Lately, it’s become almost routine to see tech-related groups hitting fresh highs across the board. 

From Software and Internet to Cybersecurity, Digital Payments, and Fintech, the strength in these sub-sectors has been nothing short of remarkable.

Now we can add the Cloud Computing ETF $SKYY to this impressive list of tech indexes breaking out to new all-time highs.

Price just took out a critical resistance level at the prior cycle highs from 2021, surging past 120 without looking back. 

This level now serves as a key threshold to watch on any corrective action. Will former resistance turn into support?

As long as SKYY holds above those old highs, the path of least...

Happy Friday, folks.

It was another wild week in the market. Let's wrap it up with some portfolio maintenance and general thoughts about how we made out.

First, congrats to everyone who hit big with SoundHound.

These outlier trades are actually common with our system. And we need them because they pay for all the zeros.

If you let it ride, and you are up 25x today, fantastic. 

If you didn’t. Pay attention and learn from this. It is so important to let our winners run. This is why we sell the double so religiously. It puts our minds at ease, and with the comfort of knowing we can’t lose, we are more likely to let positions go. 

In the case of SOUN, the calls were cheap, so we could own more than just 2 contracts. Larger position sizes like this make our job easier. Use it to your advantage and scale out on strength in situations like this.

If we can consistently sell doubles, we should be able to hit big trades...

Seven of the ten biggest-ever options volume days have been in 2024, with the other three in 2023, according to this report in Traders Magazine.

It goes on to say: "...numbers that would be considered spikes ten or even five years ago are more like a current-day new normal."

I wouldn't have it any other way.

The growing popularity of options trading makes sense to me. No other product offers so much dynamic flexibility for traders to craft unique ways to express market opinions.

No other product gives us the ability to define our risks absolutely, while positioning ourselves with leverage to participate in theoretically unlimited gains.

We've seen some fast moving breakouts during the recent stage of this bull market cycle. 

I'm not calling for the bull market to end. In fact, I think it continues for a while longer. But its highly likely the pace of prices increases slows.

With this in mind, today's trade is the perfect kind of play for such an environment

I was wondering myself. So I asked Retail and Consumer expert Jeff Macke to shoot over some results.

His answer?

"Abercrombie won the mall. Walmart won Discount. William Sonoma and Dick’s Sporting Goods have won Home and Sports so hard they’re running out of chains to compete with. Amazon is winning the world and barely seems to care about (or profit from) retail at all."

Man is he good. 

Look at this chart of Abercrombie breaking out of this multi-decade base to new all-time highs:

Whenever I want to know what's going on in retail, Jeff is the guy I ask. 

And he...

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

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

Let’s dig in!

Our International Hall of Famers list is composed of the 100 largest US-listed international stocks, or ADRs.

We've also sprinkled in some of the largest ADRs from countries that did not make the market cap cut. 

These stocks range from some well-known mega-cap multinationals such as Toyota Motor and Royal Dutch Shell to some large-cap global disruptors such as Sea Ltd and Shopify.

It's got all the big names and more–but only those that are based outside the US. You can find all the largest US stocks on our original Hall of Famers list.

The beauty of these scans is really in their simplicity.

We take the largest names each week and then apply technical filters in a way that the strongest stocks with the most momentum rise to the top.

Based on the market environment, we can also flip the scan on its head and filter for weakness.

Let's dive in and take a look at some of the most important stocks from around the world.

Here's this week's list:

Below is the 10th ASC Mastermind  Lab. In this video, I'm joined by Brian Shannon. Brian is the founder of Alphatrends, and also wrote two of the most influential technical analysis books: Technical Analysis Using Multiple Timeframes, and Maximum Trading Gains With Anchord VWAP. 

Brian Shannon has written two of the most influential recent books on technical analysis, and moving averages are at the core of both. 

In this Mastermind Lab, Brian and I discuss the flaws of traditional moving averages, and why VWAP is itself essentially another form of moving average. 

Moving averages are generally meant to allow investors to analyze assets across multiple timeframes, and Brian literally wrote the book on multiple timeframe analysis. So when I want to talk about this stuff, Brian is one of the first guys I call. 

Enjoy this Mastermind Lab. 

The most significant transaction on today's list comes in a Form 4 filing featuring both the CEO and the CFO of Dorchester Minerals $DMLP. 

Together, they purchased almost $1 million worth of their own company's stock. 

When two top executives with the deepest insight into the company’s operations and financial health simultaneously make significant insider purchases, it indicates the stock is undervalued or that upcoming developments could positively impact the performance.

