During the gold rush of the 1800's, there were fortunes made by some who were digging for and discovering gold.

But the REAL money was made by the entrepreneurs who were selling the pics and shovels to those gold speculators.

Along this similar train of thought, there are more than just semiconductor manufacturers that are going to benefit from the massive amount of investment done in the Artificial Intelligence space.

Today's trade is a year-long bet in one area that is starting to get attention by the AI players.

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Welcome to The 2 to 100 Club.

In this scan, we look to identify the strongest growth stocks as they climb the market-cap ladder from small- to mid- to large- and, ultimately, to mega cap status (over $200B).

Once they graduate from small-cap to mid-cap status (over $2B), they come on our radar. Likewise, when they surpass the roughly $30B mark, they roll off our list.

But the scan doesn't just end there.

We only want to look at the strongest growth industries in the market, as that is typically where these potential 50-baggers come from.

Some of the best performers in recent decades – stocks like Priceline, Amazon, Netflix, Salesforce, and myriad others – would have been on this list at some point during their journey to becoming the market behemoths they are today.

When you look at the stocks in our table, you'll notice we're only focused on Technology and Growth industry groups such as Software, Semiconductors, Online...

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

1. New position in TLT.
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!

Earnings season used to be a time I didn't necessarily look forward to as a swing trader.

On the one hand, I've always viewed it as great for bringing volatility and movement to the markets -- which traders thrive on for making money.

On the other hand, I was always uneasy about holding open swing trades overnight into a binary earnings reaction.

I learned this unease in my early trading years when I traded stocks for the very simple reason that my good-til-canceled stop loss order was meaningless in the event of an overnight gap through my stop loss level. I didn't have as much control as I'd like. In fact, in these situations, I had none.

It's taken me some years to warm up to the fact that I don't necessarily need this same mindset when trading defined risk options positions and spreads.

Yes, I can still lose money if a stock gaps through my risk management level (the level I predetermined at which I would close my losing position). But if my risk was defined -- meaning I know the maximum I can lose, and no more -- then an earnings gap in my face will only result in a loss that is more or less like any other loss I take.

I generally keep...

Do you want to find the fastest moving stocks every day? 

These are stocks that never would have gotten on your radar.

Want to learn how? 

We’ll show you exactly the way to do it on Wednesday, October 16, at 2:30 p.m. ET.

I'll see you there!

...

The crypto community has done a terrible job of educating people what the hell all these tokens do.

Let's face it, none of us have time to dig through hundreds of whitepapers full of complex jargon.

The end result is no one knows what all these tokens do.

This is a problem.

But I think I have a solution.

On today's Flow Show, Steve Strazza and I discussed the two different markets we are each experiencing. He's experiencing one of great breakouts and follow-through. I'm experiencing one of frustration.

Same stock market, different results. That is information. We get into it.

This bull market appears to be on the verge of another leg higher and it might be led by the financials. We both liked the idea of finding alpha down the cap scale in smaller regional banks to participate.

Here's a daily chart of U.S. Bancorp $USB:

Today, the stock is printing fresh 52-week highs. 

However, it should be noted that U.S. Bancorp announces earnings before the market opens tomorrow. This introduces binary risk that we need to be aware of and this will affect my position sizing (hint: trading smaller than I normally would).

But we're not going to let earnings keep us away. We feel it could be just the catalyst this stock needs to follow through on this breakout and make a run at $60 per share, or higher.

Here's the Play:

I like buying $USB March 50 calls for approximately $2.30 per...

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

1. No new positions today.
2. Rolled KRE into December options.
3. Exited GDX for a profit.
4. Current status of open campaigns.
5. Volatility Snapshot.

Let’s dig in!

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 October 11, 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.

There are so many new data sources available that all we need to do is organize and curate them in a way that shows us exactly what we want: a list of stocks that are seeing an unusual increase in investor interest.

Click here for a behind-the-scenes look at our process.

Whether we’re measuring increasing interest based on large institutional purchases, unusual options activity, or simply our proprietary lists of trending tickers, there’...

Earlier this year we wrote about platinum futures gearing up for a breakout as gold futures were printing fresh all-time highs.

So far the trade has been a dud as the price action has been a rangebound mess.

But the former powerhouse is setting up for us to take another swing at it.

Let's talk about the little silver:

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

What's better than a Bitcoin miner short squeeze?

Some of our best trades have come from these stocks as they can make dramatic moves in both directions.

Our crypto desk recently wrote "it appears this seven month bear market is reaching its concluding stages." 

With that in mind, what're we buying?

We're buying a leader in the crypto mining industry with a double-digit short interest and warrants to juice our returns even more.

Let's talk about it:
 

...the higher in space.

Today's trade is in household name that is emerging from a 3-year base and on the verge of new all-time highs.

Due to earnings on the horizon, we'll be utilizing a spread to keep our costs in check and take advantage of some relative high options premium in out-of-the-money calls.