From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Welcome to our latest Minor Leaguers report.

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, 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...

Yesterday we talked about how early the Phlx Gold & Silver Index was in this cycle.

This index of 30 precious metal mining companies was the first of the Gold related stock indexes to break out. This was about a month after Gold Futures confirmed a buy signal for us in early October.

But of the "stock" related indexes, we look to the Phlx Gold & Silver Index as a leader. It certainly acts like one.

And do you know how I know it's not a downtrend?

Look at its components. Each column represents a different moving average ranging from the 5-day...

Back in the late 1800s Charles H. Dow wrote down all of his Tenets about the market in the Wall Street Journal.

These articles ultimately became known as Dow Theory.

One of the basic tenets that many are familiar with is the confirmation of the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Dow Jones Transportation Average (which was simply known as the Railroad Average when Charlie was around).

If one of the two indexes is making new highs and the other is rolling over, something is wrong, and the trend is likely changing.

Now, if one of the two indexes is making new lows within an ongoing downtrend, and the other is already putting in higher lows, that bullish divergence is evidence of a change in trend.

In the 4th quarter we saw the Phlx Gold & Silver Index ($XAU) break out above its key level, invalidating any bearish thesis that one could possibly have for Precious Metals.

You see all that resistance in the $XAU in 2013 and 2016, right around $110-113?

Well once we got back above that in November, it was time to start buying Gold & Silver stocks.

But where was the most popular ETF $GDX?

It was still below that overhead supply, as you can see in this chart below.

Until now...

On Tuesday of this week I was in the city for a few meetings, so I dropped by Fox Business to chat with my old pal Liz Claman.

Her and I have been doing this dance together for over a decade.

She's one of the best in the business and we always have a great time.

Liz knows me well by now so there's no gossiping about the Fed with me.

It was all about explaining how we're already entering Month #8 of this ongoing Bull Market for stocks.

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza and Alfonso Depablos @AlfCharts

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...

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

$SPY opened near the middle of yesterday's move at 393.50 and trended higher.

The market held on into the close, a nice way to end Options Friday.

It seems like everyone is making money in the market these days.

US Stock market investors are crushing it.

Investors in foreign stocks are doing even better!

Heck, even the Gold bugs are getting paid.

I mean, who isn't?

The largest insider transaction on today’s list is a Form 4 filing by EcoR1 Capital LLC.

The hedge fund reported a purchase worth roughly $7.8 million in Zymeworks Inc $ZYME.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

It's Friday the 13th.

We had a few banks report earnings this morning, and as of now they're trading lower.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

It was a powerful day in the market. $SPY closed its gap at 396.31 and pushed along.

I said in the live trading room a week back that SPY has potential up to 405, then 410.  

Today's Hot List is a short one.

The only Form 4 on our list was filed by the chief marketing officer of Dave & Buster's Entertainment $PLAY, who revealed a small purchase of $149,684.

This activity comes on the heels of a handful of Form 4 and Form 13 filings for PLAY by Hill Path Capital over the past month.