Here’s The Hot Corner, with data from December 5, 2024:

In another Form 4, director Dirk J. Debbink bought 1,000 shares, equivalent to $157,188 in Cincinnati Financial Corporation $CINF.

Today's number is... 7

We only have 7 trading days left of this current breadth thrust regime.

That's Monday week!  

The breadth thrust regime I am talking about is when 55% or more of the S&P 500 stocks are at 20-day highs, and once this is triggered, the regime lasts one year!

Here’s the chart:

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

Let's break down what the chart shows:

• The gray shading highlights the breadth thrust regime.
• The black line in the bottom panel shows the percentage of S&P 500 stocks at 20-day highs.
• The red line in the bottom panel is the trigger for a breadth thrust.
• The blue line in the top panel is the S&P 500 index price.

The Takeaway: A breadth thrust regime points to healthy leadership conditions and indicates that the stock market may more easily move up and to the right.

I rely heavily on the breadth thrust regime. It’s not an all-clear signal or a guarantee that the market...

Traveling is one of life's greatest joys—getting to know new places, cultures, and food never gets old.

I've been lucky to visit some incredible spots like the UK, the south of France, Chicago, San Diego, Madrid, Rome and my all-time favorite: New York City. As a 27-year-old Venezuelan, I feel that place is just electric.

But travel isn't just fun—it's also a hot theme in the market right now.

Travel stocks have been some of the biggest winners since the market bottomed this summer, showing how strong the consumer economy is.

These are the kinds of stocks that thrive when the economy and markets are doing well.

The Defiance Hotel, Airline, and Cruise ETF $CRUZ does a great job of illustrating the recent strength in this area.

The ETF has been ripping in a near-vertical line in recent months, breaking out of a massive base to fresh all-time highs.

Speculative growth has been one of the hottest corners of the market in recent months.

At the group level, it’s a brand new uptrend for this risk-on basket of stocks.

The ARK Investment flagship fund ARKK is my favorite barometer for the spec-tech space, and it just completed a trend reversal with a bang. 

But it isn’t alone. 

A growing list of indexes are completing textbook reversals and embarking on new mark-up phases.

Alfonso pointed out the Retail Index $XRT as a good example of this theme the other day. Retail stocks are resolving from a rounding bottom and hitting their highest level in years.

Retail is a heavily bifurcated space. There have been some big cycle winners already. And there is an even...

Today we held our Breakout Multiplier Weekly Strategy Session. If you’re not a member, click here to join us.

We do this every Thursday at 11 a.m. ET for Breakout Multiplier members, where we discuss new trades ideas, open positions and answer questions from the chat.

One of the key benefits of buying cheap call options on low-priced stocks is the flexibility they provide when managing and scaling out of positions. This becomes especially valuable when we hit a big winner.

Take our $SOUN 1/17/25 $7 calls, for example. We...

Here's the replay and chartbook from the December 5 livestream. Note that we talk strategy every Thursday at 11 a.m. ET, and I answer questions in the chat room. 

Be sure to join us and maximize your return potential.

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

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

Let’s dig in!

The most notable insider transaction today is a Form 4 filing by John H. Stone, President and CEO of Allegion plc $ALLE. 

Stone purchased 7,500 ALLE shares, totaling $1 million.

Meanwhile, Sardar Biglari, CEO and founder of Biglari Holdings Inc $BH, reported an additional purchase of BH shares valued at $1,499,970.

While CEO buys aren’t necessarily signals for immediate action, such transactions often reflect strong confidence in a company’s future and can serve as a supportive factor for long-term bullish trends.

Here’s The Hot Corner, with data from December 4, 2024:

HHLR Advisors Ltd has increased its stake in BeiGene $BGNE from 5.30% to 9.00%, as disclosed in a recent 13G filing. BGNE is now Hillhouse’s largest holding.

The hedge fund...

Today's number is... 0

Typically, sentiment matters most at extremes, and I like to use it as a contrarian indicator. The way I learnt it was to beware of the crowd when the crowd is too one‐sided.

Currently, we are not at extreme levels. However, what caught my attention this week is that the Bull-Bear spread from the American Association of Individual Investors (AAII) has fallen below 0, while the S&P 500 has reached all-time highs.

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 represents the price of the S&P 500 index.
• The red lines represent when the S&P 500 is at all-time highs while the AAII Bull-Bear spread is below 0.

The Takeaway: This is the first time in 30 weeks that the AAII Bull-Bear spread has dropped below 0. This indicates that there are more bears than bulls, and what stands out to me is that this has occurred while the S&P 500 is reaching new all-time highs. This event is rare. In the past 34...