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

1. No new positions today.
2. Rolled TLT position to March options.
3. Exited KRE position.
4. Current status of open campaigns.
5. Volatility Snapshot.

Let’s dig in!

To wrap up the first week of the 2025 earnings season, we heard from 7 S&P 500 components.

The largest oil & gas equipment & services company, Schlumberger, was the biggest winner.

One of the largest truckers, J.B. Hunt, was the biggest loser.

Let's talk about what happened.

*click the image to enlarge it

As you can see, there wasn't a clear theme to Friday's earnings reactions. Some roared higher, others were muted, and a couple got beat down.

Fastenal $FAST missed its top and bottom line expectations but rallied nearly 2%. Despite the poor results, the market rewarded the stock for raising its quarterly dividend by 10%.

State Street $STT beat expectations but was slammed for its weak net interest income guidance, which the management team expects to be flat in 2025.

Now, let's talk about a few earnings reactions that stood out to us.

J.B. Hunt has suffered some of its worst earnings reactions ever over the last 6 quarters. 

This has been in part...

The replay of last night's LIVE video Conference Call is now available for Premium Members of ASC Research. 

Click here to sign up and catch up on the replay, download the 100+ charts and review each of the new trade ideas.

It's really something fascinating to witness.

Both retail investors and the professionals are scared shitless, in the middle of a bull market!

We just saw the...

Rep. Nancy Pelosi is back on our list after filing a Periodic Transaction Report detailing transactions in multiple stocks.

The former Speaker of the House reported the following moves:

Nvidia $NVDA:

• Exercised $500K-$1M in call options with $12 strike, expiring 12/20/24.
• Bought $250K-$500K in call options with $80 strike, expiring 1/16/26.

Palo Alto Networks $PANW:

• Purchased $1M-$5M in call options with $100 strike, expiring 12/20/24.

Alphabet Inc $GOOGL:

• Purchased $250K-$500K in call options with $150 strike, expiring 1/16/26.

Amazon.com Inc $AMZN:

• Purchased $250K-$500K in call options with $150 strike, expiring 1/16/26.

Tempus AI Inc $TEM:

• Purchased $50K-$100K in call options with $20 strike, expiring 1/16/26.

Today's number is... 12.5

The 1-week rate of change in Investors Intelligence bears has spiked to 12.5%.

Here’s the chart:

(right-click and open image in new tab to zoom in)

Let's break down what it shows:

• The blue line in the top panel represents the price of the S&P 500 index.
• The green bars in the bottom panel show the 1-week change in Investors Intelligence (II) of more bears.
• The red bars in the bottom panel show the 1-week change in Investors Intelligence (II) of less bears.

The Takeaway: Last week, I noted that more bears were beginning to enter the market. We have now experienced a further surge in bear activity, with...

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

When investing in the stock market, we always want to approach it as "a market of stocks."

Regardless of the environment, there are always stocks showing leadership and trending higher.

We may have to look harder to identify them depending on current market conditions. But there are always stocks that are going up.

The same can be said for weak stocks. Regardless of the environment, there are always stocks that are going down, too. 

We already have multiple scans focusing on stocks making all-time highs, such as Hall of Famers, Minor Leaguers, and the 2 to 100 Club.

We filter these universes for stocks that are exhibiting the best momentum and relative strength characteristics. 

Clearly, we spend a lot of time identifying and writing about leading stocks every week, via multiple reports.

...

There is a selection of international ETFs that have been consistently green over the trailing quarter.

China is one of them.

After accelerating higher, the iShares China Large Cap ETF $FXI has been consolidating its gains. However, what captures our attention is that the ETF has failed to break down and is now back above support. This is positive to see.

A big element the market is pricing in here is how a Trump administration will impact the Chinese economy. At 2pm ET today, JC is hosting an Inauguration livestream to discuss Trump's effect on the markets.

You can click here to tune in.

As precious metal investors, it's paramount to rotate between the metals themselves and mining companies to maximize our long-term gains.

The miners have historically treated shareholders poorly, but sometimes, it pays handsomely to own them.

Last week, we outlined a key level of interest in one of our favorite intermarket ratios. Based on this chart, we believe now is the time to buy the miners.

But it's not just the miners that've rewarded us for being long. The futures contracts are also trending higher, and we're looking to buy more on strength.

Every year I sit down with my 2 kids and put together a portfolio of Consumer Facing stocks. The picks aren't all retailers but each fits in the bucket of my expertise. They make products I can see, feel and sometimes taste. They are brands that evoke, or at least used to evoke, Feelings in domestic consumers and investors.

Most importantly, they are companies with Stocks I believe can make me, and my kids, money over the coming year. The portfolio gets adjusted periodically, opportunistically but never casually. We trade around the positions but the core is adjusted only when the stocks out-run their target, the story gets worse or we want to free up money for a better investment.

Those are the guiding principles guiding the Retail Round-Up Model Portfolio. Today and tomorrow I'm unveiling my favorite consumer longs for 2025 as it stands right now. My goal isn't to minimize risk or free-ride market trends. Your situation will vary but this is a concentrated, fairly aggressive portfolio designed for people with long time frames. The starting value was $10,000 as of 12/31/2024 with $10,000 split equally across these ten stocks. Any trades will be recorded as of the...

Donald Trump gets inaugurated today as the next president of the United States.

This comes after a historic republican landslide that betting markets had absolutely correct going into the election.

