We’re going to take a shot on the short side and make the bet BTC completes this top and legs lower from here.
If it rolls over, this would be a textbook retest from below, and we should have a perfect entry.
Volatility is moving higher and we’re going to lean in the direction of the tactical trend.
We’re also leaning in the direction of everything else in crypto right now. It’s ugly out there. We’ve seen similar tops like this complete and break to the downside in recent weeks.
A wave of insider transactions rose up from the energy sector yesterday.
📌 Permian Resources $PR, Diamondback Energy $FANG, Murphy Oil $MUR, and Park Hotels & Resorts $PK all saw fresh buys.
But the most significant move came from PR, where director William J. Quinn put down $9.6 million.
📌 Meanwhile, over in trucking, Old Dominion Freight Line $ODFL EVP and CFO Adam N. Satterfield just stepped up with a Form 4 filing revealing a purchase of $432,260.
When a CFO puts their own money in, it’s worth paying attention—they know the numbers better than anyone.
Here’s The Hot Corner, with data from March 5, 2025:
Click the table to enlarge it.
📌 Skeena Resources $SKE saw a 13G filing, with Helikon Investments increasing its stake from 7.81% to 10.67%.
The big insight here is that equity markets failed to follow through on their strength to close last week.
The Nasdaq 100 ETF $QQQ, for instance, is now breaking below a key level of support. Unless buyers step in right now, there is elevated downside risk in stocks in the short-term.
The S&P 500 has experienced five consecutive days of moves exceeding +1% or -1%.
Here’s the chart:
Let's break down what the chart shows:
The blue line in the top panel is the S&P 500 index price.
The black line in the middle panel indicates consecutive days when the S&P 500 experienced a daily movement of +1% or -1%.
The red line in the bottom panel is the S&P 500’s 52-week drawdown.
The vertical gray lines indicate consecutive days when the S&P 500 experienced a daily movement of +1% or -1% is greater than 5.
The Takeaway: We have experienced five consecutive days of 1% movements, either up or down, in the S&P 500. This marks the longest period of market volatility since August of last year.
During this current period of volatility, we have seen a consistent trend of more stocks reaching new lows than new highs, alongside a significant rise in bearish market sentiment.
Today, we made a checklist of the most important charts in the market.
We came up with about 20 key levels that, if broken, would suggest the end of the bull market.
Our list covers things from the major averages to crypto, and even some commodities and relative ratios.
There are so many big levels being tested right now. In many cases, they are the prior-cycle highs, which means violations will result in some nasty failed breakouts.
We’re going to track them all closely and weigh the evidence. As more and more of these levels give way, we will turn increasingly bearish.
But, for me, one chart matters so much more than the rest over the short-term. Actually let’s just call it three, since it is the same situation for all of them.
Here’s a look at the S&P 500, Nasdaq 100, and Dow Industrial Average all digging in at their VWAPs from the August lows. These are the most important stock market indexes in the world.
They are all testing crucial support and rebounding in synchrony.
Abercrombie took the pipe, Foot Locker was predictably lousy. Where I'm looking now as we grind through Mall Store Earnings,
Some of the best trades I make are the ones I pass on entirely. So it was for $ANF which into earnings this morning already down 40% for the year and somehow managed to disappoint investors. The teen darling and recent 10-bagger reported numbers slightly ahead of expectations for Christmas but guided the current year well below expectations.
Needless to say Wall Street focused on the negative, sending ANF shares all the way down to the low $80s or 50% below where they were trading as recently as January.
I love ANF. I shop there with my son, it's made me a lot of money and the aggressively suggestive catalogs from the '90s were an endless source of delight when I was a younger man. Here's a little secret: consumer stocks are where love goes to die. If you hold your winners forever you usually end up broke. Love the game, date the stocks. Long-term ANF investors should have known better.
Which doesn't mean you need to forget about the companies entirely. Quite the opposite. Shares of the Gap have been public...
Today's trade is a similar bet to yesterday's trade. With $VIX in the 20s and big caps putting in short term bottoms at key pivot points, these are opportunities for opportunistic put spread sellers.
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...
One of the largest discount stores in the world, Target $TGT just reported earnings. It wasn't good...
Yesterday, we told you this report was front and center for our retail analyst, Jeff Macke. It wasn't so much about being interested in buying or selling the stock as it was about the information they provided.
And they gave the market a ton of information, very little of which was positive.
The company reported a 3.1% decrease in sales year-over-year, and its profit margin fell to 4.7% from 5.8% in the previous year.
In addition, they issued softer-than-expected guidance. This added fuel to the fire.
Overall, the market hated this report, which doesn't bode well for the broader retail space.
We have a lot to unpack today, so let's talk about what else happened 👇
Here are the latest earnings reactions from the S&P 500:
We have more insider activity by top executives to talk about today.
📌 Kevin Tang just made a $12.7 million bet on Aurinia Pharmaceuticals $AUPH, filing a Form 4 that shows strong conviction in the biotech space.
📌 Moderna $MRNA CEO Stéphane Bancel stepped up to buy 160,314 shares, equivalent to $5 million.
When company presidents and CEOs personally buy millions of dollars worth of stock, it speaks to their high conviction in a business's long-term prospects.
Here’s The Hot Corner, with data from March 4, 2025:
Click the table to enlarge it.
📌 Meanwhile, director Martin Tuchman backed FTAI Aviation $FTAI with a $283,000 buy.
📌 Carl Icahn’s $6.7 million buy in CVR Energy $CVI is another one to watch.
Icahn is one of the most legendary activist investors of all time, so this...