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The Technology sector continues to struggle, showing little evidence of a tradable low.

Within it, software plays a crucial role in gauging market strength.

These have been the best stocks to own over the past 15 years.

They’re true secular leaders. They are some of the best businesses.

Basically, as they go, so goes the market.

The Software ETF $IGV is retesting its prior cycle highs from 2021.

This level has acted as resistance multiple times in the past, and now I’m watching to see if it flips into support.

We have to be selective out here. The names that were working last year are not the names or sectors that are working this year.

Meanwhile, downtrends that have been in place for a year or more are starting to find their footing. And when you add in a relatively high short interest, if the worst is now behind us, then names like the one I'm trading today have the potential to surprise to the upside.

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. 

Clearly, we spend a lot of time identifying and writing about leading stocks every week, via multiple reports.

...

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

1. New position in XLP.
2. No adjustments are needed today.
3. Closed ITB position.
4. Current status of open campaigns.
5. Volatility Snapshot.

Let’s dig in!

CEOs stepping in always catches our attention—especially when they come in clusters.

Here are a few from yesterday:

📌Signet Jewelers $SIG CEO J.K. Symancyk bought 15,000 shares, equivalent to $861,735.

📌President and CEO Peter Matt of Commercial Metals $CMC revealed a purchase of 6,100 shares.

Here’s The Hot Corner, with data from March 31, 2025:

Click the table to enlarge it.

📌CEO Toni Townes-Whitley and Director Milford W. McGuirt of Science Applications International Corp $SAIC filed Form 4s, revealing insider purchases totaling $299,047.

When multiple insiders step in at the same time, it strengthens the signal of confidence in the company’s future.

📌Last but not least, Director John M. Jansen of Oklo $OKLO disclosed a Form 4 revealing a purchase of $147,412.

If you're not scared of what's happening in your stock portfolio you probably aren't paying attention. 

The first quarter was the worst for US stocks since Q3 of 2022 and the first negative quarter of any sort since 2023. The damage didn't really spare anyone, but Consumer Discretionary was the hardest hit, falling over 11% for the period and bouncing off the over-hyped 20% decline required to qualify as an official "Bear Market".

It's time to revisit and expand upon our Bear Market Rules.

I've seen a bear market or two in the last 25 years. This is what they feel like. Relentless. Capricious. Mean. 

Need an example? How about the Worst Stock of the Quarter, the until recently widely beloved Deckers Outdoor:

DECK closed the quarter down 50% (nearly to the penny) from where it was trading before beating and raising last January 31st. And, as is generally the case with stocks, shares went down much faster than they went higher, falling 22% in one day and scarcely bouncing higher since.

Deckers was a wildly successful...

Today's number is... 22

My Risk-On/Risk-Off ratio has reached a 22-month low, dropping below a key level that acted as resistance in 2021/22, which transformed into support from 2023 to the present.

Here’s the chart:

Let's break down what the chart shows:

• The black line is my Risk-On/Risk-Off ratio.
  • The Risk-On components consist of Copper (HG1), High Yield Bonds (JNK), Aussie Dollar (AUDUSD), Semiconductors (SOXX/SPY) & High Beta (SPHB/SPY).
  • The Risk-Off components consist of Gold (GC1), US Treasury Bonds (TLT), Yen (JPYUSD), Utilities (XLU/SPY) & Staples (XLP/SPY).
• If this ratio rises, the numerator (risk-on) is outperforming the denominator (risk-off); if it is falling, the denominator (risk-off) is outperforming the numerator (risk-on).

The Takeaway: The message right now continues to be… we are in a Risk-Off environment. 

This looks to be a pivotal moment for the US stock market. With this key level now broken, it reinforces the weak market conditions I’ve been...

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While everyone is paying attention to how bad tech stocks are doing these days, inflation expectations are heating up.

When investors see inflation coming, they shift into TIPS over traditional Treasuries.

Energy is one of the biggest inputs in inflation, and history shows these two tend to move together.

TIPS vs Treasuries ratio just hit its highest level in nearly three years.

