Some things are changing.

Have you noticed?

Let's keep something in mind. During healthy market environments, you historically see correlations falling.

It's when volatility spikes in bear markets that correlations all go to 1.

So are these recent divergences just further evidence that this is a strong market for stocks?

The breadth expansion and sector rotation we keep seeing certainly points to that.

So let's take a look.

I've been at this for 20 years. I've seen a lot of uptrends and bull markets in my day. I've studied many more that came before me.

Along the way, do you know what you'll find a lot of in bull markets?

New 52-week highs.

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

Our Hall of Famers list is composed of the 150 largest US-based stocks.

These stocks range from the mega-cap growth behemoths like Apple and Microsoft – with market caps in excess of $2T – to some of the new-age large-cap disruptors such as Moderna, Square, and Snap.

It has all the big names and more.

It doesn’t include ADRs or any stock not domiciled in the US. But don’t worry; we developed a separate universe for that. You can click here to check it out.

The Hall of Famers is simple.

We take our list of 150 names and then apply our technical filters so the strongest stocks with the most momentum rise to the top.

Let’s dive right in and check out what these big boys are up to.

Here’s this week’s list:

Click table to enlarge view

We filter out any laggards that are down -5% or more relative to the S&P 500 over the trailing month. ...

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

The morning session turned into a consolidation after the recent breakout in $SPY.

Powell spoke at 11:00 a.m. ET, so stocks were in wait-and-see mode.

Uncle Warren strikes again…

Berkshire Hathaway $BRK.A has filed another Form 4 for Occidental Petroleum $OXY, this time revealing a purchase worth $201 million.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

$SPY broke the February 2 highs, and we're almost at the 421.22 gap-fill.

Maybe we see that level today.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

It was a wild day in the market.

We ran right to resistance on $SPY at 417.50 and moved a tad higher from there.

We came close to the February highs but didn't quite touch that level.

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

When investing in the stock market, we always want to approach it as "a market of stocks."

Regardless of the environment, there are always stocks showing leadership and trending higher.

We may have to look harder to identify them depending on current market conditions. But there are always stocks that are going up.

The same can be said for weak stocks. Regardless of the environment, there are always stocks that are going down, too. 

We already have multiple scans focusing on stocks making all-time highs, such as Hall of Famers, Minor Leaguers, and the 2 to 100 Club.

We filter these universes for stocks that are exhibiting the best momentum and relative strength characteristics. 

Clearly, we spend a lot of time identifying and writing about leading stocks every week, via multiple reports.

Now, we're also highlighting lagging stocks on a recurring basis.

Welcome to the Short Report.

We...

The largest insider buy on today’s list comes in a Form 4 filing by Kelcy Warren, co-founder and executive chairman of Energy Transfer $ET.

Warren reported an additional purchase of ET stock, this one worth $12.5 million.

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

Yesterday we broke out of this sideways channel on $SPY, and this morning the market is gapping up.

We have near-term resistance at 417.50 or so, which was the May 1 high.

Sector Rotation is the life blood of a bull market.

In the back half of last year, almost everything was working - except for some growth stocks and Tech.

Then came 2023. The best performers have been growth stocks and Tech.

That's what we mean by "sector rotation".

Last year they were all bitching about the fact that these Tech stocks and the Nasdaq weren't working, even through practically everything else was.

This year they're bitching that these Tech stocks are the only ones working (hint: they're not the only ones).

Large-cap Tech outperforming does not mean that market breadth is weakening. It just means that Large-cap Tech is outperforming.

This is classic sector rotation - a characteristic regularly found throughout bull markets.

So what comes next?

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

The market was full speed ahead, again, and we closed a gap above at $SPY 415.27.

SPY held support at 410 like a charm.