The market just had a stress test, and gold passed it.

Now, what's next?

We've been monitoring the strength of the United States dollar, which has added to the selling pressure on gold. 

First, check out how helpful this intermarket relationship has been recently:

So JC just got back from a family trip to Disney and all he can talk about is "what a racket" Disney is.

Everything is overpriced, yet people pay. And they pay happily.

It sounds like a pretty good business -- especially if you're an investor.

Of course, we aren't investors here. But all this talk about Disney has us looking at the chart and we like the setup. 

So we're going to get involved.

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

1. No new positions today.
2. Rolled XLE to February options.
3. No exits since the last report.
4. Current status of open campaigns.
5. Volatility Snapshot.

Let’s dig in!

Don't Fight Papa Dow. That's how I learned it.

And it's not just about the Dow Jones Industrial Average itself. It's the 30 stocks that make up the index that we're even more interested in.

If you get the direction of these 30 stocks right, you'll get the market right.

Don't believe me? Go overlay a chart of the S&P500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average. They're the same.

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza.

Welcome back to Under the Hood, where we'll cover all the action for the two weeks ended December 20, 2024. This report is published bi-weekly, in rotation with The Minor Leaguers.

What we do here is analyze the most popular stocks during the week and find opportunities to either join in and ride these momentum names higher, or fade the crowd and bet against them.

We use a variety of sources to generate the list of most popular names.

I just got back from a week in Disney with a 4yr old and twin 2yr olds. Wow what a workout! 

The experience further reiterated why I'm long $DIS and why I'm going to buy more.

They got some racket going down there in Florida. $12 hot dogs? $15 popcorn? And lines around the corner with people waiting to buy them?

That's some hustle they got. Good for them.

The way I see it, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em right? You can get frustrated by the money suck if you want, or you can be a shareholder and profit right along with them. I chose the latter when I got back from this Disney trip a year ago.

But let me tell you this, the $12 hot dogs and $300 princess dresses are NOT why I'm long the stock. 

It's that the republicans hate it. They don't like how "woke" the company has gotten. 

And since we know that humans have a hard time separating a company and a stock, there is money to be made here by exploiting those who let their politics and "morals" influence their decision making in public markets.

This year's Santa Claus Rally Period starts on Tuesday.

To clear up any confusion, the official period for the annual Santa Claus Rally includes the last 5 trading days of the year and the first 2 of the following year, for a total of 7 days.

Since 1950, the S&P500 has averaged a 1.3% gain during this period. And if you want to take it back further, since 1928 we've seen an average gain of 1.6%. This compares to just a 0.2% gain for any other random 7 day period throughout the rest of the year. 

Every year is slightly different, depending on which days Christmas and New Years fall on the Calendar. 

The last 5 days of 2024 begin this Tuesday December 24th. And the first 2 days of next year include January 2nd and 3rd. So the official 7 day period this year goes from December 24th - January 3rd. 

And while traditionally, this is a much more bullish time of the year, compared to other periods, the bigger concern is if Santa doesn't show up.

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.

Did you see how many stocks made new lows this week?

It wasn't many.

When you look at how dramatic people have been about a few stocks selling off a little bit, you would think that an actual correction might be taking place in the market.

But if you thought that humans act logically, then you clearly don't know humans.

Irrational behavior is actually the only thing that the market guarantees. And you saw it again this week.

I mean, you didn't even get an expansion of stocks making new lows!

This was nothing.

All you have to do is go and count. You'll quickly see how the new 52-week lows list is almost non-existent. In fact, you saw fewer new 52-week lows on the NYSE this week than you did in early August.

But if you look even shorter-term, say new 3-month lows, you didn't seen any sort of expansion there either.

Look at the total new 3-month lows among Large-caps, Mid-caps and Small-caps. 

Mr. Market keeps sending us inflationary signals. Have you noticed?

Last Friday, we talked about cattle futures potentially leading bond yields higher. 

Boy, was that the case this week as bond yields soared on the heels of an FOMC meeting.

We've also talked about a rotation into the energy sector, which has been in the penalty box for most of this bull market.