From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Consider this a special follow-up edition to our most recent 2-to-100 column, published earlier this week.

We update our 2-to-100 club universe every quarter as stocks will come on and off of the list as their market cap fluctuates above and below our criteria of about 2 to 30B.

There are also newly public stocks that need to be added and changes based on our technical criteria, among other things.

A lot of stocks grew above the $30B mark this year and unfortunately left the 2-to-100 club. On the other hand, there weren't too many that left due to falling below $2B.

This makes sense as all the stocks in the club are from tech/growth industries, many of which performed incredibly well in 2020.

There was also a good deal of new additions from IPOs which is also no surprise as most of the new issuances these days are tech companies.

The last thing I noticed - which is what this post...

The Telecom Giants have seen a good move this week. Let's take a look at these stocks to see if there are any interesting trade ideas here.

As we get into 2021, the same question keeps coming, "JC, when are we going to see a correction in the market?"

While it is true that some stocks have gone up, and others have gone up a lot in recent months, the biggest stocks of them all have not.

Google, Apple, Microsoft and Amazon are the 4 biggest companies in the world. Throw in fellow behemoths Facebook and Alibaba, and now we're pushing $8 Trillion in market cap. That's big time money.

And you know what those stocks have done since September 2nd?

Nothing.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Welcome to the 2 to 100 Club.

Something we’ve been working on internally this year is using various bottoms-up tools and scans to complement our top-down approach. One way we’re doing this is by identifying stocks as they climb the market-cap ladder from small, to mid, to large, and ultimately to mega-cap status (over $200B).

Once they graduate from small-cap to mid-cap status (over $2B) they come on our radar. Likewise, when they surpass the roughly $30B mark, they roll off our list.

But the scan doesn’t just end there. We only want to look at the strongest growth industries in the market as that is typically where these potential 50-baggers come from.

Some of the best performers in recent decades – stocks like Priceline, Amazon, Netflix, and Salesforce, to a myriad of others… all would have been on this list at some point during their journey to becoming the market behemoths they are today.

When you look at the stocks in our table you will notice we are only...

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza.

Welcome back to our “latest Under The Hood” column for the week ending January 8, 2021. As a reminder, this column will be published bi-weekly moving forward, and rotated on-and-off with our new Minor Leaguers column.

In this column, we 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. There are so many new data sources available that all we need to do is organize and curate them in a way that shows us exactly what we want: A list of stocks that are seeing an unusual increase in investor interest.

Whether we’re measuring increasing interest based on large institutional purchases, unusual options activity, or simply our proprietary lists of trending tickers… there is a lot of overlap.

The bottom line is there are a million ways to skin this cat. Relying on our entire arsenal of data...

We're back this month with another edition of the Josh & JC show.

This is where I sit down with my boy Josh Brown and talk about the most important Monthly Charts I see around the world.

I love doing this monthly show. Josh and I have been good friends for the better part of the past 2 decades. He knows me really well by now, and I think I've got a pretty good handle on him too, although he certainly finds ways to surprise me quite often.

On this month's show, we take a look at Financials potentially breaking out. One of the leaders is Goldman Sachs, as $GS is now back above its 2007 highs. Meanwhile, Consumer Discretionary is breaking out to new all-time highs relative to Consumer Staples, which is consistent with higher stock prices. But that doesn't mean that Staples can't do well on an absolute basis. And finally, Commodities are breaking out. Crude Oil is back above its 2016 lows. And with all of this bullish talk, what's it going to take to position ourselves more defensively? I lay out the 4 most important signals that we're watching.

Here's the video in full:

This is our ASC Research Q1 2021 Playbook.

The first section dives deep into the US Stock Market and Market breadth, then we discuss the International Markets and specific Factors around the world. Next we go into U.S. Sectors and the best looking Industry Groups. In the second half of the report, we dive into the FICC space (Fixed Income, Commodities & Currencies) and their Intermarket Relationships. Finally we finish up with Cryptos, Options and overall Market Sentiment.

You can skip right to the trade ideas here if you'd like, or give the full report a read!

From the desk of Louis Sykes @haumicharts

At the beginning of each week, we publish performance tables for a variety of different asset classes and categories along with commentary on each.

Looking at the past helps put the future into context. In this post, we review the absolute and relative trends at play and preview some of the things we’re watching in order to profit in the weeks and months ahead.

The weight of the evidence continues to overwhelmingly lie in favor of the bulls.

The major indices are above important levels and are well on their way to achieving our targets. We're seeing sector rotation into offensive, cyclical areas of the market, and away from defensive, which is all confirming these new highs.

Commodities are showing incredible strength in the face of extreme positioning, reflecting the control buyers have in these markets.

And interest rates have claimed an important level, supporting the rotation into risk assets.

Let’s jump right into this week’s report with our US index table.

...

I'm not sure if you noticed, but the MSCI Emerging Markets Index Fund just went out at the highest weekly close in its history.

For you youngsters, this is a big deal.

You see, when I first got in this business, it was the Summer of 2003. Young JC was living in New York City for the first time, downtown in TriBeCa, ready to take on the world.

I was just an intern (envelope stuffer) at the time, at a firm called Merrill Lynch, which later went on to disappear with the likes of Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns. At that time though, in 2003, this gig was a big deal.

Anyway, for the next 4 years, Emerging Markets AVERAGED A 100% RETURN PER YEAR.

Yes you read that right. My career got started with Emerging Markets being the best place to be on earth. That stuck with me.

If you ask veteran traders and investors, they'll tell you that what was happening when you first got into the business will impact how you think for the rest of your career.

It's true.

Fortunately, I haven't been an...

If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.”

There's a lot of noise out there.

It's poison.

The glorified gossip columns and cartoon networks keep proving to be the equivalent of sugar and trans fat packed fast food.

Don't be mentally obese.

Stick to price.

It's better for the portfolio.

It's better for the soul.

I'm not sure if you've noticed, but owning stocks and spending our time looking for stocks to...

This week on the podcast, I'm thrilled to have Jeff Weiss, CMT join me for a really fun chat. If you know Jeff, you already know that he's quite the character. The stories he has from his early days in the 1960s and 70s are awesome. Have you ever heard of a squawk box? How about quote machines that you had to stand in line to use, and would still only get one stock quote at a time?

In this conversation Jeff shares old stories about how he got his first job, cold-calling CEOs of different firms until one of them finally gave him a shot. Even if you're not into Technical Analysis, and you're just a fan of the market, or business in general, this episode is for you.

Make sure to check out Jeff's book: Relationship Investing, named "Best Investment Book of the Year" by the 2018 Stock Trader’s Almanac.

This was a ton of fun. Big shout out to Jeff Weiss for joining me on the show.

Enjoy!

When stocks are in strong uptrends, they don't just do well on an absolute basis, but they also tend to outperform their alternatives. We talk about that a lot around here.

Today's chart has to show the Gold Fund breaking down to new all-time lows relative to the Nasdaq, as well as U.S. Treasury Bonds making new all-time relative lows as Interest Rates keep spiking.

Here is that chart showing the Nasdaq breaking out to new highs relative its alternatives: