-driven volatility, unclear macro narratives, or disorderly price action.

And more importantly—for me, at least—it signals that taking anything other than shorter-term trades can be problematic. Swing trades that might normally take weeks to play out can get chopped up or invalidated in hours. Markets at these volatility levels are unforgiving to those who overstay their welcome.

This is the market we have, and we have to trade it as it is, not as we wish it would be.

In today’s Options Jam Session, I cover this in more depth—along with a great teaching moment from two recent trades that moved in opposite directions. Both trades used variations of a calendar/diagonal spread strategy, and the contrasting...

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

We love our bottoms-up scans here at All Star Charts. We tend to get really creative when making new universes as we want to be sure they will deliver us the best opportunities the market has to offer.

However, when it comes to this one, it couldn't be any simpler!

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 stocks.

Welcome to The Junior Hall of Famers.

This scan is composed of the next 150 largest stocks by market cap, those that come after the top 150 and are thus covered by the Hall of Famers universe. Many of these names will someday graduate and join our original Hall Of Famers list. The idea here is to catch these big trends as early on as possible.

There is no need to overcomplicate things. Market cap is a quality filter at the end of the day. It only grows if price is rising. That's good enough for us.

The bottom line is it is a bull market. We...