Here's one thing we know for a fact about the market:

In order to have a bear market, or a correction of any kind, you need the prices of stocks to be falling.

Fact. 

Without the prices of stocks falling, you cannot possibly have a bear market, or any kind of correction at all.

That's just how math works. 

So if one would take the time to count how many stocks are actually going down in price, one would have a better understanding as to whether or not stocks are correcting.

See how that works?

And while the list of new 52-week lows is still nonexistent, that doesn't mean stock prices aren't falling. So we want to look at shorter-term time horizons to see if we're seeing an increase in the number of stocks falling in price.

Currently, we are not seeing any expansion at all in the number of stocks whose prices are falling. Here are Large-caps, Mid-caps and Small-caps all within the same range of new lows that they've been in throughout this bull market:

We'll know if we're in a correction. You'll be able to just count and see for yourself.

And you'll see the list of new 1-month lows expanding, new 3-month...

If Semiconductors actually completed this massive top relative to the S&P500 then bull market cancelled.

Period.

For me, it was that simple. This is one of the largest and most important industry groups in America, and the rest of the world for that matter.

Losing Semi's would be like losing one of your legs. You wouldn't be able to walk anymore. 

This was a major topic of conversation last night during our first LIVE Conference Call of the year. You cannot miss this one. Click Here to access the replay,...

There's no way the S&P500 can rally again this year, right?

We just had 2 consecutive years of historic returns. The Nasdaq literally doubled since the end of 2022. 

Total Crypto Market-cap is now at $3.4 Trillion. It was only $750 Billion 2 years ago. You do the math!

The S&P500 was up 24% in 2023 and then up another 23% in 2024. 

How could things possibly get any better than this? I mean with the Fed, and the Inflation, and the Trump, and the Recession and the imminent crisis they all keep telling us about.

How could stocks possibly go up again in 2025? After the historic returns we just saw in back-to-back years?

Well, my friend...

It's a new year and the market is looking forward. 

It doesn't matter what happened last year, as far as our decisions are concerned. But let's not forget that humans are irrational, and they will certainly let the past year or two impact their decision making.

They can't help themselves. So it's up to us as traders and investors to extract those dollars for our own selfish reasons. 

We're here to make money. Period. Taking advantage of human flaws is a great way to do that, as I've been showing you here every day for over a decade. 

Yesterday we discussed the irrational behavior we're seeing from investors in the middle of a bull market. They're running scared, just as market breadth is improving to the upside, across multiple timeframes.

What...

The Retail Investors are scared to death. And that's a good thing.

We don't want individual investors too optimistic. That's when stocks sell off. It's when they're pessimistic and worried that you see the best forward returns.

Go back and see for yourself. It's all public information. These are the people we want to fade. This is the "Dumb" money, so to speak.

Dig this. The first sentiment data for the year just came out from the American Association of Individual Investors with the fewest number of bulls since April of last year.

In the middle of the bull market, they're crazy scared. 

Good.

Now keep in mind, this is specifically what they're saying. 

But what are they doing?

Well, the Put/Call Ratio just hit new 4-month highs. This means investors are buying insurance (Put options) at a much faster rate than they're betting on higher stock prices (Call options). 

That's also evidence that they're scared. Why else would you be buying insurance at such a fast rate?

Now, what else are they doing?

Active Investment Managers (NAAIM) have on the least amount of long exposure since...

The no coiners are back.

Have you noticed how every chance they get, they'll try to convince you that this is a major top for Bitcoin and the ponzi scheme is officially over?

The no coiners are angry like that. Imagine what it must be like to not have owned Bitcoin this entire time? Ouch.

Here's the "historic top" they're trying to scare you about. 

You tell me, does this look like the end of a major bull market, or does this just look like a normal healthy consolidation within an ongoing secular bull market?

There are opportunities in this space whether you trade Crypto currencies or not.

You've got the ETFs that track the price of Bitcoin and other tokens. You have the Crypto Miners like MARA and RIOT and others, which have presented us with several year-making opportunities this cycle. 

And of course, you have the infamous Microstrategy $MSTR, where Michael Saylor continues to buy more and more Bitcoin with every rally or dip. He does not discriminate. He just keeps on buying.

Here's a zoomed out look at Microstrategy so you can see this was just the highest quarterly close in the history of the company, even...

Tesla wins again. 

Elon has done his job better than any other CEO in the world.