Anyone who thought it was 4 guys in a room manipulating the markets were actually just hoping that was the case, because they didn't like what the betting markets were saying.

Tough shit.

You ignored the market and it cost you. 

Bitcoin is making new all-time highs this morning as the first Publicly Pro-Crypto President in history is about to take office.

You don't have to like the guy. In fact, you can hate Trump. Or love him. It doesn't matter when it comes to how we're going to profit from it.

And that's what this is all about.

If you let your politics influence your decision making in the market, you're an extremist. And there's no room for extremism in turning a profit.

Separate the two, or it will not end well. That I promise you.

And we've seen it over the last year.

Many of the...

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza.

Welcome back to Under the Hood, where we'll cover all the action for the two weeks ended January 3, 2025. This report is published bi-weekly, in rotation with The Minor Leaguers.

What we do here is analyze the most popular stocks during the week and find opportunities to either join in and ride these momentum names higher, or fade the crowd and bet against them.

We use a variety of sources to generate the list of most popular names.

There are so many new data sources available that all we need to do is organize and curate them in a way that shows us exactly what we want: a list of stocks that are seeing an unusual increase in investor interest.

Click here for a behind-the-scenes look at our process.

Whether we’re measuring increasing interest based on large institutional purchases, unusual options activity, or simply our proprietary lists of trending tickers, there’s...

This is a bull market for stocks. If you're not making money in this environment, then you should probably reevaluate your strategies. 

I know for a fact that I've witnessed individuals, who are clearly mentally ill, fight this historic rally pretending that there's some kind of epic credit crisis coming any day now (for over 2 years lol).

Whether it's fake breadth deterioration, or the "yen carry trade", or lies about Gold sending some kind of warning, or the Fed ruining everything, or small-caps underperforming, or Trump and his Magas. 

It's always something. 

These people will make up anything in their heads, no matter how outrageous, in order to justify poor decisions. Their egos are too fragile. 

Good.

It might be a little sad to have to watch them ruin their lives. But it's great for us who recognize their vulnerabilities and have chosen to just profit from it all instead.

You see, when I hear credit crisis, I naturally look at credit spreads to see what's going on.

The answer is: NOTHING.

Still nothing...

Credit spreads are as tight as they've been this entire bull market:

If...

Energy has clearly been on a tear in recent weeks, bouncing from oversold conditions. The energy sector has not broken out and is still rangebound, so until that breakout takes place, we do have to lean on the side of caution for now following this rally.

But we're beginning to see a handful of industry groups within the sector begin transitioning to green.

Interestingly, MLPs have been a clear area of outperformance as indicated by the long stretch of green while the other groups have been red.

Just like the eSport stocks we covered yesterday and these MLPs today, there are so many opportunities under the hood.

We discuss exactly that in our intimate Portfolio Accelerator events. The entire team will be getting together in a few weeks and access is invitation only. If you want in, you can apply to join here.

From the shores of New Zealand, the political landscape of the United States unfolds like a peculiar theater production. Not the usual drama of left versus right, we've all seen enough of that, but rather a new kind of spectacle that blurs the lines between leadership, technology, and what can only be described as digital gambling.

Look, I'm not here to claim some kind of moral high ground from my corner of the South Pacific. New Zealand, for all its postcard perfection, grapples with its own demons: poor economic productivity, a culture of tall poppy syndrome, and mental health statistics that would make any policymaker wince. Every nation carries its own burden of imperfection.

But the United States? It has managed to craft something uniquely concerning in the intersection of power and profit.

Take the long-standing tradition of American politicians trading stocks. While this practice isn't exclusive to the U.S., what sets it apart is the conspicuous absence of robust conflict of interest controls. The response from the trading community has been surprisingly cavalier: "Why complain? Just follow their disclosures and profit alongside them." It's a...

Israel outperformed the United States stock market in 2024, and that trend has spilled over into 2025.

Camtek $CAMT is one of the hottest Israeli stocks, but the bears still hate it. 

The stock has a record-high 14% short interest and an 8x days-to-cover ratio. 

This extreme mispositioning is blowing up in the bears' faces as they've been freshly squeezed.

As you can see, Camtek carved out a textbook head-and-shoulders pattern, which excited the bears.

Over the last year, the short interest has ballooned to its highest level in history despite the stock price reaching new highs.

Last week, the bulls stepped in and failed the potential distribution pattern, and now the bears are scrambling to cover their positions.

That's why we're looking to buy the stock and profit from the short sellers that are in the house of pain right now.

Don't miss the ASC Premium Mid-Month Strategy Session on Monday, January 20th, at 7 pm ET! 🚨

👉 Click here to register for the LIVE event.

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.

The coal industry is one of the most under-the-radar ponds to fish in.

Investors write it off because "clean energy" will displace the industry. While this is likely true, we think it will take far longer than most expect. 

In the meantime, this extreme mispositioning is our opportunity to profit.

You would have made a fortune if you bought these stocks at the depths of the COVID crash. Far more than if you purchased the hottest "work from home" stock.

These stocks had their best day in years last summer after a major Australian coal mine caught fire and halted production. 

While we haven't seen the upside follow-through we anticipated, the setup looks ripe for the bulls to take control.

Let's dive into the charts.

Our Coal Index rallied from 5 to 40 from 2020 to 2022, making it the best industry group during the post-COVID bull market.

Since then, it has churned sideways in a well-deserved digestion of gains. 

...