Regardless of the market environment, a company like Visa will keep printing money. 

Considering the vast majority of purchases involve credit cards these days and Visa is a dominant player in the space, Visa takes a small cut every time you swipe or tap your card. Good business to be in!

And the chart of $V backs this up.

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

1. New position in IGV.
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!

Director Elizabeth Davis just put nearly $200,000 on the line for 10,725 shares of Comstock Resources $CRK, a bold bet on the energy space.

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

Meanwhile, over in the financial sector, Timothy Hunter of Northwest Bancshares $NWBI scooped up 10,000 shares, signaling confidence in the regional banking sector.

Futures are down this morning, but barely.

Bonds have been flat for most of the overnight session. So has Gold.

If this was real volatility, you would actually see the volatility. Currently, we are not.

I've spent the weekend preparing for tonight's LIVE Monthly Charts Strategy Session.

I've analyzed thousands of companies, indexes and intermarket relationships all over the world.

Here's the conclusion.

Wait for it....

This is a bull market.

And Tariffs or no Tariffs, as investors, I believe that it's still business as usual as long as these uptrends remain in place.

For the S&P500, we're looking at about 5600, or 560 in the $SPY. If we're above that, then the series of higher lows and higher highs is still intact.

For the Nasdaq100 $QQQ that level is right at 500.

For the Dow Jones...

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 January 3, 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’s...

We’re noticing an increasing number of international markets showing relative strength.

This includes familiar standouts like China, Argentina, and Israel, as well as newer additions like Colombia, Chile, and Italy.

It's especially surprising to see many Latin American country ETFs gaining strength recently, with Colombia rising nearly to the top of the power rankings.

When we take a step back, this makes sense, as the iShares Latin America 40 ETF ($ILF) recently found support at the lower end of its long-term range.
 

However, the region still faces significant challenges, with Brazil and Mexico making up 85% of the ETF.

Interestingly, it's the countries that don't dominate this index—like Colombia, Chile, and others—that are showing the strongest performance.

Today's number is... 2.70%

The January Barometer (January's percentage change for the S&P 500) for 2025 showed a positive return of 2.70%.

Here’s the data table:

Let's break down what the table shows:

The first column lists the years the S&P 500 experienced a positive gain. The second column indicates the percentage change for January. The third column represents the percentage change from February to December. The fourth column shows the overall full-year return. At the bottom is a statistical table for each of these columns.

The Takeaway: The saying goes, "As January goes, so goes the rest of the Year."

The January Barometer is a seasonality tool that suggests that January's returns may predict the rest of the year's performance.

This seasonal analysis tool was initially introduced by Stock Trader's Almanac.

Let's...

I just got back to New Zealand after an intense week in NYC with the All Star Charts team.

Every few months, we bring together our exclusive Portfolio Accelerator members for a high-level mastermind which involves three days of networking, deep discussions, and live market insights from some of the sharpest traders, analysts, and fund managers in the world.

Here's the group this week:

The core of these events is the roundtable discussions. No fluff. Just raw, unfiltered conversations about the markets, positioning, and where the real opportunities are. Every time I leave, I have an edge—insights that actually make money.

One of the biggest takeaways from this event? AI isn’t a bubble, it’s just getting started.

One of my favorite sessions was with Dan Ives, Managing Director and Global Head of Technology Research at Wedbush Securities. If you follow financial news, you know he’s one of the most dialed-in voices on tech.

You’ve seen the headlines about AI.

You’ve watched the hype around Nvidia, but if you don’t have access to the right people, it’s hard to separate narrative from reality.

Dan broke it down:...

Don't miss the ASC Premium Monthly Candlesticks Strategy Session on Monday, February 3rd, at 8 pm ET! 🚨

👉 Click here to register for the LIVE event.

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.

We first began hedging our coffee addiction last summer, and boy, has it paid off.

In the five months since we first got long, the caffeine-packed bean has rallied over 50%. 

That's a massive move for a commodity in such a short amount of time!

But we think this one's just getting started and will likely surge higher for the foreseeable future.

In technical analysis kindergarten, you'll learn that "the bigger the base, the higher in space." This is especially true in this case.

