Many Small-caps have been leaders from the very beginning of this bull market.

Even through the first couple of weeks of 2024, which haven't been great, Small-cap Industrials are still up over 42% since the Summer '22 lows. Small-cap Consumer Discretionary is up over 37%.

Both of these have outperformed even the S&P500 during this period.

So maybe the "Russell2000" has underperformed. But that doesn't mean that "Small-caps" have underperformed.

It's on a case by case basis.

Here is a list of our Minor Leaguers, for example, which include the strongest stocks between $1 Billion - $4 Billion in market cap:

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.

To make the cut for our Minor Leaguers list now, a company must have a market cap between $1 and $4B.

Coming into 2024, we already had a nice list of things that needed to happen to approach the market from a much more defensive perspective.

Let's remember that throughout the 4th quarter we were going out of our way to be more aggressive than even we were accustomed to.

It was a different environment.

And while we did not know what 2024 would bring, we still don't, at least we came in with a good list of developments that would likely be occurring before a more severe correction was underway.

Remember, the new highs list peaked on December 14th. So that means we're over a month into a market correction that you can only see taking place underneath the surface if you bother to look.

Here's how each of the sectors have performed during this correction:

From the Desk of Steve Strazza and Alfonso Depablos

The largest insider buy on today’s list comes in the form of filings by the CEO, the CFO, and the global general counsel of Tilray Brands Inc $TLRY.

Each filed Form 4s revealing combined purchases of TLRY shares in the total amount of $148,454.

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

From the Desk of Steve Strazza and Alfonso Depablos

The largest insider buy on today’s list comes in a Form 4 filing by Dirk Kersten.

Kersten, who is general partner at Forbion Capital Fund, reported a purchase of roughly $26 million in Dyne Therapeutics Inc $DYN.

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

We love our bottoms-up scans here at All Star Charts. We tend to get really creative when making new universes as we want to be sure they will deliver us the best opportunities the market has to offer.

However, when it comes to our latest project, it couldn't be any simpler!

With the goal of finding more bullish setups, we have decided to expand one of our favorite scans and broaden our regular coverage of the largest US stocks.

Welcome to The Junior Hall of Famers.

This scan is composed of the next 150 largest stocks by market cap, those that come after the top 150 and are thus covered by the Hall of Famers universe. Many of these names will someday graduate and join our original Hall Of Famers list. The idea here is to catch these big trends as early on as possible.

There is no need to overcomplicate things. Market cap is a quality filter at the end of the day. It only grows if price is rising. That's good enough for us.

From the Desk of Alfonso Depablos @AlfCharts

In today's post, we’ll discuss the importance of four key indexes and what they can tell us about the future direction of the overall market.

All these groups provide an excellent overview of the current market environment and risk appetite. 

If you want to know where the broader market is headed, these are the charts to watch.

Here they are:

From the Desk of Steve Strazza and Alfonso Depablos

The largest insider buy on today’s list comes in a 13G filing by Baker Bros Advisors LP.

The hedge fund increased its ownership position in Kymera Therapeutics Inc $KYMR from 9.2% to 10.8%.

US Treasury Bonds continue to be one of the best ways to underperform during bull markets.

Yesterday the Nasdaq100 closed at new ALL-TIME highs relative to US Treasuries.

In bull markets, the best stocks not only do well on an absolute basis, but they also outperform their alternatives.

Treasury Bonds are a good alternative to stocks, of course. Just not during raging bull markets:

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

When investing in the stock market, we always want to approach it as "a market of stocks."

Regardless of the environment, there are always stocks showing leadership and trending higher.

We may have to look harder to identify them depending on current market conditions. But there are always stocks that are going up.

The same can be said for weak stocks. Regardless of the environment, there are always stocks that are going down, too. 

We already have multiple scans focusing on stocks making all-time highs, such as Hall of Famers, Minor Leaguers, and the 2 to 100 Club.

We filter these universes for stocks that are exhibiting the best momentum and relative strength characteristics. 

Clearly, we spend a lot of time identifying and writing about leading stocks every week, via multiple reports.

Now, we're also highlighting lagging stocks on a recurring basis.

Welcome to the Short Report.

This is the video recording of the January 10, 2024, Hot Corner Insider Weekly Strategy Session.