Last week was awesome! 

We just heard from over a hundred S&P 500 components and learned about their recent performance, their management's thoughts, and much more.

There were some sweet earnings reactions. 

And some pretty terrible ones, too...

Here's what we talked about last week:

• Monday:
  • Verisign $VRSN resolved a .com bubble base on the heels of its earnings report.
  • T-Mobile US $TMUS had its worst earnings reaction ever after reporting a double beat.
• Tuesday:
  • Domino's Pizza $DPZ rallied after reporting mixed results. It's carving out a sweet base.
  • Roper Technologies $ROP got crushed again for reporting a double beat. They've been punished for 6 of their last 7 reports.
• ...

One of the things I do on Saturday mornings is catch up on the earnings stories and reactions I might have missed during the week.

And it’s actually a lot easier for me to do these days…

Over the past year, we’ve built an earnings engine complete with various internal scans and custom indicators.

We like to build the tools we need here at All Star Charts. It’s how we got our start many years ago. And it will always be a big part of our culture and success as a publisher.

So I’m proud to say we finally have everything investors need from an earnings standpoint.

And you can get it for free right now as we’ve launched a demo version of what we call the Beat Report. 

We’re tracking all the reports each quarter and identifying the names with the best earnings trends and momentum. We send a note each day detailing all the earnings-based movers and shakers. We break it all down for you and highlight the best stuff we find. 

But the way we do it is a bit non-traditional. No one else is doing this analysis in this way. 

We don’t care so...

Stocks keep going up, but investors are more scared than ever.

According to the American Association of Individual Investors, more than half of individuals are bearish equities over the next 6 months. This has been the case now for 10 consecutive weeks.

This has never happened ever in the history of the survey, which dates back to the 1980s. It didn't happen during the great financial crisis, or the dot-com bubble, or even Covid.

But it's happening now. During a bull market.

Stocks are going up, but investors are scared to death.

Did you see the Barron's cover this morning?

Barron's has been polling big money managers for nearly 30 years. According to their latest poll, Money Managers are the most bearish ever:

Meanwhile, stocks keep going up.

The Technology Index was actually positive for the month of April, contrary to popular belief.

Tech was even the biggest winner!

Look at the S&P500 Technology Index bouncing off support, from former resistance at the prior cycle highs:

And overseas, the strength keeps coming.

The German DAX just closed the week at its highest levels in history.

...

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.

After a decade of going nowhere, livestock futures are showing signs of life.

While other commodities have recently stolen the spotlight, the livestock space has quietly been forming some of the most powerful bases in the commodities market.

Now we’re seeing breakouts across the board - from Live Cattle to Feeder Cattle, and potentially Lean Hogs next.

Let’s walk through the setup...

This equal-weight basket of Live Cattle, Feeder Cattle, and Lean Hogs spent over a decade carving out a massive base, testing the 2014 highs multiple times before finally clearing the level.

That’s the principle of polarity in action: what was once resistance is now support.

With bulls back in control, we’re targeting the 161.8% Fibonacci extension near 221. That's almost 25% more upside from the current price!

It’s time to stop fading strength and start riding the uptrend in livestock.

Lean Hogs futures are lagging, but maybe not for long.

Prices are pushing against a major downtrend line...

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...

From the desk of Steve Strazza

The evidence is becoming clearer and clearer by the day…

It’s time to be overweight US tech stocks again.

But, this can mean a lot of things.

For me, Amazon and Tesla are “tech.” The big communications stocks are definitely “tech.”

There is some “tech” sprinkled into just about every sector, you just have to find it.

As a general rule, if it trades like a tech stock, it’s probably a tech stock.

Anyways, these are the stocks I’m on the hunt for these days. 

I’m buying speculative growth names like AST SpaceMobile and Rigetti Computing.

I’m buying bitcoin and crypto-related plays like MicroStrategy and Mara.

I’m buying biotech stocks like Rythm and Soleno.

Below is my weekly video for members of Macke's Retail Roundup. 

We made our first new purchase since launching the consumer portfolio earlier this year...

This is a stock I've been keeping an eye on for a while, and I'm of the opinion that it's probably more recession proof than most people think. 

Today's new all-time highs certainly don't hurt! 

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

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

Let’s dig in!

C-suite executives were active on  May Day.

📌Matador Resources  $MTDR – Chairman and CEO Joseph Wm. Foran revealed a purchase of $533,000, doubling down as crude still trades below $60.

📌 PHINIA $PHIN – President and CEO Brady Ericson reported a purchase of $397,000 worth of stock in the auto‑parts newcomer.

Here’s The Hot Corner, with data from May, 2025:

Click the table to enlarge it.

📌 Merchants Bancorp  $MBIN – CEO Michael F. Petrie and COO Michael J. Dunlap filed Form 4s, teaming up for an aggregate purchase of $279,ooo, keeping the regional‑bank insider wave alive.

Microsoft $MSFT just reminded everyone what real leadership looks like.

The tech titan posted a double beat, with $3.46 in EPS on $70.07B in revenue, both topping estimates. 

That alone is impressive. 

But the price reaction? That’s what turned heads.

Shares ripped higher!

The stock had its best earnings-day gain since 2015, and added a staggering $200 billion in market cap in a single session. 

That’s larger than most S&P 500 companies' total market cap.

