Every weekend, I review our insider activity tracker looking for the most interesting and bullish buys — and let me tell you, this week was packed with a lot of action.

Let’s break it down:

We’re talking about members of Congress — the folks with access to briefings the rest of us never see — stepping in and loading up on some of the biggest names out there:

• Advanced Micro Devices $AMD
• BlackRock $BLK
• Cboe Global Markets $CBOE
• Apple $AAPL
• Meta Platforms $META

That’s real exposure, and it tells us these political insiders think these stocks are going higher. 

AMD and BLK were larger buys than we’re used to seeing in congressional filings. 

At the same time, one of the sharpest money managers in the game just made a big move. 

Gamco Investors, led by Mario Gabelli,...

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.

There's so much happening in the commodities markets right now. 

Orange Juice futures just ripped 50% in several days and triggered our buy signal.

Crude Oil futures have resolved a textbook multi-year distribution pattern and triggered our sell signal.

To name a few...

We're also on the cusp of getting a fresh buy signal in Soybean Oil futures.

"Big Oil" wants more renewable diesel - from 3.3 to over 5 billion gallons.

If that's the case, demand will skyrocket for grains across the board.

The first week of 2025 was the largest 1-week rate of change since 1983 for Soybean Oil futures.

We love to call the beginning of each year "whipsaw hunting season."

This is where trends that are overextended, in either direction, tend to...

Wow. This conversation with Trading Psychologist Andrew Menaker covered so much meaningful ground — if you’re a trader who’s serious about leveling up, emotionally and mentally, this one is a must-listen.

Here are just a few of the highlights we explored:

🔹 Intention vs. Expectations – We talked about the subtle but critical difference between trading with intention versus trading with expectation. Intention keeps you grounded in process and presence, while expectations often drag you into attachment, disappointment, and emotional volatility. They may look similar, but they feel very different — and the difference matters.

🔹 Intuition as a Signal – One of the most powerful themes was learning to identify and trust your own intuition. Not as a mystical force, but as a reflection of your accumulated pattern...

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:

*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.

Then, we...

So, we’re well off the highs in the VIX—but a 30-handle is still considered elevated by historical standards.

Why does that matter?

VIX above 30 typically signals that there’s still plenty of undigested stress and uncertainty swirling around in the markets. It tells us that fear hasn’t fully cleared, and the waters are still too choppy for comfort. Historically, when VIX is at these levels, it’s often during periods of heightened news-driven volatility, unclear macro narratives, or disorderly price action.

And more importantly—for me, at least—it signals that taking anything other than shorter-term trades can be problematic. Swing trades that might normally take weeks to play out can get chopped up or invalidated in hours. Markets at these volatility levels are unforgiving to those who overstay their welcome.

This is the market we have, and we have to trade it as it is, not as we wish it would be.

In today’s Options Jam Session, I cover this in more depth—along with a great teaching moment from two recent trades that moved in opposite directions. Both trades used variations of a calendar/diagonal spread strategy, and the contrasting...

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.

The bottom line is it is a bull market. We...

Here's the replay and chartbook from the April 17 Weekly Strategy Session.

Be sure to join us on Thursday mornings and maximize your return potential.

In today’s Daily Digest, we’ll review the following:

1. Adding new position in IBB.
2. No adjustments are needed today.
3. Closed TLT at Profit Target.
4. Current status of open campaigns.
5. Volatility Snapshot.

Let’s dig in!

We’re adding two new trades today—one in energy and one in energy drinks.

We just heard from the largest Medical Devices stock in the world, Abbott Laboratories $ABT.

The market loved it...

Price rallied 2.76% with a sweet reaction score of 4.25. It really stood out in yesterday's broad market selloff.

Not only are their current products performing very well, but they also have a very exciting pipeline. Many of which are expected to enter the market soon.

Here's what the CEO, Robert Ford, had to say about it:

"The pipeline continues to provide a steady cadence of new growth opportunities with more than 25 key new products forecasted to launch over the next 3 years, and we remain on track to deliver on the financial commitments we set at the beginning of the year."

That's a lot of new products...

Many of which have the potential to generate billions of dollars.

Here's what Mr. Ford had to say about one of their most exciting pipeline products:

"In Neuromodulation, we began treating patients in our TRANSCEND clinical trial, a...

Today's number is... 10

The relative ratio of the World Ex-US index versus the S&P 500 has made a 10-month high.

Here’s the chart:

Let's break down what the chart shows:

• The black line shows the relative ratio of World Ex-US (VEU) versus the S&P 500 Index (SPY).

The Takeaway: While the focus in the US is on Trump and his tariffs, the rest of the world is moving higher! 

The relative ratio of the World Ex-US index vs the S&P 500 has broken out and is reaching 10-month highs. 

Last month, I shared a note outlining the key changes I observed in the ratio between the World Ex-US index vs the S&P 500. At that time, there wasn't enough evidence to confirm a change in trend.  

However, I can now confirm that a trend...

As markets digest the recent crash, we'll be watching closely to understand the next leadership groups if and when we another bullish rally.

It's hard to dismiss the strength out of China - in the bull market prior and even throughout this volatility. The iShares Large-Cap China ETF $FXI is still putting in a series of higher highs and higher lows.

While there's understandably a lot of concern regarding China, many Chinese equities are still in strong uptrends.

And the longer you zoom out - this is an uptrend that may only just be getting started.

Enough raging against the machine. In the 2 weeks since Liberation Day we've seen the stated rate of tariffs change at least 5 times. Just last weekend we saw a seemingly tech-saving exclusion on chips first announced then denied then largely just dismissed as more noise. From a 4% gap higher in the futures to a tepid Monday morning rally which has now given in to the endless pressure we've seen on the Consumer plays we've seen all year.

We're approaching acceptance. There's no one walking through that door to save companies relying on the kindness/ sanity of this administration. Earlier this week I pointed to Best Buy and Nike as two companies that should go higher on a deal. Both are now trading below the Friday close, down ~30% YTD and unable to hold a bid for more than a moment:

Recession is just an economic term. It's most useful in studying periods of history after the fact in search of clues as to timing the natural ebbs and flows of what used to be called the Economic Cycle but for the last 15 years is more accurately thought of as occasional world-threatening catastrophes and the stimulus that follows.

Downturns Cull the Herd when it...

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Volatility is still running hot, and wild swings in both directions are probably here to stay for longer.

Even though I think the worst is behind us, things still look soft.

There’s little to suggest this choppy, risk-off environment is fading just yet.

One thing that’s helped me big time this year is tracking risk appetite through key ratios.

These relationships show us how money is rotating and where investors are actually putting capital...

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We’re not even close to out of the woods yet.

Stocks just experienced their fiercest selloff in years, followed by one of the most significant bounces in market history.

The VIX remains elevated, indicating a roughly 2% daily swing in either direction.

There is little evidence that we’re leaving these volatile times behind. 

I think we’re in rally mode for now, but that doesn’t mean we’re suddenly in a risk-on environment again.

In fact, it’s been quite a risk-off rally since late last week.

I look at the relative performance of offensive and defensive groups to judge this kind of thing.

And here’s one of my favorite charts for it. This is Staples relative to the S&P 500:

And the pattern is what I like to call a bear market base...