My gut’s been talking lately—and it’s telling me that the odds of a market pullback are on the rise.

After a string of strong sessions, it’s only natural that the market might need to catch its breath. But it’s not just that. If we do head back toward the recent lows, I don’t expect it to be quiet. There will be noise. A lot of noise.

Some voices will shout that we’re “retesting the lows”—a technical inevitability, they’ll argue. Others will pound the table that this whole bounce was nothing more than a dead cat bounce, and that the real drop is just beginning.

I’ve got my own hunch about how this might play out—something I discussed on this morning’s Options Jam Session (watch below). But regardless of how far we pull back, I’m increasingly focused on one specific area of the market: housing stocks.

If things get slippery from here, I think the housing sector is particularly vulnerable. That vulnerability could come from multiple angles: rising rates, shifting consumer sentiment, or simply relative underperformance catching up with absolute price.

...

My gut tells me the odds of a pullback in the markets are increasing. And the next pullback in the direction back to recent lows will likely come with a lot of noise. There will be lots of shouts about "retesting lows," from some camps, and other shouts of "this was just a dead cat bounce, we're going much lower!" from other camps.

I have a hunch of how that plays out, which I discussed on this morning's Options Jam Session.

But if the market gets slippery here, and especially if the shouting class gets it right, I think housing sector stocks are vulnerable.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Welcome to The 2 to 100 Club.

In this scan, we look to identify the strongest growth 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, Salesforce, and myriad others – 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'll notice we're only focused on Technology and Growth industry groups such as Software, Semiconductors, Online...

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

1. No new positions today.
2. Adjustment to XLC position.
3. Closed IBB at Profit Target.
4. Current status of open campaigns.
5. Volatility Snapshot.

Let’s dig in!

In trading, we’re taught early on that risk management is everything. “Use stop losses!” they say. And I agree. But what I’ve come to learn—especially when trading options in volatile markets—is that stops aren’t always about a precise line in the sand. Sometimes, they’re more like zones. Areas. Regions on the chart where you start paying close attention, rather than pulling the trigger at the first sign of trouble.

This came into sharp focus recently as volatility spiked. When the market threw its “tariff tantrum” and everything went haywire, we saw stocks and indices swinging wildly in both directions. On any given day, the same stock could be up 5% in the morning and down 5% by the afternoon. It was chaos. And chaos doesn’t play nicely with rigid stop-loss levels.

I had several long positions on during that time—mostly defined-risk spreads with expirations a few months out. The kind of trades that allow for a bit more breathing room. Yet many of these positions would repeatedly dip below my stop levels… only to recover just hours later. Over and over. A less experienced version of me might have panicked and bailed the moment my mental stop was breached. But I’ve...

The Taiwan New Dollar just posted its sharpest two-day rally against the US dollar—ever.

This wasn’t just any rally. It was a vertical move—TWD/USD spiked over 10% in two sessions, tagging a near three-year high in the process.

It caught the entire FX complex leaning the wrong way. It was statistically off the charts. 

This wasn’t a six-sigma move. Or even ten. We're talking fifteen sigma. That’s what quants call an “impossible” outcome. A market move so extreme that it breaks the model. 

A 10% move might not turn heads in a tape where spec. growth stocks like HIMS or PLTR can move that and more intraday—but for a currency pair? It’s seismic. Especially when the pair has been dozing in a multi-year falling wedge. 

That pattern? It just resolved higher. The breakout came right at the apex of the wedge—when no one was paying attention.

With this kind of volatility comes a forced unwind. Exporters, insurers, speculators—everyone caught leaning the wrong way gets squeezed out the door. Fast.

So what’s behind it—but more...

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

1. New position in TLT.
2. No adjustments are needed today.
3. Closed XLV at Profit Target.
4. Current status of open campaigns.
5. Volatility Snapshot.

Let’s dig in!

The greatest investor the world has ever seen announced his retirement this weekend. 

Warren Buffett delivered the news at the Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholders meeting on Saturday that he’ll be stepping down on January 1, 2026.

Naturally, this was the big story of the day. But all I keep hearing is that the stock is down 5% on the news.

You gotta be kidding me. 

JC and I have been joking for years that when this moment comes, you buy the dip. And now that it’s here, we’re doing it.

So, let’s tell the real story of Buffett and Berkshire shares these days.

What all the headlines aren’t telling you is that Buffett literally just went out on top in the most GOAT fashion. Let me explain…

Berkshire closed at fresh all-time highs Friday.

Only a handful of stocks in the S&P 500 could say the same.

The market just suffered a swift and steep drawdown. It's the worst of the entire cycle. A lot of stocks have been absolutely crushed. But not this one. 

Not only that, but BRK also recently made...

We're amidst an epic bull market for precious metals. And while gold and silver get all the headlines, we think Palladium could end up being the sneaky outperformer in this cycle.

We laid out the case in February: Commercial hedgers were loading up at record levels. 

That only happens when Palladium is dirt cheap, which it certainly is right now. The price is still trading more than 70% below the 2022 peak.

Price has done nothing for months. 

But that might be exactly what we want.

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.

Nowadays, 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 new...

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

1. No new positions today.
2. Adjustment to XLI position.
3. Closed XLE at Profit Target.
4. Current status of open campaigns.
5. Volatility Snapshot.

Let’s dig in!

Today's trade is a similar trade to the one I did in Kingsoft Computing last week. It's a bet on a previous highfligher, who had it's legs kicked out from under it during the recent market turmoil, that appears to be setting up to resume its former prominence.