Here's the replay and chartbook from the April 3 Weekly Strategy Session.

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

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

Let’s dig in!

Insiders keep stepping in to buy the dips across industries as U.S. equities continue to struggle.

Here are today’s standouts:

📌 Zymeworks $ZYME saw a bold insider move, with ECOR1 Capital buying 127,415 shares, equivalent to $1,5 million.

📌 Staar Surgical $STAA also caught our attention, as Broadwood Partners increased their stake with a $941,285 purchase.

Here’s The Hot Corner, with data from April 2, 2025:

Click the table to enlarge it.

📌 Last but not least, Point72 Asset Management, the hedge fund led by legendary investor Steve Cohen, just filed a 13G revealing an increased stake in Shoals Technologies $SHLS. 

The firm boosted its position from 3.32% to 5.40%, signaling a passive investment in the solar infrastructure company.

Are we having fun yet?

No. No, we are not.

Stocks are getting hammered after President Trump's Reciprocal Tariffs were larger and broader than economists anticipated. Retailers and tech are leading the way lower early, which has been the case since this sell-off started to pick up steam in late January.

The immediate impact will hammer the margins of companies importing and/or manufacturing which, in the market consumer world is almost anything you can think of, to one degree or another. The declines in the pre-market tends to reflect worse-case back of the envelope calculations for how hard companies will be hit based on the announced tariffs which, it should be noted repeatedly, are "immediate", "permanent" and "open to negotiation". Three words not typically used to describe the same action, yet here we are.

Take Nike. Please. Nike produces 50% of its shoes in Vietnam, 18% in China and 27% in Indonesia. 

Going into the news conference Nike had probably been planning to shift some production around to whichever countries got the best terms. If so, this was a very bad moment in Beaverton:

Is it worth it for Nike to move...

Today's number is... 639

The S&P 500 has gone 639 consecutive trading days without a -3% decline.

Here’s the chart:

Let's break down what the chart shows:

• The blue line in the top panel is the S&P 500 index price.
• The black lines in the bottom panel indicates the number of consecutive days since the S&P 500 experienced a daily move of -3% or less.

The Takeaway: As I write this daily note, the S&P 500 futures are down over 3% after Trump imposed tariffs on most countries around the globe last night.

The last time the S&P 500 experienced a drop this significant was 639 trading days ago, which was during the cost-of-living crisis in 2022.

Since the beginning of the 1990s, there have been 104 days with a change of -3% or less, with most of these down days happening while the market was in a sizeable drawdown.

When examining the S&P 500's forward returns, we find that on days with a decline of -3%, there is only a 55% chance the market will be positive two weeks later.

As...

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Today was called Liberation Day in the U.S.

It’s funny how there’s always a headline everyone is waiting to react to.

I treat these as nothing more than volatility events.

Meanwhile, U.S. equities continue to struggle. 

The bulls haven’t been able to make a comeback.

In crypto land, it’s just as messy.

If there’s...

Thanks to everyone who joined us for today's Hot Corner Insider Weekly Strategy Session.

Today's trade is something I don't do much of: a pairs trade, but with an options twist.

A typical pairs trade goes like this: You find two stocks that typically trade together, but for some reason, they've diverged. So, you buy the underperforming stock and short-sell an equal dollar amount of the outperforming stock. This is typically a market-neutral trade where you're betting the values of the two stocks will eventually resume their normal parity, resulting in a net profit from the two trades.

We have a situation developing right now that screams pairs trade to me, but I'm going to do it with options.

I was busily preparing for the post-close rantings of a polarizing lunatic (by which I mean the RH earnings report and conference call) when it came across the wire that Amazon could be in the running to buy TikTok.

Amazon spiked on the news, as well it should have. As mentioned almost too often, Amazon is exceptional at deploying capital. Amazon convinced America to put what amounts to spyware-capable microphones in bad speakers, call it Alexa and sell about a billion of them. Amazon started selling Prime memberships in exchange for 2 day delivery on select items. Now Prime generates $50b in membership sales per year.

The company started as a bookstore. 

If Amazon buys TikTok and hotlinks weirdly specific targeted advertising to America's preferred hub for impulse shopping chains like Target might as well stop trying to build out online retail and focus on going viral. I'm only half kidding. 

