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The S&P 500 has already fallen 20% from its highs.

The VIX spiked into the 50s.

Panic and fear have taken over, and investors have been in for a roller coaster ride.

Volatility isn’t going away — that’s a given. But broadly speaking, I think the worst is behind us.

Now, we’re seeing key indexes and sectors retesting their prior cycle highs from 2021.

For long-term investors, this is what you wait for.

These kinds of “resets” often create historic opportunities.

But the goal isn’t to catch a falling knife. The...

With $VIX showing signs that perhaps yesterday was a blow off top, I'm going to gingerly wade into the premium selling pond with a defined-risk Iron Condor trade on a semiconductor stock that may be entering a wide range of sideways chop.

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

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

Let’s dig in!

It's been a great week down in Miami visiting family.

We had our first child in the middle of covid, and then had twins 2 years ago. So traveling hasn't exactly been at the top of the priority list, like it used to be for us before kids.

In fact, this is actually the first time I've come back home to Miami with my entire family, including all 3 kids. 

It's been awesome.

Sunday night I got to sneak out after the kids went to bed and met Steve Strazza for sushi at a new spot on Brickell.

I've also hung out with old high school buddies and cousins. I don't get to do these things as much as I used to back in the day.

This morning I wanted to pass along two charts that I think all investors need to keep front and center right now. 

These charts, in my opinion, literally define this bull market, and whether or not it's over, like we all keep being told it is.

We call this behavior: "Polarity".

It's when former resistance turns into support. In other words, where there were more sellers than buyers (at the prior cycle's peak), there are now (so far) more buyers that sellers.

You're seeing this polarity play out in...

Two standout moves are turning heads:

📌 GameStop $GME

President, CEO, and Chairman Ryan Cohen filed a Form 4 revealing a $10.78 million purchase.

What makes this even more intriguing is the timing—right on the heels of GameStop floating a MicroStrategy-style Bitcoin strategy.

📌 Applied Materials $AMAT

President and CEO Gary E. Dickerson just stepped up with a $6.87 million open market buy in Applied Materials $AMAT—his first insider purchase since 2015.

When a top executive makes their first buy in nearly a decade, it’s not something to gloss over. 

When someone with the deepest insights into the business steps in with a sizable buy after a decade on the sidelines, it’s a message worth listening to.

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

Today's number is... 28.5

My 'Fear or Strength' model has shifted into tactical bullish mode because the Volatility Index (VIX) is above 28.5.

Here’s the chart:

Let's break down what the chart shows:

• The black line in the top panel is the S&P 500 index price.
• The green shading highlights the model is in bullish mode.
• The red shading highlights the model is in bearish mode.
• The black line in the middle panel is the 10-day average of the NYSE+NASDAQ net new high advance-decline line - The model's ‘strength’ component. The gray shading represents the AD line is rising.
• The black line in the bottom panel is the Volatility Index, which is the model's ‘fear’ component. The gray shading represents the VIX reading above 28.5.

The Takeaway: The ‘fear’ component of this model has been triggered as the VIX reading is above 28.5. 

But why is the 28.5 threshold...

Many key indexes have retested their 2021 highs following Trump's market crash.

Here's the S&P 500 $SPY revisiting its breakout level.

And here's the same story in the Nasdaq 100 $QQQ.

And similarly in the Dow Jones Industrial Average $DIA.

After market crashes, we often see sharp, aggressive countertrend moves. With the indexes now having fully retested their 2021 highs, this could be the point where we start seeing a notable rebound.

In other words, we've had the crash, and now I'm anticipating the sharp rebound.

As for where that will lead or whether Trump will back down—it’s tough to say. We can’t predict if we’re entering a more sustained bear market. But in the short term, a countertrend rally here seems to be a logical expectation.

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Volatility just took over the market in a big way.

Nothing has been safe—Tech, China, Europe, even Bitcoin got slammed.

This has been a full-blown flush.

The bears didn’t leave anything behind.

So now what?

Where’s the support?

Where can this thing stop bleeding?

For the S&P 500, I’m keeping an eye on those former cycle highs from 2021, right around 480. 

This looks like a good place to start—at least for a short-term bounce.

If there’s a line in the sand, 480 feels like the right spot where bulls...

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...

The publicly traded markets around the world are experiencing some of their most volatile periods ever.

Since its February peak, the S&P 500 has declined by over 20%. 

Meanwhile, Gold has shown a tremendous amount of relative strength. It's only down 6% from its all-time high...

This isn't anything new, though. We've been discussing this outperformance for years, and we don't think it will change anytime soon.

Why? Because tariffs create immediate uncertainty. They slow growth, tighten financial conditions, and drive a flight to safety — all of which are bond bullish in the short term. We’ve seen this playbook before: geopolitical tension or trade stress leads to a bid for duration.

The chart’s not there yet — but it’s starting to shape up. Bonds still have work to do before we can talk new 52-week highs. For $TLT, that means clearing this massive base and getting above 100.40 with some momentum behind it. That’s the line in the sand. Get through that, and the squeeze could start to build.