The role of a CEO is to increase shareholder value. Period.

How about a 3000% return in a couple of years, followed by a few years digesting those gains. And then another 180% return from the lows this Spring, adding an additional $800 Billion in market-cap...

Here is a chart showing the highest monthly close in company history. Highest Quarterly close in company history. And the highest annual close in the history of Tesla.

This is what winning looks like:

We're in the heart of whipsaw hunting season.

Now is the time.

Every year we see an extended trend, going into late December, that extends just a bit too much, and then completely unwinds once the new year begins and the big portfolio managers are back at their desks.

Look at what happened to US Treasury Bonds at the end of 2013. Look at what happened to Gold and precious metals at the end of 2015. And look at Large-cap Growth stocks at the end of 2022. 

These are just a few examples, just to give you an idea of the power of the end-of-year whipsaw.

So because of experiences like these throughout my investing career, I've made it a point to look for the leading candidates for this end-of-year period that I call "Whipsaw Hunting Season".

We're hunting for this year's epic whipsaw, like the bond ripper in 2014, the Rally in Precious metals in early 2016 and the historic returns of Large-cap Growth stocks in early 2023.

We don't know for sure until after the fact, but this year's leading candidate, to me, has to be the US Dollar.

We have an extended trend. The dumbest money in the world is betting on a stronger...

I've learned a lot of lessons over many years in the market and I've got war stories for days. 

But with what we do today, I just like to cut right to the chase. I'm going to share my worst defeats and hardest lessons so you can learn from them, just like I did, and hopefully sooner., 

We all have to learn one way or another. 

Today we're talking about the most important companies in America. But what exactly does that mean? Most important? 

It's so open ended and subjective. 

When I was a lot younger, call it 15-18 years ago, I hadn't learned to recognize the sum of the parts of the market. It hadn't hit me yet that it's a market of stocks. It's not just a "stock market". 

This really set me back at the time. I was being too narrow minded and focused on what the media was pointing me to. I wasn't running those numbers myself deciding what actually mattered and what was just noise. 

And when I finally understood that it takes stocks going up in prices to drive the indexes higher, I started to pay more attention to the prices of those stocks. 

But which stocks do we focus more of our...

It's been a historic bull market for stocks - One of the best periods to own equities in American history. I hope you participated along with us.

But believe it or not, the U.S. was not the biggest winner. There are other parts of the world that have actually outperformed U.S. equities - both the S&P500 and the Nasdaq100 returns. 

Look at the Tel Aviv 125 Index, for example, breaking out of this multi-year base to new all-time highs:

You may have heard by now. The so called, "Buffett Indicator" is flashing what we're being told are "warning signals" of an imminent market collapse.

It is the "Buffett Indicator" after all. And Warren Buffett is one of the all-time greats.

But let me fill you in on a little secret. The only people who actually care about this ridiculous excuse for a "market gauge" are journalists writing their glorified gossip columns and charlatans trying to do their best to scare you. 

That's it.

They claim that the "Buffett Indicator" is this magical signal based on a ratio between the total market-cap of U.S. stocks relative to U.S. GDP. 

It's so hilarious that even Charlie Munger came out and said that, "Just because Warren thought of something 20 years ago doesn't make it a law of nature. There is no natural correlation between GDP & Corporate Profits"
 

The "Buffett Indicator" is not a thing. Not even the guy who it's named after thinks it's relevant. 

Meanwhile, here's a chart of Berkshire Hathaway chugging along in a strong uptrend making higher highs and...

During this time of the year, I find myself thinking back on the prior 12 months. It's hard not to right?

I wanted to send a short note today reminding everyone to look around. Understand what is happening out there and why it's been happening. 

This year more than ever, we are grateful for the permabears, who are so darn good at convincing all those gullible sheep to fight a perfectly good bull market, that it's helped the rest of us make so much more money.

The S&P500 is up 28% this year. The Nasdaq100 is up 30%. This is after the 2023 returns of 26% for the S&P500 and 54% for the Nasdaq100. 

They cried and cried about a recession. But all we got was the Nasdaq literally doubling in total value.

These are historic returns that have rarely ever been seen in American history. 

But I have to say, if it wasn't for these angry permabears promising you a crisis every day the past 2+ years, our returns would not have been as good.

If Wall Street sell side analysts weren't so bad at their jobs, these gains would likely not be anywhere near what they've been.

If economists didn't put on blindfolds when walking into...