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Contrary to popular belief, we're not just Americans. We're earthlings.

I think that gets forgotten, especially after the United States stock market outperformed practically everything else for so long.

You have a combination of home country bias and you have the recency bias layered on top of that.

So when U.S. Technology is an underperformer, as it has been since last summer, many investors with too much exposure in those areas are blinded by their losing, to see all the winning that's going on around them.

China, for example, just closed the week out at new 4-month highs. The CSI 300 is basically the S&P500 of China, and just closed at the highest levels since early November.

Meanwhile, you're seeing the German DAX this morning working on the highest weekly close in the country's history.

Whether it does or doesn't, the relative strength in Germany has been off the charts, despite any selling pressure you've seen in the U.S.

Keep in mind that outside of the American Indexes (S&P500, Dow & Nasdaq), I would put Germany right at the top of the most important markets list.

This is a very big deal, especially when...

The selling in US Growth stocks continues. 

But why have European stocks and China done so well? 

They don't have any US Growth stocks in their indexes.

While the selling pressure in these stocks has accelerated recently, the underperformance has been there since last summer. We've been pointing out that High Beta never broke out relative to Low Volatility stocks while the major indexes were making new highs.

And now they're making new lows. Look at the underperformance from Tech along with the underperformance in High Beta:

And I'll be the first to tell you that it affects me too. Remember, that on a personal level, my wife and I have retirement accounts and we have 3 kids with college funds. I'm not immune to the selling in US Growth stocks.

I'm right in there with you guys, regardless of what I do for my day job.

Now, this is a great example of why we don't want to limit ourselves to a long only strategy in U.S. stocks.

I've already got plenty of that stuff. Too much, if you ask me. So I need to go out of my way to find additional sources of income and returns. 

This is strictly on a personal level,...

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...

While U.S. equity investors are panicking, the Gold Bugs are riding powerful uptrends. It's a fantastic time to own shiny rocks.

Yesterday, we discussed the short interest in Silver hitting a record high. We think it's time for Gold's crazy cousin to shine.

In addition to that, we covered a variety of subjects in today's video, including: 

• The largest 4-week inflow into Gold on record
• Wild swings in the currency markets
• International stock markets
• Shiny rocks > stocks
• Seasonal sweet spot for Gold & Silver miners
• And what we're buying

I've got some good news, some not so good news, and some outright bad news.

Let's dive in.

First of all, these are all concepts that were discussed at length on our LIVE Monthly Charts Strategy Session last week, so check out the full video here.

As an update, here's the most bullish thing happening in stocks right now. Both Germany and Hong Kong closed the week at new highs. These are new 3-year highs for the Hang Seng and new all-time highs for the DAX:

If there was some sort of Global Crisis or Credit Event of any kind, my bet is NOT that these two major indexes would be breaking out to new highs.

These are not safe havens where investors can hide out and wait for the storm to pass. It's quite the opposite actually.

So strength out of these areas above points to bullish and healthy...

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...

We hope everyone enjoyed this precious metals bull market's first-anniversary last week. 

We certainly did! Cheers to many more years to come. 🥂

Now, what's next?

It's time for Gold's crazy cousin to shine, and here's why.

We're only in the market to make money. Let's not forget that.

We're not journalists who have to tell stories about things that may or may not be happening.

We're not Economists trying to identify the next recession.

We don't care about your stories, and we care even less about your economy. As far as I'm concerned, recessions are a choice for a lot of people.

I try to make sure that I fall in that category.

One way we do that is to weigh all the evidence and decide if this is a bull market or a bear market.

And the reason why this is important is for one simple reason: To decide how we want to be spending our time.

Today is Monday. What should I be doing today? That's the question I want to answer.

In other words, should I be spending my time looking for stocks to buy, or should I be spending my time looking for stocks to sell?

That's really what this is all about. You can see exactly...

There's never a dull moment in the market. It's always something.

The mixed messages are a feature, not a bug.

That's just how it's always been. So it's our job to weigh all the evidence and make the best decisions we can make, knowing full well that we have incomplete information.

Today I want to talk about 2 theories that may or may not be playing out, but it's something I'm thinking about. 

First, is this thing about investor sentiment. How is it possible that individual investors in America are the most bearish they've been since the bottom of the last bear market back in 2022?

I think it's because of what they own.

They're not in China, which is making new 3-year highs. 

They're not in...

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.

Wow what a week to be an investor in stocks.

The broadening of participation all over the world continues. 

Meanwhile, the pessimism is stronger than ever.

I'm noticing the most angry of people are the ones who want stocks to fall because they don't like the Trump and all his buddies. 

But their anger is not the market's concern. If anything, it's just more fuel to drive stocks much higher, which would enrage them even more. 

It's pretty hilarious to watch actually.

Laughing is good for you. But laughing at people who haven't bothered to count and actually see how well stocks are doing, is all the more amusing.

You know, you can dislike Trump, and still recognize how strong this bull market continues to be, and how much stronger it's getting week over week.

Here is one of the most important stock market indexes in the world. I would argue that after the S&P500, Dow and Nasdaq, this one is right there behind it, and arguably right along there with it in the same category of importance.

EFA represents developed markets outside of North America. So think a ton of European stocks, United Kingdom, Japan and...

Today I'm going to share a little trick that I like to use to help put the current market volatility into perspective.

The math is like this. I take the value of the VIX and divide by 16. And that's what the market is pricing in for a normal daily move.

For example, if the VIX is at 24, then I would expect a 1.5% move in the S&P500 each day.

So if the VIX is at 16, then I would expect a 1% move.

If the VIX is at 32, then I would expect a 2% move.

Simple.

Now, many people wonder why it's 16, and that's where we get way above my paygrade. If you don't understand how the math around options works, don't worry. No one else does either.

I'm not even joking. Options math is next level impossible. Just ask any of the best options traders. They'll be the first to tell you.

The 16 number I believe has something to do with the square root of the number of trading days in a year, but I'm confident there's more to it than that.

Also, for you statistics majors, I believe there is technically like a 67% probability of these results, or something along those lines.

So keep in mind that The Rule of 16 is just a back of...