From the Desk of Steve Strazza and Alfonso Depablos

The largest insider buy on today’s list comes via a handful of filings by Michael K. Hooks, executive chair of Malibu Boats Inc $MBUU.

Hooks reported a purchase of $535,250 on his one stock.

Small-caps have had a really hard time this year.

Almost every Small-cap sector is down since the highs in late December. That was 2 months ago.

The day the US Dollar Index bottomed was the exact day that Small-caps stopped going up in price.

That was also the same day that the US 10yr Yield bottomed.

I don't believe that was a coincidence.

You're welcome to.

What I see is a group of stocks struggling to make any progress. It's hard to underperform the Small-cap indexes, but somehow Financials found a way.

Here are Small-cap Financials, which are loaded up with regional bank stocks, rolling over and making new 4-month lows relative to the Small-cap 600 Index.

Are you paying attention?

This market is not like the one we were in back in November.

Have you adapted to this environment?

Or are you still doing the same things you were doing 3 months ago?

Take a look at High Beta vs Low Volatility going out for the week at the lowest levels since mid-January:

This is the video recording of the February 2024 Mid-month Conference Call.

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

We filter out any laggards that are down -5% or more relative to the S&P 500 over the trailing month.

Then, we sort the...

You know the old saying that Bull Markets are more fun than Bear Markets?

It's true.

And not because you can't make money in a bear market. You can. In fact, you usually make money much faster in bear markets. That's just how the market behaves.

But the truth is that bull markets are definitely more fun.

I can tell you from first hand experience over the years. The parties in bull markets are more fun and they are more frequent, than in bear markets.

Last night was definitely a bull market party. Josh Brown turned 46 and I turned 42.

Strazza even flew up to New York for the festivities.

From the Desk of Steve Strazza and Alfonso Depablos

The largest insider buy on today’s list comes via a handful of filings by Maplebear Inc $CART director Ravi Gupta. 

Gupta reported a total purchase of $57 million in CART.

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Welcome to The Junior International Hall of Famers.

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-listed international stocks, or ADRs.

This scan is composed of the next 100 largest stocks by market cap, those that come after the top 100 and are thus covered by the International Hall of Famers universe.

Many of these names will someday graduate and join our original International Hall Of Famers list. The idea here is to catch these big trends as early on as possible.

Let's dive right in and check out what these future big boys are up to.

This is our Junior International Hall of Famers list:

Click table to enlarge view

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.

We...

From the Desk of Steve Strazza and Alfonso Depablos

The largest insider buy on today’s list comes via a handful of filings by the CEO and chairman of OPKO Health $OPK, Phillip Frost.

Frost reported a total purchase of 1,000,000 OPK shares, equivalent to $991,700.

The volatility in stocks continues as 2024 progresses.

Have you noticed how different this market is vs the one we were in throughout November and December?

The swings are getting wider, and they're coming in both directions.

Just yesterday, the Nasdaq hit new lows not seen since January.

Meanwhile, there isn't a single small-cap sector that is above its December highs.

There's still a lot of work that stocks need to do to dig them out of this hole.

This is the video recording of the February 21, 2024, Hot Corner Insider Weekly Strategy Session.