Uncle Warren is at it again, increasing Berkshire Hathaway's stake in VeriSign Inc $VRSN.
The latest filing reveals a purchase of 20,044 shares, bringing Berkshire's ownership to 13.83%.
VRSN is consolidating constructively just below a key resistance level:
The critical threshold is at 255. As long as the stock remains below this overhead supply, it’s difficult to find an attractive setup for the long side.
However, a decisive breakout above this area would change the narrative, presenting a compelling opportunity to get involved.
Here’s The Hot Corner, with data from January 3, 2024:
Meanwhile, Massachusetts Financial Services Company disclosed a 13G filing for TransUnion $TRU, increasing its stake from 9.75% to 10.00%.
Closing out the year, tech stocks are stealing the spotlight. Despite showing a bit of weakness this December, the big picture is clear: the bullish trends are undeniable.
Meanwhile, many parts of the market are settling into trading ranges, while others are dipping back to test key support zones.
Take Retail ($XRT), for example. It’s gone from red to green over the past month, making an impressive transition.
What’s particularly intriguing is the chart—it’s revisiting a major breakout level.
This is a natural spot for the group to gather momentum and start climbing higher.
It’s easy to focus on the leaders, but let’s shift our attention to the bottom of the rankings — energy.
This sector has been consistently lagging, showing red for some time. That’s the beauty of these Power Rankings; they give us an early warning when trends start to shift.
Energy hasn’t turned the corner just yet.
Meanwhile, Crude Oil is sitting at a critical support level and remains tightly coiled.
If we see an upward breakout in Crude, it wouldn’t be surprising to watch Energy transition from red to green.
Large-cap and growth stocks continue to outperform, while small-cap and value stocks lag behind.
One key development we're watching closely is whether the recent softness in U.S. indices, particularly the S&P 500, marks the formation of a potential lower high.
Should the S&P break to a new low, it would confirm a shift in the short-term trend to the downside.
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It's difficult to ignore how green Argentina $ARGT has been on our rankings ever since Javier Milei's election victory. It's been such a standout in a region that has struggled in recent times.
Compare Argentina $ARGT to the remainder of Latin America.
A development that has us curious is whether Latin America broadly speaking while begin to recover into the new year.
Here is the iShares Latin America ETF $ILF sitting on a key level of support; this is a logical area for this region to see a recovery from its recent weakness.
This year, much of the buzz has been around technology subgroups, especially Semiconductors.
However, two less-hyped but highly consistent performers have been Insurance and Aerospace & Defense. Over the past three months, these "boring" sectors have shown steady strength, staying consistently green.
Year-to-date, Insurance ($IAK) has delivered an impressive 26.40% return (green line), while Aerospace & Defense ($ITA) has climbed 18.30% (blue line).
Even more encouraging is that both are sitting near logical support levels, presenting favorable entry opportunities—assuming their strong trends persist.
Speculative growth has been the strongest theme into the end of the year.
But interestingly, we're noticing a major divergence between U.S. growth and E.M. growth. While the former is at the top of the rankings, E.M. growth has transitioned to red.
We need to see the Emerging Market Internet ETF $EMQQ reclaim this breakout level if we want to have a more positive stance on this theme.
We’ve noticed a significant shift in both Large Cap Technology ($XLK) and Equal Weight Technology ($RSPT), as they transition from red to deeper shades of green, as illustrated below.
This suggests a resurgence of growth leadership heading into 2025.
From a technical perspective, the breakout of the Large Cap Technology ETF ($XLK) from a six-month base further supports this trend.
With this setup, there’s considerable potential for technology to push higher as we move into the new year.
We're seeing a stronger performance in larger stocks and those within the growth factor, with more of them in the green compared to smaller and value stocks.
This is especially clear in the Small Cap ETF ($IWM), which recently failed at a key level of resistance.The Vanguard FTSE Europe ETF ($VGK) breaking down to fresh lows is particularly concerning. A swift recovery here is essential to shift the narrative.
Typically, after a rejection like this, we tend to see a period of sideways movement as the market absorbs overhead supply before the next move higher.
I've noticed that the technology sector ETFs have turned from red (or light green) to a darker shade of green.
This makes sense with growth picking up steam while value has cooled off.
All technology sector ETFs look prime to break to new highs. While larger technology companies have outperformed, it's positive for the sector to see all three at their highest level they've been all year.
It's a new year and the market is looking forward.
It doesn't matter what happened last year, as far as our decisions are concerned. But let's not forget that humans are irrational, and they will certainly let the past year or two impact their decision making.
They can't help themselves. So it's up to us as traders and investors to extract those dollars for our own selfish reasons.
We're here to make money. Period. Taking advantage of human flaws is a great way to do that, as I've been showing you here every day for over a decade.
Yesterday we discussed the irrational behavior we're seeing from investors in the middle of a bull market. They're running scared, just as market breadth is improving to the upside, across multiple timeframes.
The Retail Investors are scared to death. And that's a good thing.
We don't want individual investors too optimistic. That's when stocks sell off. It's when they're pessimistic and worried that you see the best forward returns.
Go back and see for yourself. It's all public information. These are the people we want to fade. This is the "Dumb" money, so to speak.
Dig this. The first sentiment data for the year just came out from the American Association of Individual Investors with the fewest number of bulls since April of last year.
In the middle of the bull market, they're crazy scared.
Good.
Now keep in mind, this is specifically what they're saying.
But what are they doing?
Well, the Put/Call Ratio just hit new 4-month highs. This means investors are buying insurance (Put options) at a much faster rate than they're betting on higher stock prices (Call options).
That's also evidence that they're scared. Why else would you be buying insurance at such a fast rate?
Now, what else are they doing?
Active Investment Managers (NAAIM) have on the least amount of long exposure since...