It wasn’t just about beating expectations. It was about reaffirming dominance in a market searching for clarity. 

Microsoft hit all the right notes between its cloud strength, AI tailwinds, and fortress balance sheet.

And the tape responded in kind...

This is what real demand for a stock looks like. No fade. No hesitation. Just buyers showing up in force.

When the biggest names in the world move like small caps, that’s a clue.

So what else did we learn from yesterday's earnings reactions? Let’s dive into the details.

*Click the image to...

Today's number is... 15.2%

The size of the lower wick for the S&P 500 in April was 15.2%.

Here’s the chart:

Let's break down what the chart shows:

• The green and red candlesticks in the top panel is the S&P 500 index price.
• The black bars in the bottom panel represent the size of the lower wick in percentage terms.

The Takeaway: What is a wick? 

A wick refers to the lines on a candle in a candlestick chart. A wick indicates the fluctuations of a stock's price in relation to its opening and closing prices. 

A lower wick indicates how much sellers drove the price down, followed by buyers stepping in with a significant response. Typically, when we see a long lower wick, it signals a potential transition from a bearish to a bullish environment.

It's a valuable tool for us to understand market psychology and potential trend shifts. 

In April, the S&P 500 showed a significantly large lower wick, measuring over 15.2% in size. Other instances of wicks this...

Precious metal miners have topped the rankings for a long time - and it's no surprise because it's a raging Gold bull market.

These companies trade very closely to the price of Gold, so when it's trending higher they have an immense tailwind.

But what happens if the price of Gold stops going up? The mining stocks will do the same...

Gold has hit our second long-term target, which is the second Fibonacci extension level from the entire 2010s bear market. This would be a logical place for Gold to digest its gains and for the miners to do the same.

And then on the contrary, a group that looks ready to break higher is Aerospace & Defense $ITA.

This ETF has been trading sideways since the election, but now it looks ready to break higher.

While the broader market is still stabilizing after a volatile beginning to the year, there could be noticeable rotation taking place beneath the surface, with new leaders arising.

I think Aerospace & Defense is a great example of that.

While precious metal miners might be taking a breather, and new leadership emerges in places like...

Sign up for my free note here.

Small-caps are back on my radar this week as they try to reclaim leadership versus large-caps.

While they’re the smallest stocks in the market—when they move, they carry real information.

Think of small-caps as a proxy for market breadth—they represent a wide swath of the market, from regional banks to biotechs, industrials, and other other smaller players across the board.

When you look at every major market bottom this century, it has been followed by small-caps stepping up and leading the way at the start of a new leg higher—at least for a time.

That’s not a coincidence. It’s a clear signal of the underlying health and breadth needed for a rally to gain traction, reflecting broad market participation beyond the large-cap giants.

The market has clearly stabilized after what’s been a rocky start to the year. But the real question now is whether we’re setting the stage for a full-blown rally in equities—or just grinding sideways for a while.

A good barometer here is speculative growth.

We saw an epic failed breakout. Now, we’re knocking on that same level for the second time. If ARKK can rip through it cleanly, there’s a strong case to be made that we’ve carved out a v-bottom—and it’s game on.

That said, after corrections like this and with volatility still elevated, markets often chop around in messy, sideways action before resolving directionally.

It’s in these moments, when the market is caught between two narratives, that relative strength becomes critical. The leaders will start to separate from the noise. Keep an eye on which names hold their ground, build tight bases, and push to new highs even when the indexes don’t. That’s where the next leg higher will come from - whether the market rips immediately or grinds through more indecision first.

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

We love our bottoms-up scans here at All Star Charts. We tend to get really creative when making new universes as we want to be sure they will deliver us the best opportunities the market has to offer.

However, when it comes to this one, it couldn't be any simpler!

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 stocks.

Welcome to The Junior Hall of Famers.

This scan is composed of the next 150 largest stocks by market cap, those that come after the top 150 and are thus covered by the Hall of Famers universe. Many of these names will someday graduate and join our original Hall Of Famers list. The idea here is to catch these big trends as early on as possible.

There is no need to overcomplicate things. Market cap is a quality filter at the end of the day. It only grows if price is rising. That's good enough for us.

The bottom line is it is a bull market. We...

From the desk of Steve Strazza

April will go down as one of the most volatile months in stock market history.

At the lows a few weeks ago, the S&P 500 was in a 20% drawdown. Fast forward to today, and after finding support at the prior cycle highs, the index has already rallied 17% off the bottom.

They call it a fast market. There's no doubt about that.

But more importantly, it's starting to feel like a bull market again.

The major averages reclaimed their VWAPs from the all-time highs earlier this week, and now we're seeing bullish follow-through.

As long as these moves stick, it's looking more and more like a V-shaped recovery out here. And that means it's time to get more aggressive. 

Throughout this correction and subsequent...

Well, here we are. Both $SPY and $QQQ are stuck in a weird place -- above their 50-day moving averages, and below their 200-day moving averages.

What now?

My gut tells me some sloppy digestion will be the rule of the day for the next several weeks. Of course, I reserve the right to change my mind pending whatever Amazon says tonight when they announce earnings.

We did a quick Options Jam Session today due to technical difficulties rendering a late start. But this means I get to the point quickly about what I'm seeing and what I'm trading.

Check it out here:

Sean McLaughlin | Chief Options Strategist, All Star Charts