With $VIX showing signs that perhaps yesterday was a blow off top, I'm going to gingerly wade into the premium selling pond with a defined-risk Iron Condor trade on a semiconductor stock that may be entering a wide range of sideways chop.

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

1. No new positions today.
2. Adjustment to XLB position.
3. No exits since the last report.
4. Current status of open campaigns.
5. Volatility Snapshot.

Let’s dig in!

It's been a great week down in Miami visiting family.

We had our first child in the middle of covid, and then had twins 2 years ago. So traveling hasn't exactly been at the top of the priority list, like it used to be for us before kids.

In fact, this is actually the first time I've come back home to Miami with my entire family, including all 3 kids. 

It's been awesome.

Sunday night I got to sneak out after the kids went to bed and met Steve Strazza for sushi at a new spot on Brickell.

I've also hung out with old high school buddies and cousins. I don't get to do these things as much as I used to back in the day.

This morning I wanted to pass along two charts that I think all investors need to keep front and center right now. 

These charts, in my opinion, literally define this bull market, and whether or not it's over, like we all keep being told it is.

We call this behavior: "Polarity".

It's when former resistance turns into support. In other words, where there were more sellers than buyers (at the prior cycle's peak), there are now (so far) more buyers that sellers.

You're seeing this polarity play out in...

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...

The publicly traded markets around the world are experiencing some of their most volatile periods ever.

Since its February peak, the S&P 500 has declined by over 20%. 

Meanwhile, Gold has shown a tremendous amount of relative strength. It's only down 6% from its all-time high...

This isn't anything new, though. We've been discussing this outperformance for years, and we don't think it will change anytime soon.

Why? Because tariffs create immediate uncertainty. They slow growth, tighten financial conditions, and drive a flight to safety — all of which are bond bullish in the short term. We’ve seen this playbook before: geopolitical tension or trade stress leads to a bid for duration.

The chart’s not there yet — but it’s starting to shape up. Bonds still have work to do before we can talk new 52-week highs. For $TLT, that means clearing this massive base and getting above 100.40 with some momentum behind it. That’s the line in the sand. Get through that, and the squeeze could start to build.

But here’s the catch — the long-term impact is different.

Tariffs raise input costs. They squeeze supply chains. And they don’t reduce demand — they just make things more expensive. Over time, that feeds into inflation. So while bonds may catch a near-term bid on fears of economic slowdown, the structural risk is higher inflation down the road.

It’s the classic setup: short-term deflationary shock, long-term inflationary shift.

So yes — bonds could break out. But if this pressure...

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

1. No new positions today.
2. Rolled XOP position to June options.
3. No exits since the last report.
4. Current status of open campaigns.
5. Volatility Snapshot.

Let’s dig in!

I wanted to go back old school today.

I'm in Miami this week, where I grew up, visiting family and I'm feeling nostalgic. 

So I wanted to share a chart that I've kept with me for a long long time. I even used the same Stockcharts.com chart, that I originally annotated a handful of cycles ago, so you can see just how long I've had this one with me.

We're looking at the percentage of stocks on the NYSE that are above their 200 day moving average.

The idea here is that we are NOT interested in buying the indexes on their way down below 20% of constituents above their 200 day.

The goal during these times is to buy them on the way back up. 

I've been having this debate with some of the world's top portfolio managers and strategists for over the past 2 decades.

Some of these arguments have even gotten pretty heated throughout these cycles. I remember one private back and forth during the late 2018 period where the strategist was pounding the table about the 20% level, while I was much more focused on the 15% mark.

Here's the answer. Or at least, here's my answer:

The best...

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.

What a week for the global asset markets.

On Wednesday, the United States announced new tariffs against dozens of countries. This set off a wave of selling pressure, which appears to have no end in sight.

Silver is down nearly 15% this week...

Copper was down nearly 15% this week...

Lumber was down 13% this week...

The energy complex was down nearly 10% across the board this week...

Even Gold fell 2% this week.

It was quick. It was nasty. And it's not over.

For the bears out there, it's hard to find a better setup than Crude Oil futures.

Crude Oil futures have broken a confluence...