Let me remind everyone what a bad idea it is to sell naked calls.

We don't do it.

I often want to do it.

Many times, it makes sense to do it.

But the answer is always no.

It's just not worth it.

Go ask around. The old timers will tell you.

"Don't do it kid"

But that doesn't mean that as a philosophy, we shouldn't approach the market with that sort of "naked call selling" mentality, at least for the foreseeable future.

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Welcome to The 2 to 100 Club.

As many of you know, something we've been working on internally is using various bottom-up tools and scans to complement our top-down approach.

It's really been working for us!

One way we're doing this is by identifying 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...

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

No Santa Claus rally, no worries.

So Santa was a no-show this season. The Nasdaq 100, the S&P 500, and Papa Dow are still managing to post positive monthly returns heading into January’s close.

That's an auspicious data point for the rest of the year.

Beneath the surface, last quarter’s laggards are also playing catch up to the leadership groups…

I really like the risk vs reward from the short side here.

The divergences and rotation into defensives are finally there.

The Dollar has been strong throughout all of January.

That was the first heads up.

The new highs list peaked in mid-December on both the NYSE and Nasdaq.

So you can argue that we've been in a correction already, and that's it's just about to get worse.

And then here's what really did it for me.

It's the rotation into defensives that is the make or break for this bearish approach to the market:

When you wake up knowing that you have a fresh batch of Monthly Candlesticks waiting for you at the end of the day, it's a great feeling.

Enjoy it.

But I believe it also helps to be grateful.

I think you have to be.

Just think about all of the less fortunate investors around the world who don't get to appreciate such a feeling.

In some cases, it's just because they're lazy and don't feel like doing the work. It does take all of 15 minutes.

But in most cases, they don't even know.

They have no idea how much information and perspective their losing out on.

It's a great arbitrage that I'm happy to celebrate with all of you every month.

This is the cheat code!

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

The entire marketplace is fixated on tomorrow’s FOMC meeting.

Will the Fed make its first rate cut in March, or will it be in June?

Who knows.

I enjoy speculating as much as the next guy, but I’m not into guessing on next moves by central bankers.

I prefer to track another market participant with a Ph.D. in economics, Dr. Copper.

And we can’t discuss copper without including the Australian dollar!

Check out the Australian dollar overlaid with copper futures:

They look almost identical.

I added a 10-day rolling correlation study in the lower pane, highlighting the tight relationship over shorter time frames.

An increased bid for copper would support the current stock market rally, giving the global economy a clean bill of health. 

Dr. Copper will likely resolve in the same direction as the aussie heading into Friday’s close.

If it doesn't, the above chart suggests...

I understand that some people are lazy and don't like to count.

I get that.

Also, journalists are NOT in the business of telling you the truth. The truth is just a commodity at this point, and that's no longer a secret. Word's gotten out. So it's either gross sensationalism or false information to get you to consume their content.

And then, of course, you have your standard charlatans who need to cherry pick data and manipulate anchor points so that they don't look as foolish for missing this entire bull market.

So what ends up happening is that if you're told something enough times, and you haven't actually done the work, you start to believe it.

"It's only Tech stocks that are driving this market"

Sound familiar?

But for those of you who actually take the time to look, you know it obviously isn't true.

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.

To make the cut for our Minor Leaguers list now, 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 highs in order to...

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

Precious metal charts aren't painting a bullish picture for investors.

Silver is underperforming gold. The Gold Miners ETF $GDX is posting new all-time lows versus the broader market. And everywhere you look, individual gold mining stocks are breaking down.

Well, not all mining stocks. One chart continues to fly high…

We got stopped out of a Wells Fargo trade a couple of weeks ago, and it looks like that was the whipsaw it needed to shake weak hands out. And since I was shaken out, I consider myself among the weak hands squad. I'm ok with that.

But given what we've seen since we were stopped out, we're getting back in for another try. This time, with tighter risk management and a longer runway.

The S&P500, Dow Jones Industrial Average and Nasdaq100 all went out last week at new all-time highs. Again.

We're now officially in Month #20 of this bull market that began in June of 2022.

We've seen some corrections along the way, and my bet is that we see more of them this year.

One could argue that stocks have already been correcting over the past 6 weeks.

These are the registration details for our Live Monthly Candlestick Strategy Session for Premium Members of All Star Charts.

This month’s Video Conference Call will be held on Monday February 5th @ 6PM ET. As always, if you cannot make the call live, the video and slides will be archived and published here along with every other live call since 2015.

Here are the details for Monday evening: