Whenever JC is out, the Morning Show becomes the Strazza Show. 

I invite some of my closest friends on for the guest segment, and we bring the analyst team members on for a free-for-all market discussion. It’s a blast.

Today, we had an extra special guest, David Lundgren.

I’ve learned so much from my conversations with Dave over the years. 

One of the big lessons I credit to him is the importance of outlier trades. We spent a good chunk of time discussing this on my Off The Charts podcast a few months back.

But, I’ve also learned the importance of having big winners first-hand over the years. Figuring this out has been quite the journey, and it has made all the difference for my trading.

I believe in being overly aggressive and making as much money as possible in bull markets. 

Happy Friday everyone

I would like to give a special shoutout to Tesla and congrats to all the bulls.

This week's new all-time highs mark an end to the longest and largest drawdown in company history.

Here’s the chart:

And now we can officially say that all of the Magnificent Seven stocks have made fresh all-time highs this cycle (and this year).

How magnificent. But it gets better. 

Did you know there is a Chinese equivalent for all the top tech companies in the United States? 

They do not import our technologies like most countries. They ban them. Then, they copy and recreate them with new names. 

I love this clip from Silicon Valley, an old HBO show that poked fun at this. It was spot-on about a lot of things.

For purposes of this discussion, I ask you to forget any of your feelings on intellectual property theft and the general geopolitical concerns about Chinese technology. This has nothing to do with any of that.

This post is about making money on an emerging area of the international equities market.

There is a brand new bull market shaping up over in China. This is one of the largest and fastest-growing economies in the world. It is also home to some of the most innovative technology companies outside of America.

Speculative growth has been one of the hottest corners of the market in recent months.

At the group level, it’s a brand new uptrend for this risk-on basket of stocks.

The ARK Investment flagship fund ARKK is my favorite barometer for the spec-tech space, and it just completed a trend reversal with a bang. 

But it isn’t alone. 

A growing list of indexes are completing textbook reversals and embarking on new mark-up phases.

Alfonso pointed out the Retail Index $XRT as a good example of this theme the other day. Retail stocks are resolving from a rounding bottom and hitting their highest level in years.

When we look back and discuss the bull market that began in 2023, what will we say?

I think we will talk about the artificial intelligence revolution and all the technology stocks that benefited most from it.

Maybe we will say this is when Nvidia changed the world and paved the way for so many new innovations and efficiencies.

I think there’s a good chance we’ll be talking about some other companies we haven't even heard of yet.

I don’t know how this story will end, but I do know it will be all about AI.

That should be clear to everyone by now.

And while I may not be the most tech savvy guy, I know the rise of AI has everything to do with advanced computer chips made by Nvidia and others.

As they say, you can’t have a party without the chips.

And the chips have really fueled the current bull market party. SMH rallied more than 3x in about a year and a half, kicking off the new bull market. 

It is still one of the top-performing industry groups this cycle, despite going sideways for the last six months.

With so many stocks joining in on the bull market, it can be hard to keep track of leadership.

But one group that definitely stands out and deserves a mention is Uranium and Nuclear Energy.

These stocks were big leaders during the commodity bull run of 2020-2021, and they have been major leaders again in recent months.

But, it’s less about the recent relative strength, and more about the structural patterns at play.

Here’s the industry leader, Cameco $CCJ breaking out of a monster base:

Have you heard about the new mega trend in golf?

The game of golf is growing faster than any other sport around the globe.

Interest in golf surged during the pandemic and its popularity has continued to gain momentum in the years since. 

There are now over 65 million on-course golfers around the world, up 44% from 2016.

And golf is different from other sports. There is a deep consumer economy growing around it. There is always something new to pay for, from clubs to balls, to the latest apparel. 

It is a money pit of a hobby. Trust me on this one.

It is a consumerism story. It’s a demographics story. It is an emerging Asia story. 

All the good stuff in one.

And my favorite vehicle to play it is a monopoly story.

Here’s Acushnet Holdings $GOLF breaking out to new all-time highs.

I was actually a customer of All Star Charts Premium research before ever meeting or working with JC.

When I was just finding my way into technical analysis, guys like Brian Shannon, Frank Cappelleri, and JC really resonated with me.

Their charts, their analysis, the way they viewed and discussed markets… They were speaking my language. 

I wanted to do what these guys were doing. End of story.

Without them as my early mentors, I never would have had the faith and courage to make the big career change I did.

Over time, JC and I got to know each other over email. We found out we went to the same college and both liked food, sports, and charts… a lot. 

We met at a CMT symposium later that year. 

I started doing some project work for him while I was still consulting for the Big 4. I begged him to hire me for a while. He finally did, and the rest is history.

I joke with him sometimes that I’m the best investment he ever made.

Welcome back to the Growth Chronicles.

Growth is the largest area of the market, and betting on these stocks has become one of the primary strategies for US investors. 

As such, the question of “which growth stocks” always lingers.

And these companies come in all different shapes and sizes.

For example, we all know about the mature, high-quality growth names like Nvidia, Meta, and Netflix…. Think Magnificent 7. The best stocks.

And then there are some real offensive, high-beta growth names. I’m talking about companies that are still pre-revenue, or just turning the corner in terms of profitability. 

I like to boil it down to two broad baskets… 

There is large-cap/quality growth.

And there is speculative growth.

So far, the current bull market has been dominated by the largest growth companies in the world. They have been the clear leaders. It hasn’t been close.

But that is finally changing.

If you’ve been following along, you already know. We want our offense on the field. We’re going long.

For baseball folks, we’re putting the pinch hitter in. We’re looking to go yard.

Welcome to the growth chronicles.

Over the coming weeks, I’ll be doing a series of posts on the most risk-on areas of the market.

The list of industry groups that are in uptrends continues to grow, fueled in large part by the speculative growth theme.

I’m going to cover the ones I’m most interested in and talk about the specific stocks I’m buying.

This week, it’s all about space and exploration.

While the market awaits the much-anticipated SpaceX IPO, I think many investors will be surprised at just how many options we already have to play this theme.

There is even an index for it. Here’s the ARK Space Exploration & Innovation ETF:

I’ve been pounding the table on speculative growth.

And I’ve received a good deal of pushback on it. Some peers, customers, and even members of our analyst team don't love the idea.

But that’s ok. Recency bias is real. These have been the worst stocks in the market this cycle.

But let me bring you back to a time when they were the best…

It was early fall of 2020.

The flagship ARK fund had already tripled off the pandemic lows. It would double again from there.

2020 set a record for new IPO issuances, only to top it with another 1,000 new offerings in 2021.

Retail trading was experiencing a modern-day renaissance driven by young traders and hot stocks. 

Start-ups like Robinhood and eToro were thriving. Everyone was stuck at home, YOLO’ing to pass the time.

It’s been a crazy two days.

The reaction to both the election and the FOMC was overwhelmingly positive for risk assets across the board.

A long list of stock market indexes and individual issues just had their best day since the pandemic lows almost 5 years ago.

NYSE new highs just hit its highest reading in years, telling us the rally is supported by the broadest level of participation this cycle.

The election ended up being the catalyst to break out prolonged ranges in things like regional banks, biotechs, speculative growth, industrial metals, and even bitcoin.

These groups are finally joining the bull market party, and they are kicking it off in a big way.

So, what’s the big takeaway from all this? 

The chart that illustrates it best is the Russell 2000 Micro-Cap Index $IWC: