Last night might have been the most important LIVE Conference Call we've ever had.

Traders and Investors have so many questions right now about the coming months and quarters that we had so much to talk about.

We went over all the most important trends in the market today, what our favorite setups are from the long side, what the new downside risks look like, and my one favorite place to put money to work RIGHT HERE RIGHT NOW.

Click here and register to get full access to last night's LIVE Video Conference Call.

You'll be able to pause, rewind and fast forward. And the slide deck with over 160 charts is also available to download right away.

Watch the Replay and get the Trade Ideas...

The big story today is the sheer number of CEOs putting their own money on the line to buy the dip.

📌 Taboola $TBLA: Founder and CEO Adam Singolda bought another 123,771 shares.

📌 Wolverine World Wide $WWW: CEO Christopher Hufnagle stepped in with $295,400.

📌 Kratos Defense $KTOS: CEO Eric M. DeMarco filed a Form 4 revealing an acquisition of 9,500 shares.

📌 Talkspace $TALK: CEO Jon R. Cohen backs his own company with a $214,000 share purchase.

📌 Geron Corp $GERN: CEO John A. Scarlet reported a $206,213 purchase.

📌 Federal Signal $FSS: CEO Jennifer L. Sherman doubles down on industrial growth with a $102,900 buy.

📌 Selective Insurance $SIGI: CEO John J. Marchioni bought 1,180 shares for $102,000.

Here’s The Hot Corner, with data from March 3, 2025:

...

Today's number is... 2021

My Risk-On/Risk-Off ratio has sharply declined recently and returned to levels when the ratio peaked and fell into a consolidation period back in 2021.

Here’s the chart:

Let's break down what the chart shows:

• The black line is my Risk-On/Risk-Off ratio.
  • The Risk-On components consist of Copper (HG1), High Yield Bonds (JNK), Aussie Dollar (AUDUSD), Semiconductors (SOXX/SPY) & High Beta (SPHB/SPY).
  • The Risk-Off components consist of Gold (GC1), US Treasury Bonds (TLT), Yen (JPYUSD), Utilities (XLU/SPY) & Staples (XLP/SPY).

The Takeaway: Investors are experiencing fear and pessimism, as bearish sentiment dominates the surveys. The US market is beginning to mirror this mood, showing a preference for a Risk-Off environment. This is reflected in my Risk-On/Risk-Off ratio, which has returned to a key level of importance where we saw NYSE breadth reach its peak in 2021.

Will this resistance level, which has turned into support, continue to act as support, or will this ratio...

The key piece of information here is how more and more international diversified ETFs are overtaking the US' S&P 500 $SPY.

International stocks have outperformed YTD versus the United States, a trend that has persistently favored the latter for well over a decade. This has us wondering whether we're entering into a new regime of widening global breadth outside the United States.

Something we're pondering in the short-term, however, is whether we see some rotation back into the United States as many U.S. growth names closed the week bouncing off support while many international ETFs hit their highs.

Take Colombia $GXG, for instance, which is finding resistance at its 2024 highs.

Meanwhile, the Nasdaq 100 $QQQ defended a key level of support.

And while this took place, the relative trend favored the United States over international in a strong way to close last week. Take a look at how much international stocks $VEU underperformed on Friday.

While these are shorter-term trends, the big picture is impossible to ignore.

More international markets are beginning to outperform...

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It really looks like game over for crypto. Hear me out. 

Last week, I wrote a post about how I’m turning bearish. I’m out and even a little short. It’s been going well.

Then last night, Trump tweets about the crypto reserve and sets the whole space on fire.

Cardano is rallying 60%, and I’m sitting in my office preparing a list of things I need to see to turn bullish again. 

But by the time traditional markets opened today, it was clear this move was a head-fake. It was more of the same. 

Despite the bullish headlines, all the Sunday fireworks would be erased.

We’ve already discussed the sentiment of the asset class and how cryptos have reacted to news lately. It’s a big part of my bearish thesis. But, this is a new low.

Think about it. 

Crypto was public enemy number one just last year.

Now, we don’t just have a friendly and favorable regulatory environment...

Last Friday, Steve asked me to send over the most bearish charts from my chartbook as a good exercise in playing devil’s advocate internally with the team.

Off the top of my head, I pointed to these.

After today’s market action, this one stands out even more.

Credit spreads are one of the most reliable indicators of risk appetite. If there’s stress in the market, it’ll show up in credit first.

When investors feel good, they buy high-yield debt. When risk appetite fades, they run to safety, favoring treasuries.

Historically, HYG/IEI has led major market moves, bottoming and topping ahead of stocks in past cycles.

Right now, it’s flirting with a failed breakout, struggling to hold above a key level of former highs. 

If...

This precious metals bull market will turn 1 year old on Tuesday.

Can you believe it? 

Gold futures resolved a multi-decade basing pattern on March 4th, 2024.

We've had a blast riding the shiny yellow metal higher and made a ton of money along the way.

The cycle has had its ups and downs, no doubt about it.

But when we zoom out and analyze the long-term trends, it's clear what environment we're in. A raging bull market!

Buyers are being rewarded, and sellers are being penalized. This is what happens in uptrends.

Let's take a moment to step back and assess our progress over the last year.

Today's trade is in a stock that recently announced earnings. The reaction was muted, which I think is a good thing. It left the chart sitting right where I'd like it to be, holding the recent lows of a 4-week pullback. 

The beauty is that this gives me a nearby risk management level, so I'll have an opportunity to keep losses to a minimum if the rebound doesn't materialize.

I came down with a pretty bad cold this weekend. Most of my Sunday was spent quarantined in my office so I wouldn't get my kids sick (4yr old and twin 2yr olds).

