From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Welcome to The Minor Leaguers.

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.

Nowadays, to make the cut for our Minor Leaguers list, a company must have a market cap between $1 and $4B.

We're seeing stocks go up.

In bull markets, that actually happens quite often.

We just saw new all-time highs in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P500 (market-cap weighted), S&P500 (equally-weighted), NYSE Composite Index, NYSE Advance-Decline and so much more. Check that out here.

But it's not just a U.S. thing. Look at all the other countries around the world.

This table below shows all the ACWI markets and where their prices are relative to various moving averages - ranging from short-term (10-day) up to long-term (200-day).

Notice how all the developed markets are above all of their moving averages, no matter how short-term or long-term they are:

It's a big week for Semiconductors.

Nvidia, the largest of all of them by far, reports their earnings this Wednesday 8/28.

We're hosting a LIVE stream starting at 3:45PM ET Wednesday as we monitor the market's reaction to what is probably the most important earnings report of the quarter.

In fact, we think this earnings release is so important, that we put together a FREE Nvidia Earnings Preview to get you prepared for Wednesday's big event.

Again, to be clear, we're not so much interested in the numbers themselves (i.e. Revenues, EPS, etc), but it's actually how the market reacts to those earnings that we're most focused on.

And we want you to be prepared.

You can download our NVDA Earnings Preview here.

Imagine waking up every day trying to make up reasons for why it's bearish when the Equally-weighted S&P500 is making new all-time highs?

There are people out there who are purposely going out of their way to blatantly lie to people about how historically bearish it is when market breadth is expanding, and more and more stocks are making new highs.

It's like a weird fetish or something. These people need help.

Here's what they're so angry about and why they think the market is about to fall apart:

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

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. 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:

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

The best short squeezes always start with a burst of momentum.

These moves are often sparked by a headline or news-related catalyst.

The price action in Peloton $PTON yesterday was an excellent example of this dynamic.

After reporting earnings Thursday, Peloton screamed higher and registered its best single-day performance in history.

While the report was nothing extra special, it was the first time the exercise bike maker beat on both the top and bottom line since May 2021.

When sentiment is this sour, sometimes "less bad" is all it takes.

PTON rallied 35% on the heels of the report, and with such a massive short interest, we think it's just getting started.

Here's the chart with the 1-day rate of change in the lower pane:

The Equally-weighted S&P500 is on pace to close the week at a new all-time high.

Based on the early trading in U.S. Markets, and the strength we're seeing in equities around the world, this looks like it's going to happen by the end of today.

Think about it like this: Mathematically it cannot be only 7 stocks going up if the Equally-weighted S&P500 is making new all-time highs.

It's just math.

And this really just speaks to the broadening participation across the market.

Just last month we saw the most amount of stocks hitting new 52-week highs that we've seen in years - on both the Nasdaq AND on the NYSE.

We also so the most amount of stocks on the NYSE that were above their 200 day moving average than at any point this entire bull market.

You cannot tell me that things are getting worse, if mathematically things just keep getting better.

And I preface with all this because when you zoom out, these mega-cap leaders are still drivers of this market.

They're just not the only ones.

But Nvidia is an absolute beast. This thing is now valued at $3 Trillion.

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

We love our bottoms-up scans here at All Star Charts. We tend to get really creative when making new universes as we want to be sure they will deliver us the best opportunities the market has to offer.

However, when it comes to this one, it couldn't be any simpler!

With the goal of finding more bullish setups, we have decided to expand one of our favorite scans and broaden our regular coverage of the largest US stocks.

Welcome to The Junior Hall of Famers.

This scan is composed of the next 150 largest stocks by market cap, those that come after the top 150 and are thus covered by the Hall of Famers universe. Many of these names will someday graduate and join our original Hall Of Famers list. The idea here is to catch these big trends as early on as possible.

There is no need to overcomplicate things. Market cap is a quality filter at the end of the day. It only grows if price is rising. That's good enough for us.

If you're like me and you have a bullish long-term bias towards Bitcoin and other Crypto assets, then you're constantly looking for opportunities to get exposure.

But with equities in the middle of a bull market, we also don't want to be in something that isn't moving.

This is the time to make money. So we want to make sure we're in the things that can make us money NOW, not "one day hopefully in the future..."

Take a look at the price of Bitcoin still working on completing this multi-year base.

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're just one week away from the earnings report for one of the most important companies in the world.

We will be LIVE Streaming the earnings call and trading any opportunities that may come from the volatility after the earnings release.

This Live Trading Stream will be on Wednesday August 28th @ 3:45PM ET. 

I find myself saying this a lot these days....

But again, Mathematically, you cannot have a bear market, or a correction of any kind, without the prices of stocks falling.

And so if we know that, then shouldn't we monitor how many stocks are actually falling in price?

This is just common sense isn't it?

Well, where are the new lows?

They're non-existent...