Merging social media and retail seamlessly has been a dream since the first pop-up ad. In September of 2020 Walmart and Oracle announced a "Tentative" deal to...

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Welcome to The 2 to 100 Club.

In this scan, we look to identify the strongest growth stocks as they climb the market-cap ladder from small- to mid- to large- and, ultimately, to mega cap status (over $200B).

Once they graduate from small-cap to mid-cap status (over $2B), they come on our radar. Likewise, when they surpass the roughly $30B mark, they roll off our list.

But the scan doesn't just end there.

We only want to look at the strongest growth industries in the market, as that is typically where these potential 50-baggers come from.

Some of the best performers in recent decades – stocks like Priceline, Amazon, Netflix, Salesforce, and myriad others – would have been on this list at some point during their journey to becoming the market behemoths they are today.

When you look at the stocks in our table, you'll notice we're only focused on Technology and Growth industry groups such as Software, Semiconductors, Online...

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

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

Let’s dig in!

Another day, another wave of CEO purchases... 

Companies across multiple sectors saw their leaders put skin in the game. 

Here are the standouts: 

📌 Petco $WOOF

CEO Joel Anderson scooped up $4.72 million worth of shares, marking the day’s largest CEO buy and a major vote of confidence in the specialty retail space.

📌 H.B. Fuller $FUL

President and CEO Celeste Beeks Mastin filed a Form 4 revealing a purchase of $198,310.

📌 Opko Health $OPK

President and CEO Phillip Frost MD bought 100,000 shares.

Here’s The Hot Corner, with data from April 1, 2025:

Click the table to enlarge it.

📌...

Q1 2025 was the best earnings reaction since 2015 for Take-Two Interactive Software $TTWO. We talked about it in February.

It reported mixed quarterly results, but rallied 14% with a reaction score of 9.14. The reaction was super bullish.

This was also the stock's 4th consecutive positive earnings reaction. That's one of the highest Beat Streaks in the S&P 500.

Take-Two is one of the largest video game developers in the world. They're known for legendary games such as Grand Theft Auto, Red Dead, and NBA 2K, among others.

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

Additionally, the market is enthusiastic about the products in their pipeline. In particular, they're expected to launch a new version of Grand Theft Auto in the fall this year.

This has been one of the most successful video game franchises ever. The market is front-running the potential of the latest edition.

It's not just the...

Large Cap Value $IWD has migrated to the top of the ETF Power Rankings for the US Indexes as growth continues to underperform.

Will growth continue underperforming?

This is the chart to look at it.

It's not over for growth until we see this ratio go below this line; I'd be surprised to not see growth begin outperforming as we hit this clear support level.

So while the trend has favored value for some time now, I wouldn't discount growth here.

Today's number is... 4

Here is a four-panel chart showing the recent strength of gold and its outperformance versus the other main asset classes.

Here’s the chart:

Let's break down what the chart shows:

• The yellow line is the Gold ETF index price.
• The blue line is Gold relative to Bonds.
• The gray line is Gold relative to Stocks.
• The black line is Gold relative to Commodities.

The Takeaway: If you didn't know already, we’re in the midst of a massive gold rush.

Gold has been an outstanding place for your money since breaking out of its multi-year base in early 2024.

The new absolute and relative highs we’re seeing are signals of strength, not weakness. 

When the lines go from the lower left to the upper right, we call those uptrends.

Right now, gold is at fresh all-time highs on an absolute basis, and it’s showing remarkable strength with 4-year highs relative to US stocks. Additionally, gold is achieving new all-time highs relative to bonds, and it’s also making 4...

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Before I position myself or act in the market, I weigh the evidence in front of me.

It’s my main job. It’s all I think about.

It’s how I make market calls, and it is the basis for my trading and investing decisions.

It’s also my most difficult job. I think any strategist or investor would agree.

The truth is… In technical analysis, there is no special indicator. There is no secret sauce. 

We’re all looking at the same charts. 

And it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to discern between an uptrend and a downtrend. Or a top versus a bottom.

That’s not where disagreement is sewn among us. That's rarely what makes one technical opinion or market view differ from another.

It’s about how we weigh all of the different data points.

It’s how we put together the puzzle. 

This kind of expertise comes from time in...