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.

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 new highs in order to...

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

The market is punishing investors for owning gold mining stocks.

Sure, a handful of gold miners are holding above key levels.

Buenaventura S.A.A. $BVN, Orla Mining $ORLA, and Harmony Gold $HMY belong to this elite group of outperformers.

But that’s about it.

I’m not giving these trades too much room. And I’m not piling into new long positions. Not yet! 

Here’s why…

Like the Energizer Bunny, the bull market just keeps going...

Who am I to fight the trend?

Today's trade is a stock that has been consistently traveling the path of least resistance higher and we're betting on that trend continuing.

In today's Daily Digest, we'll review:

1. No new positions today.
2. Rolled ITB position into April for a credit.
3. No exits since the last report.
4. Current status of open campaigns.

Let's dig in!

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.

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

The market is punishing investors for owning gold mining stocks.

Sure, a handful of gold miners are holding above key levels.

Buenaventura S.A.A. $BVN, Orla Mining $ORLA, and Harmony Gold $HMY belong to this elite group of outperformers.

But that’s about it.

I’m not giving these trades too much room. And I’m not piling into new long positions. Not yet! 

Here’s why…

Gold mining stocks continue to print fresh lows versus the broader market.

Check out the VanEck Gold Miners ETF $GDX relative to the S&P 500 ETF $SPY:

Since its inception in 2006, GDX has never traded at this much of a discount to the S&P 500. This is the exact opposite of what we would see if gold and other precious metals were in an uptrend.

The strongest trending assets outperform their alternatives. 

On the other hand, precious metals are exhibiting relative weakness – a clear sign of a severe downtrend.

Investors are more interested in buying NVIDIA Corp. $NVDA and Super Micro Computer $SMCI.

No one wants to own shares of companies that dig in the...

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.

Good morning,

Welcome to your daily crypto clarity

WHAT’S HAPPENING

Bulls are in control of the tape, both in legacy markets and in crypto. It seems the market has brushed off a number of potentially bearish data points in the context of a seasonally weak period, and have continued to stair step higher.

KEY STORIES

Mantle token hits all-time high amid increased interest in Layer 2s - The Block

MicroStrategy’s X Account Hacked, Leads to $440K Crypto Being Stolen - ...

Crypto markets continue to work their way higher, with Ethereum closing last week up +8% following a notable rally in weekend hours. The trend for crypto assets remains unequivocally higher, as we’ve alluded to in the past. As Nvidia beat earnings estimates, the equity market indexes have continued to rally higher, ignoring a number of bearish data points in the context of a seasonally weak period. It appears as if the bulls have full control of this tape.

A lot of people are making a ton of money right now in Crypto Markets.

Bitcoin hit new 52-week highs this week.

Ethereum made a new 52-week high TODAY.

And my CryptoPunk is up over 170% in just 4 months.

To be clear, this internet picture I own is up over $100,000 in just a few months.

This is the weekly post that aggregates all the charts we put together throughout the week and organizes them all into one, easy to flip through deck.

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: