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The relentless bid for international equities continues to stand out—and it’s getting harder to ignore.

Outside the U.S., we’re seeing a textbook V-bottom in progress. Stocks around the world are recovering fast and fierce, with many regions snapping back toward new highs.

Just look at the iShares MSCI EAFE ETF $EFA. It erased all its March and April losses in no time. 

After briefly undercutting last year’s lows, EFA shook out the weak hands, trapped the bears, and ripped right back above the upper bounds of the range.

These shakeouts that lead to breakouts are some of the most bullish setups out there. 

The greatest investor the world has ever seen announced his retirement this weekend. 

Warren Buffett delivered the news at the Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholders meeting on Saturday that he’ll be stepping down on January 1, 2026.

Naturally, this was the big story of the day. But all I keep hearing is that the stock is down 5% on the news.

You gotta be kidding me. 

JC and I have been joking for years that when this moment comes, you buy the dip. And now that it’s here, we’re doing it.

So, let’s tell the real story of Buffett and Berkshire shares these days.

What all the headlines aren’t telling you is that Buffett literally just went out on top in the most GOAT fashion. Let me explain…

Berkshire closed at fresh all-time highs Friday.

Only a handful of stocks in the S&P 500 could say the same.

The market just suffered a swift and steep drawdown. It's the worst of the entire cycle. A lot of stocks have been absolutely crushed. But not this one. 

Not only that, but BRK also recently made...

We're amidst an epic bull market for precious metals. And while gold and silver get all the headlines, we think Palladium could end up being the sneaky outperformer in this cycle.

We laid out the case in February: Commercial hedgers were loading up at record levels. 

That only happens when Palladium is dirt cheap, which it certainly is right now. The price is still trading more than 70% below the 2022 peak.

Price has done nothing for months. 

But that might be exactly what we want.

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...

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

1. No new positions today.
2. Adjustment to XLI position.
3. Closed XLE at Profit Target.
4. Current status of open campaigns.
5. Volatility Snapshot.

Let’s dig in!

Today's trade is a similar trade to the one I did in Kingsoft Computing last week. It's a bet on a previous highfligher, who had it's legs kicked out from under it during the recent market turmoil, that appears to be setting up to resume its former prominence.

In late April Dad-Shoe brand Skechers reported decent earnings and pulled all guidance.

We talked about it at the time in my video update. To refresh, Skechers had cash, patience and a good management team with a strong track record. They also source 40% of their product from China. As a results SKX management rather candidly said "we don't know" and yanked guidance for the rest of the year.

At the time my question was whether or not the stock could hold its lows:

The stock held, which was bullish but it would seem Skechers thought the certainty of cash in hand from 3G was better than rolling the dice of adjusting the supply chain on the fly. Today Skechers announced an agreement to be bought for $63/ share. A 30% premium over the price on Friday but below where SKX was trading in February.

It's important that A) Skechers was worried enough to take the cash and B) Private Equity was there to offer a bid. Skechers was looking at reporting for the next 9 months having no idea what the numbers would be. After a quarter century of...

Earnings season is heating up as we get into May. We've heard from plenty of consumer facing names so far (Hasbro, McDonald's, Chipotle) but by time honored tradition the earnings season for retail doesn't start until Walmart reports which won't happen until next Thursday.

It makes sense if you think about it. Walmart is the biggest retailer on earth. They set the standard and the context for all the other retailers. If Walmart reports positive comps and says it sees no problem with scarcity next week that raises the bar for Target. Home Depot reports before Lowe's for the same reason. There's no official law forcing the order. It's just what makes sense.

Once the big box stores are done reporting the floodgates open. Foot Locker, Best Buy, Kohl's, Gap, Ulta will all be on the record by the end of the month. While the economists argue over the long term implications of trade policy the retailers will be telling us what's actually happening in the real world.

I find it much more lucrative to focus on what Walmart is saying consumers are doing than what economists think should be happening.

I'm grading the names that matter and giving select earnings...

Two of the world's largest companies—Apple and Amazon—just delivered double beats… and the market couldn’t care less.

Amazon posted better-than-expected revenue and EPS, but finished the day slightly negative, marking its 4th consecutive negative earnings reaction. 

Apple also beat on both fronts… and got slammed for a -3.7% decline. This extends a rough streak of being punished in 6 of its last 8 earnings reports.

