Many stocks are no where near their all-time highs.

The S&P500 still needs to rally 25% just to get back to its former highs. And that's after the 10% rally that we've already seen in October.

The Nasdaq100 would need to go up another 43% from here just to get back to its highs. And again, that's after it already ripped 12% off its lows this month.

Remember, the average Nasdaq stock fell 44% from its highs during the bear market. The average small & micro cap stock dropped about 50%.

And since most stocks are so far from their highs, investors are having a hard time calling this a bull market.

"They need to make new all-time highs for it to be a bull market", they say to me.

So ok, let's play that game.

None of these prices here below were new all-time highs. So was this a bear market then?

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

That was a nice follow-through day for the indices.

The SPX hit resistance around the 3,850 level, and you have the 50-day moving average at roughly 3,868.

From the desk of Willie Delwiche.

Stocks and bonds are enduring one of their worst years on record. Yet the St. Louis Fed’s Financial Stress Index dropped to never before seen levels. It’s off its lows but still indicates less stress in the financial system than at any previous point in the past quarter century.   

Why It Matters: Aggressive tightening by central banks around the world has pushed sovereign yields higher and kept interest rate spreads subdued. That has made financial stress less apparent. Until this changes, there is little impetus for the Fed to pivot away from its intense focus on bringing down inflation.    

In taking a Deeper Look we see how the specific characteristics of this cycle may be masking signs of stress that are present just beyond the headlines.

We've adjusted a position in the Paid-to-Play portfolio today:

It's nearly that time when we get a fresh batch of monthly candlesticks.

We only perform this exercise once the candlesticks are completed. But, sometimes, you want to cheat and peep a few days early.

What's great about monthly candlesticks is that it takes us a mere half hour to get through them all, which is only six hours a year.

We can't emphasize enough the level of value-add for such a brief amount of time.

It forces us to take a step back, and it gives us no choice but to identify the direction of the primary trends. We use them to put shorter-term trends into context, which is especially important in this choppy price action.

So, no matter your time frame, identifying primary trends and then working from there is a huge advantage over a blind bottom-up approach.

In the current state of the crypto markets, the overwhelming majority of names are in greater than 80% drawdowns.

Solana is down 90%.

Cardano is down 90%.

Fantom is down 95%.

Harmony is down 96%.

These are substantial drawdowns, and this is one of the most severe crypto bear markets by drawdown, loss realization, and capital...

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

The market held overnight, which is a good sign.

We're now back to the levels seen in early October on the SPX. Support for the $SPY is at 374.8, with resistance at 380, then 386.

The largest insider transaction on today’s list is a Form 4 filing by FB Financial Corporation $FBK Chairman of the Board James Ayers.

Ayers reported a purchase worth roughly $1.9 million.

How do we know if we're in a bull market or not?

Generally speaking, more stocks are going up than going down in bull markets.

And sure, there are a lot of different ways to quantify it, but this is really the gist of it: Are more stocks going up or are more of them going down?

It really is that simple.

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @sstrazza and Alfonso Depablos @AlfCharts

This is one of our favorite bottom-up scans: Follow the Flow.

In this note, we simply create a universe of stocks that experienced the most unusual options activity — either bullish or bearish, but not both.

We utilize options experts, both internally and through our partnership with The TradeXchange. Then, we dig through the level 2 details and do all the work upfront for our clients.

Our goal is to isolate only those options market splashes that represent levered and high-conviction, directional bets.

We also weed out hedging activity and ensure there are no offsetting trades that either neutralize or cap the risk on these unusual options trades.

What remains is a list of stocks that large financial institutions are putting big money behind.

And they’re doing so for one reason only: because they think...

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Welcome to our latest Minor Leaguers report.

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, 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...

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Check out this week's Momentum Report, our weekly summation of all the major indexes at a Macro, International, Sector, and Industry Group level.

By analyzing the short-term data in these reports, we get a more tactical view of the current state of markets. This information then helps us put near-term developments into the big-picture context and provides insights regarding the structural trends at play.

Let's jump right into it with some of the major takeaways from this week's report:

* ASC Plus Members can access the Momentum Report by clicking the link at the bottom of this post.

Macro Universe:

• Our macro universe was positive this week, with 77% of our list closing higher with a median return of 2.96%.
• Lumber $LB was the winner again, closing with a 9.11% gain.
• The biggest loser was the Volatility Index $VIX, with a weekly loss of -7.28%.
• There was a 3% drop in the percentage of assets on our list within 5% of their 52-week highs – currently at 6%.
• Only 51% of our macro list made fresh 4-week highs....

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Our Top 10 Charts Report was just published.

In this weekly note, we highlight 10 of the most important charts or themes we're currently seeing in asset classes around the world.

They Can’t Break the Banks

Unlike most industry groups, community banks never completed a top, as price has remained above the pivot lows from last year. Additionally, momentum has not reached oversold conditions during the current bear cycle. If this range remains intact, the world isn't coming to an end any time soon.