We think this long-term parabolic uptrend has the potential to carry the price far higher than we can imagine.

Just look at how cocoa rallied 400% in less than 2-years.

For now, we're targeting 524 and 823 over longer timeframes.

The strategy this year has been simple.

Whenever you hear them say the word "Tariffs", you call your broker, or open your brokerage account, and you buy more stocks, particularly the Chinese ones.

And who is "they" exactly? 

You know who "they" is. Mostly the noisemakers. People who produce tv shows about "trading", or write "news" articles about financial markets. Permabears looking for their next excuse to make poor decisions...

You know, they!

"They" are the ones we want to fade. 

"We" are the ones who we want to make money.

And so every time they tell you the stock market is going to fall because of something they call "Tariffs", we just buy more stocks betting that stocks will rise in price (because or despite these so called, "Tariffs").

So far this is working. China doubled the returns of the Nasdaq100 in January, with the $FXI returning 4.7% last month. Meanwhile, the Chinese Internet ETF $KWEB rallied almost 7% for January.

As a reminder, we are in the midst of a bullish momentum thrust regime for Chinese stocks, so this shouldn't be surprising.

That momentum thrust, that consistently shows...

The big takeaway here is the continued green among a select few industry groups.

Cloud, Broker Dealers, Cyber Security, Software etc. These have all been strong industries over the years, so it's no surprise to see these all inhabiting the green region of this table.

A group among the green candidates which is surprising is the iShares U.S. Telecommunications ETF $IYZ. This ETF is still down 50% from its launch in 2000 and still trading at the same levels as it was 22 years ago.

Yet, it's shown impressive strength in recent times. If it can break above its pivot highs near 28, it would point to a continuation of this relative strength.
 

Many of the ETFs that hold crypto-associated stocks continue to rank high on the thematic list.

This niche area could continue to strongly outperform if Bitcoin successfully completes an all time high breakout right here.

If Bitcoin is above 108,000, ETFs such as ARKW, BITQ, and BLOK would be significant beneficiaries.

The market action since the FOMC seems to be positive. We broke it down here in a livestream yesterday.

Click here to watch the replay.

Another international theme on my radar right now is European banks.

These stocks serve as a strong gauge of global risk appetite. Typically, when they perform well, risk assets are in good shape.

The European Financials Index $E1FIN just closed the month at its highest level since the Great Financial Crisis. 

This is particularly important for a lot of international indexes that are heavily-weighted in bank stocks.

If this breakout holds and we see follow-through in the coming weeks, it’s hard to imagine markets or the economy falling apart.

This was a very important topic we discussed yesterday in my presentation, and I think we all agreed.

After all, if these stocks are thriving, how bad could things really be?

Have a good...

Our International Hall of Famers list is composed of the 100 largest US-listed international stocks, or ADRs.

We've also sprinkled in some of the largest ADRs from countries that did not make the market cap cut. 

These stocks range from some well-known mega-cap multinationals such as Toyota Motor and Royal Dutch Shell to some large-cap global disruptors such as Sea Ltd and Shopify.

It's got all the big names and more–but only those that are based outside the US. You can find all the largest US stocks on our original Hall of Famers list.

The beauty of these scans is really in their simplicity.

We take the largest names each week and then apply technical filters in a way that the strongest stocks with the most momentum rise to the top.

Based on the market environment, we can also flip the scan on its head and filter for weakness.

Let's dive in and take a look at some of the most important stocks from around the world.

Here's this week's list:

Last week, I joined my friend Michael Batnick on “What Are Your Thoughts.”

The guys over at Ritholtz Wealth and the Compound are the absolute best at what they do. For that reason, doing their shows is always an honor. 

But, it’s also a blast. They make talking markets fun.

We talked about a number of topics from breadth, to short-sellers, and even Nancy Pelosi’s latest trades.

Make sure to check out the replay if you missed it.

Anyways, it is on my mind because Batnick brought up the Dollar Tree chart and I’ve been watching it ever since. We both really like the setup. 

Today, I’m pulling the trigger as it looks to be finishing the right shoulder of this inverse head and...

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

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

Let’s dig in!