These aren’t speculative names. These are market generals. 

If they’re getting sold on good news, that’s a big red flag.

Technically, both charts tell the same story. 

After attempting to break out above key resistance levels, both stocks failed hard, printing failed breakout patterns and rolling back over. 

When leadership names like these can’t catch a bid even on strong results, it speaks volumes about the underlying tone of the tape.

This isn’t just a stock-specific weakness. This is index risk.

When the heaviest weights in the major averages get hit on strength, it’s often a sign that institutions are distributing, not accumulating.

The question now isn’t...

Insiders loaded the cart in the packaging space today—tossing in a few jets, biopharma, and an office REIT for good measure.

📌 Sonoco $SON – CEO Howard Coker and several directors teamed up for a $1.14 million aggregate purchase, a collective vote of confidence as the packaging giant hunts for margin upside.

When top brass move together like this, it usually signals high conviction — and, often, they’re seeing something the rest of the market hasn’t caught onto yet.

📌 FTAI Aviation $FTAI – Chairman and CEO Wes Edens joined forces with COO David Moreno to scoop up a total of $908,000 in FTAI stock.

Here’s The Hot Corner, with data from May 2, 2025:

Click the table to enlarge it.

📌 Brandywine Realty $BDN – CEO Gerard Sweeney stepped in for a $251,000 buy, a meaningful commitment in the embattled office REIT space.

Today's number is... 5

After 5 months of consolidating, the S&P 500 Advance-Decline line has closed at an all-time high.

Here’s the chart:

 Let's break down what the chart shows:

• The black line represents the S&P 500’s Advance-Decline line.

The Takeaway: The Advance-Decline Line is one of the purest ways to analyze market breadth to assess overall market strength. 

It measures the number of stocks participating or not.

The concept is super simple. 

We add the number of stocks moving higher and subtract the number of stocks that are declining. Then, we add that sum to the previous day's Advance-Decline Line value.

When the Advance-Decline Line rises, it indicates broad market participation. Conversely, when it falls, this suggests that more stocks are declining than advancing, which is a sign of market weakness.

Currently, the S&P 500 Advance-Decline Line is at its highest level ever, which indicates that market internals are strong.

This type of strength supports the potential for a sustainable...

The stock market just closed higher for 9 straight sessions.

We’re seeing a textbook V-shaped recovery unfold, especially with major indexes and sectors reclaiming key levels and repairing the damage from last month’s selloff.

When we look under the surface, the more speculative, high-beta areas of the market are starting to wake up and look ready to catch higher.

We call that risk appetite. And that’s exactly what our custom speculative growth index was designed to track. 

After a sharp pullback, the riskiest stocks in the market are bouncing right where they should.

Former resistance has turned into support. It’s the polarity principle at its finest. 

The jobs report came in just strong enough to keep the Fed on the sidelines.

Since last month, the U.S. economy added 177,000 new jobs to Nonfarm Payrolls. The unemployment rate held steady at 4.2%, and wages showed minimal growth. 

Together, that combination gave the bond market a clear signal: the economy is stable enough for the Fed to stay patient, and traders adjusted their rate cut expectations accordingly.

And the market reacted quickly. Yields on short-term bonds jumped, with the 2-year leading the move higher. The reason was simple: traders no longer expect the Fed to cut rates in June. Now, they’re betting on July.

Goldman and Barclays just said the quiet part out loud: the Fed doesn’t need to move yet.

So bond prices fell, especially on the short end of the curve. Long bonds declined too, but not as much. That’s a textbook bear flattener: when short-term rates rise faster than long-term ones.

...

Every weekend, I dive into our insider activity tracker looking for the most interesting and bullish buys — and let me tell you, this week stood out with a rare mix of high-conviction buys.

Let’s break it down:

The most important insider buy this week came from Tesla $TSLA.

Airbnb co-founder and Tesla board member Joe Gebbia bought 4,000 shares on April 28 at around $256 per share — dropping over $1 million into the stock.

This was Tesla’s first insider purchase in nearly five years. 

A move like this from someone on the board suggests a signal of confidence 

Remember that there are many reasons an insider would sell… to buy a house, pay for a wedding, go on vacation. But there’s only one reason they buy:

They think the stock’s going higher.

And with all the bearish sentiment surrounding...

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.