Cryptocurrencies and crypto stocks are reacting negatively to some of the most positive news they’ve had in years.

It all just speaks to the recent mood shift for Bitcoin and friends. Since the election rally, it hasn’t gone well.

And just think of the news cycle. The first crypto president. A strategic BTC reserve. A non-predatory SEC. Crypto fund approvals. 

The headlines couldn’t be more bullish.

Yet, the average altcoin has suffered a 60% drawdown, and there are literally no cryptos holding up outside of Bitcoin.

I think the next leg for Bitcoin will be lower, as it gets in line with the rest of its asset class. 

In this post, I’ll explain why and what I’m doing about it.

When I think of Bitcoin, I also think of Solana, Ethereum, Coinbase, and Microstrategy… the whole group should work together. It always has. When...

This morning, I started thinking about what still makes this a crypto bull market.

And the answer really comes down to what you’re weighing on the scale.

On one hand, the average drawdown in altcoins sits around 60% from their highs.

Charts like Ethereum and Solana look vulnerable.

Crypto stocks like Coinbase and MicroStrategy are struggling.

Meanwhile, Bitcoin is the last one standing

That’s the bulls’ only argument at this point.

Although BTC remains above a key area of underlying demand, price action has been messy—it looks like one big consolidation.

This can either be a massive distribution and a major top or just a consolidation within an ongoing uptrend.

For me, it all comes down to the VWAP from the US Election and the lower bounds of this range....

We've been discussing the odds favoring shiny rocks outperforming stocks for the foreseeable future. 

It's what happens in every precious metals bull market.

Another classic in these cycles is for the mining stocks to outperform gold. We think this is about to happen. 

In addition, we expect the entire precious metals complex to move explosively. We haven't seen this yet, but we're anticipating it.

The setup in palladium futures looks as juicy as anything in the market.

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 consumer mood darkens ahead of Retail Earnings. Time to make a shopping list.

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

1. No new positions today.
2. Rolled XME position to April options.
3. Closed SMH at profit target.
4. Current status of open campaigns.
5. Volatility Snapshot.

Let’s dig in!

The most significant insider activity on today’s list comes from Perceptive Advisors LLC, which just filed a Form 4 revealing a $20 million buy in Solid Biosciences $SLDB.

Here’s The Hot Corner, with data from February 21, 2025:

Click the table to enlarge it.

Bristol-Myers Squibb $BMY CEO Chris Boerner stepped up to purchase $110,000 worth of stock.

It’s always important to watch CEO buys, as a chief executive knows their company better than anyone.

And, finally, over in Washington, Rep. Rick Allen of Georgia reported a $15.000 to $50,000 purchase of AutoZone $AZO.

Senator Ashley Moody of Florida made even bigger moves, disclosing purchases of:

• $50,000 to $100,000 in Micron Technology $MU;

• $100,000 to $250,000 in Applied Materials $AMAT; and 

• ...

Today's number is... 1

Last week, the bears demonstrated that they are still active, with one-month lows for the S&P 500, 400, and 600 started to expand.

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 line in the second panel shows the percentage of S&P 500 stocks making one-month lows.
• The red line in the third panel shows the percentage of S&P 400 stocks making one-month lows.
• The gray line in the bottom panel shows the percentage of S&P 600 stocks making one-month lows.

The Takeaway: On Friday, all major indices fell by over 1.5%. This was a show of force from the bears. With this widespread weakness, we observed one-month new lows rising across all market capitalizations.

While the overall evidence still suggests a bullish trend, Friday marked a possible turning point...

More country ETFs are beginning to climb up the ETF Power Rankings. Beginning 2025, global stocks have actually outperformed the United States.

While this has been a secular downtrend in global relative to the United States, we are entering into a unique market environment of higher interest rates and widening market breadth among differing sectors. While these trends take a long time to reverse, we could be seeing the early stages of a structural reversal in this dynamic.

Just take a look at the ratio of global stocks breaking higher relative to the United States over the last few months.

Do you think this is the beginning of something more serious or will the US begin outperforming once again?

Reach out if you have any thoughts, we'd love to hear them!

Look, I get it—this topic comes up again and again, and it can be a bit of a head scratcher.