But here’s the catch — the long-term impact is different.

Tariffs raise input costs. They squeeze supply chains. And they don’t reduce demand — they just make things more expensive. Over time, that feeds into inflation. So while bonds may catch a near-term bid on fears of economic slowdown, the structural risk is higher inflation down the road.

It’s the classic setup: short-term deflationary shock, long-term inflationary shift.

So yes — bonds could break out. But if this pressure...

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In real bear markets, they come for everything. 

There are no survivors. It’s just how it goes. 

In the middle of last week, there were still pockets of strength. 

Things like Financials and Europe were holding up great. 

Then they both had their worst day in years. On Friday, they got absolutely slaughtered.

These massive failed breakouts in MSCI Germany and the SPDR Banks ETF really tell the story. 

The bears finally came for these leaders. 

And how about the defensive groups that have been showing relative strength all year?

Things like Healthcare, Staples, Real Estate, and Utilities. They seemed like a good place to hide. 

Then they got crushed last week like everything else. 

Low volatility stocks suffered their worst day and worst week since the pandemic lows....

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

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

Let’s dig in!

Stocks are getting destroyed all over the entire world. Things could turn on a dime but, for the moment and for good reasons investors are selling risk assets.  The selling is global, the Volatility Index has spiked. Over the weekend social media was dominated by talk of the crash, the tariffs and the need to get off this path as fast as possible before we do more permanent damage.

As I discussed in real time last week ("Sound the Alarm") there was a single flash point for this crash: the ridiculous, clumsy, catastrophic moment the POTUS held up his chart.

Why was the placard so bad. Well, I wrote about it here and my friend @The-Real-Fly on Twitter rather neatly sums up the point here:

The Rules of the Casino

That about covers it. Trump changed the rules of the international finance casino. In markets of all kinds participants value "stable" over "fair". Meaning they'll deal with slightly...

U.S. equities suffered a historically sharp drop last week, shaking out weak hands.

It’s often during these moments of heightened fear that savvy players quietly make their move.

Here are today’s standouts:

Neuberger Berman smelled opportunity in the sharp decline, disclosing new 13G filings in a handful of under-the-radar names:

📌 Kyndryl $KD – 5.40%

📌 Enerpac $EPAC – 6.10%

📌 Miller Industries $MLR – 6.60%

Here’s The Hot Corner, with data from April 4, 2025:

Click the table to enlarge it.

📌 Victoria’s Secret $VSCO

BBRC International filed a Form 4 disclosing a $3.43 million purchase—continuing its aggressive bet on the lingerie retailer’s turnaround story.

📌 Salesforce $CRM

Today's number is... -4%

The S&P 500 posted back-to-back -4% down days last week. 

Here’s the chart:

Let's break down what the chart shows:

• The black line is the S&P 500 index price.
• The red lines highlight the days the S&P 500 posted back-to-back -4% down days. 

The Takeaway: At the end of last week, we experienced some significant daily declines. On Thursday, the market fell by 4.8%, and things worsened on Friday, with a decline of 5.9%. 

When we take a look at the data, consecutive days with drops of -4% or less are relatively rare. However, this kind of weakness in a bear market could indicate that the worst may be behind us.

It's important to keep in mind that the sample size is small, so we should approach this information cautiously. Nonetheless, historical data tells us that after such big back-to-back declines, future returns tend to be very strong.

On average, one year later, stocks typically rise by over 30%. 

Do you view this data as...

After holding up for several weeks, many global markets are finally starting to feel the weight of the Trump tariffs.

What began as a U.S.-centric correction has now turned into broad, indiscriminate selling across markets and risk assets.

Financials and European markets had been showing some resilience amid the U.S. weakness — but that’s no longer the case.

Germany’s $EWG just broke down hard, failing to hold its long-term breakout in spectacular fashion.

Across Europe, more countries are now struggling to break out and hold key resistance levels.

After weeks of holding firm, the bias for Europe — and most global markets — has shifted sideways to lower.

I wanted to go back old school today.

I'm in Miami this week, where I grew up, visiting family and I'm feeling nostalgic. 

So I wanted to share a chart that I've kept with me for a long long time. I even used the same Stockcharts.com chart, that I originally annotated a handful of cycles ago, so you can see just how long I've had this one with me.

We're looking at the percentage of stocks on the NYSE that are above their 200 day moving average.

The idea here is that we are NOT interested in buying the indexes on their way down below 20% of constituents above their 200 day.

The goal during these times is to buy them on the way back up. 

I've been having this debate with some of the world's top portfolio managers and strategists for over the past 2 decades.

Some of these arguments have even gotten pretty heated throughout these cycles. I remember one private back and forth during the late 2018 period where the strategist was pounding the table about the 20% level, while I was much more focused on the 15% mark.

Here's the answer. Or at least, here's my answer:

The best...

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.