Walmart shares are up more than 80% in the last year despite single-digit revenue and earnings growth. Time to take gains on the World’s Largest Retailer?

I’ve been long shares of Walmart for the last 5 years. First the good news:

WMT is at all-time highs, having just ripped through Big Round Number resistance at $100 and forming one of those giddily unsustainable Upward to the Right charts you don’t see much in 65 year old retailers growing revenue at a single-digit rate.

Which is related to the bad-news. Walmart has rarely, if ever been this expensive by almost any measure. In the last 5 years Walmart shares are up 162%. In that same time frame revenue is up 26% and operating income has grown 22%. The latter numbers are surprising if not shockingly anemic.

At 41x trailing 12 months Walmart’s PE (“your grandpa’s ratio!”) is roughly 2x the historical average for the last 15yrs. In the last 12 months Walmart has gone from $56 to over $100 and the PE has moved from 25 to 42. 

Walmart isn’t earning more money, it’s telling Wall St a better story.

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The U.S. dollar is getting slammed, and gold bugs around the world are rejoicing.

In honor of this development, we just went live on YouTube to talk about it.

We discussed the extreme position in the foreign exchange markets and the implications of a weaker dollar.

In addition, we talked about what areas we believe stand to benefit most from this (hint, hint, we talked a lot about commodities).

If you want to get our actionable trade ideas on gold, gold stocks, and other precious metals, join ASC Gold Rush today.

-Sam & Jason 

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

1. New position in XHB.
2. No adjustments are needed today.
3. Closed TLT at profit target.
4. Current status of open campaigns.
5. Volatility Snapshot.

Let’s dig in!

I've been getting this question quite a bit lately: Does Breadth even matter?

And the answer is yes. It's a market of stocks.

Go back and study all the bull markets in history. You'll notice how as the bull market progresses, you get more and more stocks participating to the upside. You tend to see sector rotation and new leaders emerging. You also see expansion in participation across countries around the globe.

This is what is currently happening. It's all of the above.

In Bear markets, however, these things do not happen. It's actually the opposite. You see fewer and fewer stocks going up, while more and more stocks are breaking to new lows. The sector rotation turns into the last leaders catching down to the losers. And you see stock market indexes in countries all over the world falling in price, not rising. 

When you weigh all the evidence, it's quite obvious that we are currently in the first category, and certainly not in the second one.

How can market breadth be deteriorating, when participation just keeps expanding?

How can you tell me with a straight face that breadth is weakening, when the...

McDonald's $MCD missed its expectations across the board but rallied nearly 5% with a reaction score of 3.43.

The market was lovin' it. ;)

The company plans to open 2,200 restaurants in 2025, which is above average. This stock is all about growth.

McDonald's is also actively implementing its so-called "accelerating the arches" strategy, focusing on market share growth through value offerings, menu innovation, and culturally relevant marketing.

Let's talk about what else happened 👇

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Rockwell Automation $ROK beat its expectations and rallied 12.65% with a reaction score of 5.88. It was the stock's best earnings reaction EVER.

The company secured several multimillion-dollar strategic orders during the quarter, and the management team issued better-than-expected guidance.

ON Semiconductor $ON missed its expectations and fell over 8% with a reaction score -3.48. It was bad...

The company's revenue and gross margins are declining significantly. To make matters worse, the management...

Estee Lauder $EL director Paul Fribourg just doubled down, adding another 45,500 EL shares to his position.

Meanwhile, over at Match Group $MTCH, it’s not just one insider—it’s a coordinated move. Both the CEO and a director dropped $2.15 million on their own stock.

When leadership moves in tandem like this, it’s often a signal that they believe brighter days are ahead for the company.

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

Sylebra Capital made a serious move, buying 619,925 shares of PureCycle Technologies $PCT at $8.06.

The hedge fund has a history of making aggressive bets in tech and sustainability plays, backing names with long-term disruption potential.

Finally, insiders at MDU Resources $MDU, Becton Dickinson $BDX, and The...

A major standout here is how the American S&P 500 $SPY doesn't even feature on the top 10 on our global list.

We have regular attendees like Argentina, China, and Israel, but there are a number of countries that wouldn't necessarily come to mind. This includes Colombia $GXG, Italy $EWI, UAE $UAE, and Poland $EPOL, to name a few.

There's a growing list of participation taking place outside the United States, which could setup international equities to outperform the domestic U.S. market in 2025.

The Portfolio Accelerator is where the best ideas come to life. New York delivered big, and now we’re taking it to New Orleans — are you in? Apply to reserve your spot today.

Today's number is... 75%

Currently, 75% (6 out of 8) of the indicators on my 2025 Bull Market Checklist are within their bull market zone. This suggests a healthy-ish bull market, creating a favorable backdrop for stocks.

Here is the table:

About the Table: This checklist combines various factors such as price, trends, momentum, breadth, sentiment & environmental models. Its purpose is to highlight turns toward risks or opportunities in the market.

This checklist was created to have a bird’s eye view rather than focusing on just one area of the market.

This high-level perspective will guide us in understanding the current market environment before allocating capital.

Please note that this checklist is not intended to serve as a trading signal; rather, it functions as a gauge of the current trading environment.

