Ethereum has been a disaster.

Relative to the benchmark in crypto (Bitcoin), Ethereum has trended straight down for the last two and a half years.

If the ETHBTC ratio was a chart of a company's stock versus the S&P 500, shareholders would question the CEO's ability to deliver value.

And I think this trend of Ethereum underperforming continues.

UNLESS, the Ethereum / Solana ratio can get back above these lows.

In today's Flow Show, Steve Strazza and I discuss what feels like the birth of a new leg higher for this ongoing, but recently struggling bull market.

And while I was lamenting the performance of $AAPL lately, Steve showed me the mirror opposite: $AMZN.

Watch this video to see how we arrived at today's trade, and see the details below: 

Here's the Play:

I like buying an $AMZN June 250/300 Bull Call Spread for an approximately $9.65 net debit. This means I'll buy the June 250 calls and sell an equal amount of the 300 calls. And this debit I pay today represents the most I can lose if I'm dead wrong:

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

1. No new positions today.
2. Rolled TLT position to March options.
3. Exited KRE position.
4. Current status of open campaigns.
5. Volatility Snapshot.

Let’s dig in!

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.

As precious metal investors, it's paramount to rotate between the metals themselves and mining companies to maximize our long-term gains.

The miners have historically treated shareholders poorly, but sometimes, it pays handsomely to own them.

Last week, we outlined a key level of interest in one of our favorite intermarket ratios. Based on this chart, we believe now is the time to buy the miners.

But it's not just the miners that've rewarded us for being long. The futures contracts are also trending higher, and we're looking to buy more on strength.

Gold futures resolved another continuation pattern last week:

Donald Trump gets inaugurated today as the next president of the United States.

This comes after a historic republican landslide that betting markets had absolutely correct going into the election.

Anyone who thought it was 4 guys in a room manipulating the markets were actually just hoping that was the case, because they didn't like what the betting markets were saying.

Tough shit.

You ignored the market and it cost you. 

Bitcoin is making new all-time highs this morning as the first Publicly Pro-Crypto President in history is about to take office.

You don't have to like the guy. In fact, you can hate Trump. Or love him. It doesn't matter when it comes to how we're going to profit from it.

And that's what this is all about.

If you let your politics influence your decision making in the market, you're an extremist. And there's no room for extremism in turning a profit.

Separate the two, or it will not end well. That I promise you.

And we've seen it over the last year.

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.

This is a bull market for stocks. If you're not making money in this environment, then you should probably reevaluate your strategies. 

I know for a fact that I've witnessed individuals, who are clearly mentally ill, fight this historic rally pretending that there's some kind of epic credit crisis coming any day now (for over 2 years lol).

Whether it's fake breadth deterioration, or the "yen carry trade", or lies about Gold sending some kind of warning, or the Fed ruining everything, or small-caps underperforming, or Trump and his Magas. 

It's always something. 

These people will make up anything in their heads, no matter how outrageous, in order to justify poor decisions. Their egos are too fragile. 

Good.

It might be a little sad to have to watch them ruin their lives. But it's great for us who recognize their vulnerabilities and have chosen to just profit from it all instead.

You see, when I hear credit crisis, I naturally look at credit spreads to see what's going on.

The answer is: NOTHING.

Still nothing...

Credit spreads are as tight as they've been this entire bull market: