In today's Daily Digest, we'll review:

1. No new position today.
2. Defensive adjustment in TLT.
3. No exits since the last report.
4. Current status of open campaigns.

Let's dig in!

From the Desk of Steve Strazza and Alfonso Depablos

The first transaction on today’s list comes from a Form 4 filing by Olema Pharmaceuticals Inc $OLMA director Graham Walmsley.

Walmsley reported a purchase of OLMA shares with a total value of $6.8 million.

During bull markets, the leading stocks tend to remain leaders longer than most investors can fathom.

That's just how markets work.

This cycle Nvidia has been a big winner. It was one of the first to break out to new all-time highs. And it's been one of the best performers, despite its massive $1.2 Trillion market cap.

That's the exact definition of a market leader. And our bet is that it continues to hold that title:

This is the video recording of the December 2023 Mid-month Conference Call.

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

I’ve had palladium on my mind for a while – long before gold posted a new all-time high.

Why palladium?

It all started with an extreme Commitment of Traders (COT) profile…

One of the things we like to do repeatedly at All Star Charts is position ourselves in leading stocks in leading sectors. Just writing that out may sound completely obvious to some, but too often I see traders trying to get cute to find the "undiscovered gems" that will be the next big winner.

Call me old-fashioned, but I prefer getting involved in stocks that are already doing what we want them to do, and I want to let inertia take over.

Today's trade in Southern Copper is one in which both inertia and "magnets" may play a part in delivering gains to us.

In today's Daily Digest, we'll review:

1. No new position today.
2. Defensive adjustment in IWM.
3. No exits since the last report.
4. Current status of open campaigns.

Let's dig in!

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

I’ve had palladium on my mind for a while – long before gold posted a new all-time high.

Why palladium?

It all started with an extreme Commitment of Traders (COT) profile…

Check out the longer-term chart of palladium futures with the COT in the lower pane:

Commercial hedgers posted a new record-long position back in April.

Notice the sustained trends following similar commercial positions in 2012, 2016, and 2018. 

Commercials represent the strongest hands with the deepest pockets. Plus, they have inside knowledge of the supply and demand dynamics of the market in question. It’s OK to think of them as “smart money.” 

But record-long positioning isn’t a signal on its own. It doesn’t help us define our risk. It simply indicates the market structure.

Case in point: Record-breaking long positioning became the norm for commercials as price continued to fall throughout the year.

Holding a long position since the spring required deep pockets and proved a painful opportunity cost.

But the pain of owning palladium is likely behind us as long as the futures...

From the Desk of Steve Strazza and Alfonso Depablos

The most significant transaction on today’s list comes in a Form 4 filing by Chipotle Mexican Grill $CMG director Gregg Engles.

Engles reported a purchase of $2 millions in CMG.

As we always like to say around here, it's a market of stocks.

When we refer to "the stock market", let's remember that there are 500, or so, stocks in the S&P500. There are 3000 stocks in the Russell3000.

It's a market of stocks.

That's how we knew the market started to improve 18 months ago, because the list of stocks making new lows peaked in June 2022.

Even in the most recent correction in Q3 this year, the new lows list peaked on October 3rd.

On the other side of that formula is the list of stocks making new highs.

The list of stocks on the NYSE making new highs is the longest its been in over 30 months.

The list of stocks making new highs keeps getting longer. The list of...

I've been getting emails and messages all year about how it's possible that Wall Street could have gotten this year so wrong.

The financial media with all their gloom and doom has missed the entire bull market.

How could they be so dumb? How could they have been so wrong?

Let me be clear: They are not dumb. They are not trying to avoid being wrong.

It's malicious.