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.
Escape velocity is defined as the minimum speed that is required for an object to free itself from the gravitational force exerted by a massive object.
I can't think of a better image to describe Bitcoin; after months of chopsolidation, the crypto market is finally gaining sufficient traction to push itself beyond the influence of the bear winter.
Most of us somehow know people who still consume basic cable television news.
It's like watching someone who's obese shop at the grocery store, buying all their cereal and "fat free" cookies. It's terrible.
It's like seeing the alcoholic walk into the bar at noon and the bartender automatically knows to serve him the regular 2 shots and a beer.
The cable news people are the bartenders giving you the poison that you desire, at the worst possible time that they could possibly serve it to you.
It's like walking into a casino in Reno, NV to see people who have no money, are in terrible health, and have no business being inside a casino, sitting there all afternoon putting money into slot machines.
This is what the sick individuals who still consume basic cable news are doing to themselves.
It's sad to watch them struggle so much and slowly kill themselves. You may not see it easily on the outside, but their souls are dying or already dead on the inside.
The good news is there are fewer and fewer of these suffering individuals left who are still poisoning themselves in these antiquated ways.
You're overthinking the whole dollar and oil connection.
As a trader, I love finding intermarket relationships to guide the way I look at markets. While those links matter, I have to remember that they aren’t set in stone. They change as the world changes.
War and energy production can really shake up these correlations.
In early 2022, the correlation between the dollar and oil hit a 20-year high.
Perhaps this is just my own personal Waterloo, but there seems to be history of market turbulence whenever I travel and am away from my main trading station.
Next week will be a travel week for me. I'll be attending Stocktoberfest in Coronado Island, back home for one day in the middle of the week, then back on the road heading to Seattle. And this being October, when "surprises" seem most often to occur, I'm a little on edge about my mostly long-leaning portfolio.
So today's trade is a simple bearish bet in a weak name that may offer some cushion if things do get slippery next week.
Did you notice that the journalists are catching on to these trends that have been in place for so long?
And not just any journalists. The most reliable contrarian indicators in the history of financial publications are telling you that the U.S. is the Envy of the World and they expect it to keep going - even after a decade and a half of this...
Here's the exact quote:
"The American economy has left other rich countries in the dust. Expect that to continue" - The Economist
