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.

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

Welcome to the Short Report.

This is the video recording of the April 17, 2024, Hot Corner Insider Weekly Strategy Session.

From the Desk of Steve Strazza and Alfonso Depablos

The only insider transaction on today’s list comes in a 13D filing by the Wellington Management fund Bay Pond Partners.

The hedge fund revealed an initial active stake of 5.01% in Redwood Trust $RWT.

This market is just NOT like it was in 2023.

It's much different.

I've said it right here hundreds of time already.

But today's chart of the day really shows this well, reiterating why it's so important to adapt to changing markets.

Here is the S&P500 with a line plotted below it. This line represents the percentage of stocks in the index that are in longer-term uptrends, but are NOT in short- to intermediate-term uptrends.

From the Desk of Steve Strazza and Alfonso Depablos

The largest insider transaction on today’s list comes in multiple Form 4 filings by the CEO, the general counsel, and the executive vice president of operations of Science Applications International Corporation $SAIC.

Among them the three directors revealed combined purchases of $490,670 in SAIC shares.

Gold is one of the biggest winners so far in 2024.

But you can argue that it's really the commodities complex that is leading, and Gold is just one of them.

Check out the YTD returns here.

But the unwind in Gold stocks relative to other types of stocks looks to be just getting going.

Here is the Gold Bugs Index, which is loaded with all the top mining stocks, compared to the S&P500.

Notice the dramatic underperformance for so long, followed by a failed breakdown, and now the squeeze is just getting started:

I have three big ideas to take advantage of the current markets.

It's pretty obvious to everyone now that this year is not like last year.

Some people are pretending it still is.

You are welcome to lie to yourself if you'd like.

But I have the data.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average is flat so far in 2024. Small-caps are actually still down.

It's Crude Oil, Silver, Gold and Copper leading the way:

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 April 12, 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.

There is a big theme going on right now - and that's the inability for important indexes to get above their 2021 highs.

You're seeing it at the individual stock level, you're seeing it across specific sectors and industry groups, and you're definitely seeing it in the S&P500 and Nasdaq100 Equally-weighted.

These indexes below eliminate the excessive weightings in certain stocks and sectors and equally-weight all of its components.

Look at both of them still stuck below their 2021 highs:

From the Desk of Steve Strazza and Alfonso Depablos

The largest insider move on today’s list comes via Form 4 filing by Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway.

Buffett and Berkshire reported purchases in The Liberty SiriusXM Group $LSXMA for a total amount of $50 million.

This just in: It's getting more expensive for people to get fat.

While many investors are more confused than ever looking at "CPI", whatever that is, the real inflation gauge is giving off a serious warning.

Inflation is here.

Look at the price of Big Macs at McDonald's skyrocketing:

The disaster for the Dow Jones Industrial Average continues.

Yesterday the Dow closed at a new 52-week low, priced in "Real" Money.

When you look at the Dow priced in Fiat Currency, it's also acting weak, actually DOWN since the start of February.

Here's what that looks like: