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...

What a year, eh?

The S&P 500 posted its worst return since 2008!

I think it's fair to say that if your portfolio survived 2022, you're doing a great job.

You even outperformed most funds and equity managers. Just think how well you can do in a more favorable environment.

To that point, just because it was a bad year for markets doesn't mean it had to be a bad year for YOU.

We had a resting GTC order filled in the Paid-to-Play portfolio today:

The next new position in our Paid-to-Play portfolio is:

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

Happy New Year, and welcome to 2023!

What I try to do at the start of the year is to not allow my bias cloud my judgment. I try to stay focused on price and let the market guide me. I'm not overly bullish. But I will let the market tell the story, and I will follow along.

The market is the leader, and I'm just the follower.

So, as they say, let the journey begin.

The most notable insider activity on today's list came in separate Form 4 filings by the CEO and one of the directors of B. Riley Financial $RILY.

Over $900,000 worth of stock purchases were reported by the two insiders.

For over a decade, stocks in the United States outperformed Commodities by a long shot.

In fact, Commodities underperformed for so long, that many investors even forgot that they were an asset class.

"Stocks and Bonds JC!", they would tell me.

And I would say, "No kids, it's Stocks, Bonds AND Commodities".

Did you get through our entire Gold Report?

What did you think?

Shoot me a note and let us know!

Today I want to talk about relative outperformance.

You see, in bull markets, assets not only do well on an absolute basis, but they also tend to outperform their alternatives.

I don't know if you noticed, but Gold just went out for the year at its highest levels ever relative to U.S. Treasury Bonds.

Gold is also making new 6-month highs relative to U.S. Stocks:

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.

Here is a list of trade ideas organized by date, ticker symbol and directional bias. Please make sure you have clicked on the link and read the details surrounding the trade before acting upon any of them. Also, make sure you have checked with your financial advisor and tax accountants to make sure you are suitable to be executing what is discussed on this website. The risk management procedures and targets are detailed for each idea. Please read and review the terms and conditions page before making any trades of your own.

Was 2022 such a hard year in the market like the media keeps telling you?

Or was it just a normal year that was hard, because every year is hard?

I think about this a lot.

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.