The Takeaway: The bulls appear to be re-entering the market to regain control. This week, my checklist has progressed further into the bullish zone, with the percentage of global markets moving above their 50-day average...

A couple of days ago, I talked about three big reasons I’m long China.

Today, I want to go deeper into the overwhelming bearish sentiment around these stocks and why it could be the perfect catalyst for their next leg higher.

Whether it’s the doom-and-gloom headlines, distrust in the government, skepticism over earnings, or fears of an escalating trade war., the bottom line is— “these stocks are uninvestable.”

Just look at this chart. Short interest in the Large-Cap China ETF $FXI was recently at the highest level it's been in the last year and is still elevated today. 

Investors around the world keep piling in on the short side.

Every time short...

Gold futures keep screaming higher to new all-time highs.

It has also rallied over 100% relative to the broader commodity complex.

But what the shiny yellow metal hasn't done this cycle is outperform stocks. We think that's about to change in a major way and here's why.

This stock is really special to me.

It’s the first one I ever bought. 

I used to watch Jim Cramer with my father when I was in high school. He knew I had an interest in the market so gave me a bit of money to experiment with.

I took one of Jim’s calls and bought Build Your Dreams. Part of his bullish thesis was that Buffett was in. This was almost 20-years ago. I paid the $50 international fee and got long.

They call it BYD Co. now. But, it’s the Tesla of China. These guys have been making EVs and batteries longer than anyone. They are an industry leader, and no one ever talks about them.

Mobility is a monster trend and it is just picking up steam.

China is also a monster trend right now. I think it’s the fattest pitch in the market. It’s the kind of trade setup we wait years for. 

And BYDDF is one of the secular leaders in the region.

Much unlike Alibaba, Tencent, and Baidu – the other mega-tech bellwethers – BYD Co is breaking out to new all-time highs.

The bottom line is it is one of the best-looking charts in...

Today's trade is in a computing company we all know. Some might think their best days are behind them, but the price action as of late would indicate otherwise.

And with what feels like a gift of a pullback to get positioned into, we're going for it!

Space stocks have been among the hottest groups in the market, with many names experiencing historic runs of 500% or more off their lows from last year. 

But after the recent rally phase, many of these spaceships have been refueling. 

Over the past few months, the best names in this industry have wound themselves into high and tight coils.

And they are starting to go. In fact, we are just sending an email alert to members about the ripper in ASTS today. We are selling the double on this breakout.

And we’re redeploying that capital into more space stocks.

Here is one of the leaders, Rocket Lab USA $RKLB: 

After a historic take off, RKLB has been in a tight coil, and now our volatility squeeze indicator is crossing up and signaling expansion...

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. No new positions today.
2. Rolled XME to March options.
3. No exits since the last report.
4. Current status of open campaigns.
5. Volatility Snapshot.

Let’s dig in!

On Friday, Amazon $AMZN, one of the most significant stocks in the universe, had its worst earnings reaction since Q1 2023. 

The company reported a total capital expenditure of $26.3B in Q4, which is expected to continue in 2025. 

Andy Jassy, the CEO of AMZN, is all in on AI, and the market isn't thrilled about it. 

Shareholders would rather have the money returned to them than have the company invest a tremendous amount in potential future growth.

Who has it right? Only time will tell...

Let's talk about what else happened 👇

*click the image to enlarge it

Take-Two Interactive Software $TTWO reported mixed results but rallied 14% with a reaction score of 9.14. The market loved it!

The company reported stronger-than-expected NBA 2K sales. They sold over 7M units, increasing daily active users by nearly 20%.

Expedia Group $EXPE beat expectations and rallied 17%, with a reaction score of 7.86. But the market was most excited about the announcement to reinstate the quarterly dividend.

In March 2020, the company...

The largest insider transaction on today’s list was filed by The Estee Lauder Companies $EL director Paul Fribourg.

Fribourg revealed a purchase of $5,724,373 in his own company’s stock.

The CEO of Markel Corp $MKL just put a little over $200,000 of his own cash into the stock—not a massive bet, but definitely worth paying attention to.

We like to see CEO purchases come with a little more size than this.

Here’s The Hot Corner, with data from February 7, 2025:

Control Empresarial de Capitales S.A., the investment firm tied to Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, just made a massive bet on PBF Energy Inc $PBF, scooping up $4,305,060 worth of stock.

Last but not least, two Merck & Co $MRK directors just made a significant statement, collectively buying $1,577,499 worth of their company’s stock.

When not just one but multiple high-level...

Notice how persistent the colors are on either end of the table?

What this suggests is that the same industry groups that have been outperforming the market have continued to show strength, while there is no signs of this weakness changing on the other end.

Something of note is how Medical Devices $IHI has shown strength while Healthcare $XLV has been the weakest sector over the last six months.

Interestingly, the ratio of Medical Devices $IHI relative to the broad Healthcare sector $XLV is at a key level of resistance. Furthermore, the sector has rebounded and despite its weakness over the last six months has been the strongest sector YTD.

With this ratio hitting resistance, we could see some rotation within the underlying healthcare industry groups which could be positive for the sector.

Speaking of rotation, we might be witnessing the same thing play out in the retail sector, with the market all but writing off Peloton—only for it to explode 20% higher in a stunning reversal.

And even more, Jeff Macke called it. He’s been all over the retail space for years, and he’s got a killer...