I keep saying it: inflation is sticky, and the dollar is rolling over.

Yet people ask, "How does that work with a 75% rolling correlation between the dollar and yields recently?"

And that’s a valid question.

Check out this chart—it’s a visual reminder that correlations aren’t set in stone. There are times when the numbers move in harmony and other moments when the link just falls apart.
 

Markets evolve, and so do these relationships.

Here’s the honest truth: correlations are fickle by nature. They can look tight one minute and then unravel the next.

Relying on a strong historical link is like betting on a coin toss coming up heads every time—it’s risky and can easily lead you astray.

Here's our latest Freshly Squeezed table: 

As you can see, Gorilla Technology $GRRR, Super Micro Computer $SMCI, and Innodata $INOD are at the top of the scan. They've been ripping!

Now, let's talk about today's setup.

The Financial sector has been home to some of the best uptrends in recent years. 📈

Names like Interactive Brokers (a fan favorite around here) have rallied over 500% since the 2020 trough.

It has been a historic bull run. 

One of the stocks that haven't participated in this cycle is the $2.6B company from Chicago, GCM Grosvenor $GCMG.

It was established in 1971 but went public for the first time via SPAC in late 2020.

The company manages nearly $80B in assets across various alternative investment strategies, including private equity, credit, real estate, and more.

In bull markets, this company prints money. 

As you can see, GCM Grosvenor has resolved a textbook bearish-to-bullish reversal pattern versus the broader market. 

This means the stock should outperform its peers for...

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’re halfway through Q1, and February is historically a weak month for stocks.

But here’s the key—seasonal weakness doesn’t usually kick in until the second half of the month. And that’s exactly where we are now.

In other words, if stocks struggle these next few weeks, it wouldn’t be a surprise based on historical standards. 

Maybe the market hit a rough patch, or maybe it shrugs off this seasonal trend altogether.

Either way, here’s my focus.

I’ll be watching for the groups that hold up best—the ones that stay strong even as the market chops around.

Because when the broader market wobbles, but certain areas show resilience, that’s the real relative strength signal. And that is where some of the best trading opportunities arise.

I’m ready for it.

Alfonso

Stocks are under pressure in the US. Today marks the worst performance of the year for the S&P 500.

But, here’s the thing. It shouldn’t come as a surprise. US stocks haven’t been the leaders for a while.

The US major averages have been stuck sideways for about three months while equities around the world have been moving higher.

Outside of India and Taiwan, you won’t find a worse-performing country than America this year. We’re literally at the bottom of the leaderboard.

It’s almost crazy to think at this point… but after 15 years of US outperformance, could the rest of the world be taking the driver's seat?

First, let’s talk about the technical outlook. There is a growing list of individual countries that have already been outperforming the US. But, that’s not what we’re looking to find out. We want to know if it is finally time for ex-US equities, broadly speaking, to assume a leadership role.

We've been obnoxiously bullish on soft commodities recently. 

And it's for a good reason. 

Coffee just broke out of a nearly 50-year basing pattern. It's hard to bearish when the price is making new all-time highs.

But the group is becoming bifurcated.

Orange juice futures were the early leader in the soft space. The price made a new all-time high in 2022.

Unfortunately (for the bulls), the uptrend in OJ seems to be over, at least for now.

As you can see, orange juice futures resolved a nearly 50-year basing pattern in 2022. This pattern is almost identical to coffee futures. ...

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

1. New position in ARKK.
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!

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Our Hall of Famers list is composed of the 150 largest US-based stocks.

These stocks range from the mega-cap growth behemoths like Apple and Microsoft – with market caps in excess of $2T – to some of the new-age large-cap disruptors such as Moderna, Square, and Snap.

It has all the big names and more.

It doesn’t include ADRs or any stock not domiciled in the US. But don’t worry; we developed a separate universe for that. Click here to check it out.

The Hall of Famers is simple.

We take our list of 150 names and then apply our technical filters so the strongest stocks with the most momentum rise to the top.

Let’s dive right in and check out what these big boys are up to.

Here’s this week’s list:

*Click table to enlarge view

We filter out any laggards that are down -5% or more relative to the S&P 500 over the trailing month.

Then, we...