Meanwhile, Crude Oil is trading at the lower bounds of its range.

While they might drift apart at times, they always find their way back in sync.

If that happens here, Crude could be...

The Gold and Silver Miners have been on fire.

Today is the final trading session of Q1 2025, and these stocks are on pace for one of the best quarters ever in absolute terms. 

In relative terms, this has been the best quarter ever in many cases.

These returns have been historic, yet nobody seems to care.

We believe this strength will foster more growth in the future, and here's why.

In my mind right now, it's a bear market in stocks until proven otherwise.

But as everyone's favorite cable TV financial prognosticator Jim Cramer says: "There's always a bull market somewhere."

And one of those places appears to be in the energy and oil sectors.

Today's trade has a chart that appears to be ready to break out of a three-month base on its way to new decade highs.

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

1. No new positions today.
2. Rolled IGV Puts to June.
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 back to Under the Hood, where we'll cover all the action for the two weeks ended March 14th, 2025. This report is published bi-weekly, in rotation with The Minor Leaguers.

What we do here is analyze the most popular stocks during the week and find opportunities to either join in and ride these momentum names higher, or fade the crowd and bet against them.

We use a variety of sources to generate the list of most popular names.

There are so many new data sources available that all we need to do is organize and curate them in a way that shows us exactly what we want: a list of stocks that are seeing an unusual increase in investor interest.

Click here for a behind-the-scenes look at our process.

Whether we’re measuring increasing interest based on large institutional purchases, unusual options activity, or simply our proprietary lists of trending tickers, there’...

Aside from a few obscure Consumer Staples names, we've reached the end of the Q1 earnings season.

There were some fantastic double beats and rallies. Berkshire Hathaway $BRK.A / $BRK.B was one of those, and it closed last week at a new all-time high.

However, we saw a lot more stocks get slammed for beating expectations.

The world's largest retailer, Walmart $WMT, snapped a 3-quarter beat streak after it reported a double beat. The stock has continued to print fresh lows.

Crowdstrike $CRWD is another name that got slammed for reporting a double beat.

Last week, we told you that we were looking forward to the Lululemon $LULU earnings...

Today is celebration! 

Not only do we get a fresh batch of Monthly Candlesticks today at the close, but we also get all the quarterly data at the same time. 

This kind of party only happens 4 times a year - where we get the monthlies and the quarterlies on the same day.

That day is today. 

As we head into Q2 of 2025, I think the big theme here is Overhead supply in major U.S. Indexes and massive underperformance from U.S. Technology.

See U.S. Technology and High Beta hitting new 22-month relative lows and also check out:...

Lawmakers continue their blue-chip buying spree. 

And we have a fresh bet on Bitcoin, extending a trend we’ve seen since President Donald Trump’s inauguration.

Two major insider buys steal the spotlight: 

📌 Bitwise Bitcoin ETF $BITB

Sen. David McCormick invested $260,000 to $600,000 in this Bitcoin ETF, further evidence that elected officials aren’t shying away from crypto exposure, even as major cryptos complete tops. 

📌 Globalstar $GSAT

Executive Chairman James Monroe III shelled out $4.72 million, marking a hefty commitment to the satellite services company.

Here’s The Hot Corner, with data from March 28, 2025:

Click the table to enlarge it.

📌 ...

The prevailing theme this year is that more international markets are challenging the dominance of the United States in equity performance.

This rotation has taken place for quite some time now and at least in the short-term it seems overextended.

A number of global ETFs are at big resistance levels and backed off last week. More importantly, as global markets stalled last week, this money did not flow back into the US.

This raises an important question; if international markets pause their gains, does this money flow into the U.S. markets (risk-on) or into safe haven assets (risk-off).

To demonstrate this point, here's a few examples.

Austria $EWO is near the top of the list and paused as it retested this resistance.

Singapore $EWS did the same.

And China $FXI is failing to hold this breakout.

And while international markets paused last week, the S&P 500 closed down 1.50% last week.

Not great.

It's clear that a structural shift is taking place here.

...