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

1. New position in EFA.
2. No adjustments are needed today.
3. No exits since the last report.
4. Current status of open campaigns.
5. Volatility Snapshot.

Let’s dig in!

It has been a blockbuster year for precious metals, and the latest monthly and quarterly closes reiterated it.

The entire precious metals complex is breaking out of long-term bases. 

These patterns are the classic signature of new secular bull markets. 

Gold rang the bell first, but now its peers are joining the charge.

Let’s dive into what the data is showing us.

I had a thought this morning while considering a few trades:

Maybe part of why I still struggle at trading sometimes is because there’s a part of me that really, really wants to follow an instruction manual to be successful.

In other areas of my life, that mindset serves me well.

I don’t know how to cook—but give me step-by-step directions, and I thrive. When we used to get HelloFresh boxes delivered, I crushed those meals. I followed the instructions, made something delicious and useful for my family, and felt like a total champ.

Following the instructions = success. I like that. I crave that.

But trading isn’t like that.

I can lay out a well-thought-out plan—how to select the trade, how to size it, how to manage it—and still lose money.

The market doesn’t care that I followed the recipe.

There’s no gold star just for executing cleanly.

And yeah, I know a successful outcome in trading is supposed to mean I followed my plan with discipline. I know.

But that doesn’t make a loss feel any better. Which leads to the uncomfortable question I’ve been sitting with:

If I only thrive when I have a proven...

You’ve probably heard the phrase “Wall of Worry".

It’s when the stock market keeps grinding higher, even when everything and everyone screams it shouldn’t.

Whether it’s geopolitical tensions in the Middle East, trade wars, rate cut debates, or even how bad the economy supposedly is.

None of this has stopped this market from doing what it’s been doing lately.

The S&P 500 just joined the growing list of indexes around the world that are printing fresh all-time highs.

This recent rally has been built on fear. On headlines convincing people that stocks can’t go higher. And yet… they do. Over and over again.

What’s more bullish than that?

Seriously.

New highs don’t happen in downtrends. Period.

This is exactly what healthy market environments look like.

The crowd waiting for the perfect pullback just keeps getting left...

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.

Nowadays, 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 new...

I'm traveling to Toronto with JC, Steve, and the rest of the team in September. It only makes sense that I should continue adding Canadian exposure to my portfolio. 

I wouldn't want to be an impolite guest, would I?

Today's trade is in a speculative Minerals Miner from Canada.

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

1. No new positions today.
2. Rolling XLC to August Options.
3. Closed XLI position.
4. Current status of open campaigns.
5. Volatility Snapshot.

Let’s dig in!

Welcome back for another Top Down Trade of the Week. 

This is a classic leadership scan.

We start with the best sectors, then drill into the subgroups. We pick one, and then take a look at the top stocks in it. 

This week, Financials is the big standout—climbing five spots in our sector rankings.

While Technology holds the top spot, it’s worth highlighting Financials this week. 

The consolidation in the Financial Sector SPDR $XLF is likely to resolve higher soon- just like Technology $XLK, Communications $XLC, and Industrials $XLI did this week. 

These are all very different sectors, but they share one critical thing in common. These groups all represent risk appetite. 

The market is on offense right now, so we’re going to keep fishing in risk-on areas. 

...

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.

We’ve been pounding the table on Copper futures since China started ripping last year.

However, it has been a slower start than we anticipated.

Now, our patience is being rewarded... We're seeing evidence that the trade is heating up.

Copper futures are trading at fresh all-time highs as they play catch-up with Gold futures.

We're also beginning to see the Copper miners play catch-up to the underlying commodity.

This has been on our radar for months, but we've only recently seen significant changes.

The red line represents Copper futures, and the blue candlesticks represent the Global X Copper Miners ETF $COPX. 

Historically, these two have danced together.

However, that relationship broke down earlier this year as the futures reached new...

New highs and bull flags. 

That’s the picture of the market right now.

The Nasdaq is printing all-time highs. The S&P is knocking on the door. Semiconductors, Industrials, Communications—you name it—they’re all breaking out together.

The playbook has been simple. 

New highs… followed by bull flags… followed by more new highs.

This is what bull markets look like.

And right now, we’re seeing these bullish continuation patterns everywhere.

One group that we think is the next to go is Discretionary.

XLY is coiled up right at its former highs from 2021.