Of course, rather than laying in bed resting, I was in my office looking through charts.

I couldn't help myself.

It's my way of relaxing. And as it turns out, I do feel a lot better today than I did when I woke up yesterday.

But one thing I was able to do was go one by one counting stocks, sectors and indexes all over the world to see if these ugly rumors about weakening market breadth were true.

As it turns out, they're just lies. 

Market breadth continues to expand as more and more countries around the world are hitting new highs, not fewer.

We already discussed how Earth is Hitting New All-time highs. 

But if you go one by...

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

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

Let’s dig in!

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...

Today's standout moves come from key executives making significant purchases in their own companies.

📌 Taboola $TBLA: Founder and CEO Adam Singolda invested $657,545, a strong statement from someone who built the company from the ground up. 

As the leader behind Taboola’s aggressive expansion in the digital advertising space, Singolda’s purchase suggests he sees upside ahead.

Here’s The Hot Corner, with data from February 28, 2025:

Click the table to enlarge it.

📌 CRISPR Therapeutics $CRSP: Director John Greene bought 7,000 shares. 

Greene is the former CFO of Bioverativ and played a key role in its $11.6 billion acquisition by Sanofi. His experience in high-stakes biotech M&A makes his buy worth noting.

📌 International Business Machines $IBM: Director David Farr, who previously served as the longtime CEO of Emerson...

Dell Technologies $DELL just reported mixed results, and the market beat it down as a result.

The stock has been an AI darling this cycle, rising over 400%. However, the sentiment is changing.

The market is now consistently punishing the stock when it reports earnings. This isn't something you see in uptrends.

What's going on with DELL?

The company is facing an increased amount of competition, which is causing a compression in margins. The market isn't happy about it...

In addition, it had to revise its previously issued financial results due to unrecorded supplier credits. That's no bueno.

The bottom line is Dell is trending in the wrong direction, and we think it has more trouble ahead.

We have a lot to unpack today, so let's talk about what else happened 👇

*click the image to enlarge it

As you can see, AES Corp $AES had the best reaction score on Friday, and NetApp $NTAP had the worst.  

The stock with the largest market capitalization was Dell Technologies $DELL, and the smallest was Mosaic $MOS.

Autodesk $ADSK...

Today's number is... 2

We are now two months into 2025, and we are closely following the same path of the average post election cycle. What's next?

Here’s the chart:

Let's break down what the chart shows:

• The blue line represents the average return in post election years since 1950 for the S&P 500.
• The red line represents the S&P 500 in 2025.

The Takeaway: In the first two months of the year, the S&P 500 has followed its typical pattern for the post-election cycle.

Up in January.

Down in February.

If stocks continue to follow this seasonal trend, we may have seen the bottom for the market. I wouldn’t be surprised to see stocks rip higher into the end of the year, given that the average post election cycle is now transitioning into a tailwind for stocks.

However, if we start to see weakness during what is typically a strong seasonal period for stocks, that would pique my interest much more. For now, stocks are simply following their usual seasonal tendencies. 

What are your...

It's Game Time. By Tuesday morning's opening bell earnings from Target, Best Buy and ON will have set the stage for the coming flood of retail earnings... if you know what to look for. How to get ahead of the wave. 

It's time to get serious about retail earnings. Walmart has doubled the performance of the Magnificent 7 over the last 12 months. Right here in this very space I suggested buying the dip when the stock sold-off on weak guidance. And Investors who did chalked up gains of about 3%.

I love the consumer, Walmart the stock and making money but not even I can get super fired up over grinding out 3% trades on the largest employer on earth that isn't the Chinese Army. The entire planet follows Walmart and Amazon. If you don't own the stocks you should. And, once you buy it's best to forget about them entirely. 

If you want to make money trading consumer stocks you need to get into the grit and draw conclusions where the rest of the world doesn't. It requires knowing not just the financials but the stories behind some of the three-legged dogs, fallen angels and more obscure companies just popping up on Wall Street radars. ...

Bonds are telling the story of this market, and if you’re not listening you’re already behind! 

Growth, inflation, liquidity – it’s all written in the bond market’s moves, making bonds the most critical tool for any trader. 

Period. 

The 2 year US Treasury yield exploded higher the moment the Fed started cutting rates – a massive tell that expectations shifted on a dime, as the chart clearly shows. 

Now that same yield has flipped direction and is plunging lower. You know what that means: liquidity could start flooding the system once again.

When liquidity increases, money doesn’t sit still – it moves fast. 

We’re watching capital rip through the market, rotating in to international stocks like it’s got something to prove. 

The Fed might think they’re steering the ship with their rate tweaks, but the bond market says otherwise. 

It’s the bond market that leads the way – always has, always will.

So here’s the million dollar question: will we...

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.

The bull market rages on, despite any ugly rumors you might here that it's over.

They love pretending that the bull market is done, because scaring you is good for business.

Telling you the world has never been a better place is just not good for the noisemaking community. 

It's good for investors though! That's us...

Anyway, historic back-to-back years for the stock market now continues to expand broadly all over the world.

Here is the "Earth Index" closing the month once again at a new all-time high.

Notice how the United States barely represents half of this Index.

In some of the other Global Indexes, the U.S. carries a much higher weighting, over 80% in some cases.

50% of the Index is about right in my opinion. 

You've got a lot of UK and Europe in this one, so it should be no surprise that the London FTSE 100 and the broader London FTSE 350 both closed the month at new all-time highs again yesterday.

Here is the broadest measure of European Equities, which include all the small-caps, mid-caps and large-caps, also hitting new all-time highs:

But keep in mind that the strength we're...