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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

If the market is serious about making a V-Bottom happen, I have a hard time believing it'll happen without the semiconductors.

And right now, in my opinion, Broadcom has the best-looking chart. So that's the horse I'm going to ride back to highs.

Here's the replay and chartbook from the May 8 Weekly Strategy Session.

Be sure to join us on Thursday mornings and maximize your return potential.

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

1. No new positions today.
2. Adjustment to XLC position.
3. No exits since the last report.
4. Current status of open campaigns.
5. Volatility Snapshot.

Let’s dig in!

As the Everything Company, it's appropriate Amazon's earnings will have something for everyone. 

Want some insight into impact of trade tension on consumer spending? Amazon's got you. Shipping? Amazon can tell you more than UPS did. Tariffs, IT spending, the impact of Chinese trade on drone delivery? Check, check, check. Amazon promised to invest heavily wherever it saw an opportunity when the company went public nearly 30yrs ago and the company has absolutely lived up to its word.

Amazon has gone from a bookseller to a stealthy Club Store (Amazon Prime has over 200 million members and generates $40 billion a year) to a movie streaming service. The company is taking over the production of Thursday Night Football, making it a nascent television network and movie studio. Presumably, to aid in the streaming of all this content this week Amazon launched the first of what will be 3200 satellites for high-speed internet. Naturally, Amazon used founder Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin rocket company for deployment. 

And people thought he just started that company for celebrity near-space tourism.

Amazon gives good conference call (long answers, insanely smart...

Regional bank insiders continue to buy their own stock.

📌 Burke & Herbert $BHRB – Multiple directors teamed up for a $212,000 purchase, their second round in a week.

📌 NBT Bancorp $NBTB – Director Heidi Hoeller grabbed $110,000 worth, another vote of confidence in the regional-bank patch.

Here’s The Hot Corner, with data from April 30, 2025:

Click the table to enlarge it.

📌 Perpetua Resources $PPTA – Encompass Capital filed an initial 13G reporting a 5.03% stake in the Idaho-based miner.

Visa $V delivered a clean double beat this quarter, and the market loved it.

They reported $2.76 EPS on $9.59B in revenue, but the price action really tells the story.

The stock initially fell by 3% at yesterday's open...

But the buyers stepped in and ripped the price higher the rest of the day, printing a bullish engulfing candlestick and reclaiming the VWAP anchored to the all-time high. 

That’s a powerful combination of strength: solid fundamentals and a clear sign of institutional support.

This isn’t just a bounce, it’s a reclaim of leadership.

After months of drifting lower, Visa bulls are suddenly back in the driver's seat. 

The setup looks clean, the trend wants higher, and the bulls have the ball.

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

*Click the image to enlarge it

Trane Technologies $TT had the best reaction score after...

Today's number is... -0.87%

Out of the seven global regions I track, only one showed a negative return in April, the United States, which was down -0.87%.

Here’s the chart:

Let's break down what the chart shows:

• The red bars show the April performance for each of the seven global regions
• The blue bars show the year-to-date performance for each of the seven global regions

The Takeaway: The United States has been the last place that you wanted to be invested in this year. And the data shows this. 

The global shift in leadership is starting to take hold in 2025.

Money moves to where it's treated the best, and right now, that's not in the United States.

This is what we call global rotation.

Yet many people overlook the opportunities it presents due to their biases toward their home country or simply because they are unaware of it.

In April, only one of the seven regions I track showed a decline: the United States, which was down -0.87%. 

And the United States is the only region with...

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Just a few weeks ago, Tech looked like dead weight — it was the main culprit behind the recent market correction and was on the verge of completing a massive top.

But fast forward to today, and the picture looks very different.

Price briefly broke below a critical support zone, only to snap back with force as buyers stepped in exactly where they needed to — trapping the bears and flipping the narrative.

Now, XLK has reclaimed the VWAP anchored to the all-time highs.

That’s the equivalent key level that the major indexes are fighting with right now...

In the spring of 1998, I was six months into my first job out of college—a mutual fund and insurance salesman for MetLife. The people were kind, and my boss was supportive, but it was a terrible fit for a 22-year-old fresh out of school. Nobody wants financial advice from a kid who, not long before, was slinging pizzas and wings for barely more than minimum wage.

So when my father offered me a chance to move in with him in Tampa, Florida, and look for new opportunities, I glanced out the window at the grey Buffalo skies and didn’t hesitate. Sunshine and a fresh start sounded like the only logical move. Less than a week later, I was on the road.

The first job I landed in Tampa was with what could generously be described as a pseudo-boiler room. We weren’t cold-calling doctors and lawyers with high-pressure penny stock pitches, but we were dialing other stockbrokers and trying to convince them to pump those same junk names to their clients. One step removed from the end-sucker. I was young, naïve—or rather, stupid.

Three months in, barely making any money, it became clear the whole operation was a scam and we were being taken advantage of.

With four of the Magnificent 7s reporting earnings the next two days, big tech is front and center.

I’m talking about the largest and most important companies in the world.

These mega cap growth stocks have grown so massive that they do most of the driving when it comes to the performance of the major averages.

The S&P 500 won’t be in a bull market if too many of the stocks in the trillion-dollar club are in downtrends. It’s just math.

Alternatively, the S&P is going to look great if Microsoft, Meta, and friends are in uptrends… even if market internals are weak beneath the surface. 

The bottom line is that when it comes to the US stock market, these are the heavyweights. You can’t have a bull market without them.

The Mag 7s currently make up over 30% of the S&P 500 and more than 40% of the Nasdaq 100.

The three largest - Apple, Microsoft, and Nvidia - are all tech stocks. So it stands to reason that...