As the U.S. markets have sold off, defensive sectors with lower volatility have done well.

Consumer Staples, Real Estate, and Utilities are all sectors with low beta that have outperformed.

Interestingly, Utilities had the perception of being a beneficiary of the AI trade last year while now they seem to have fallen back to their roots of providing a safe haven for U.S. investors.

As such, now the sector has built a longer-term base with a clean upper threshold at its prior support. If this ratio can break through the area marked below, it would point to an emerging trend favoring Utility stocks.

These types of trends don't happen often; it's only when the market is really under pressure.

The analysts at All Star Charts are hosting an emergency market update today at 2:30pm ET to break down what's happening with...

Most notably, Large Cap Value $IWD has climbed to the top of the rankings as U.S. growth has sold off.

The trend favoring value over growth is clearly intact over shorter timeframes. But what would it take for this to shift meaningfully over a longer time period?

Pictured below is the growth value ratio since 2020. While this ratio has taken a hit, it is still trading well above a key inflection point.

If this ratio were to move below 1.90, it would signal that a longer-term trend reversal is taking place in favor of value stocks.

That’s why we’re doing a State of the Markets. Join JC Parets, Steve Strazza, and more as they make sense of all this.

You can join at 2:30pm ET live by clicking here.

The same theme continues to dominate across the global markets; more money is rotating out of the United States and flowing into international markets.

As shown in above chart, the S&P 500 has now fallen into red territory while many international ETFs are trading at new highs.

Poland $EPOL, for instance, has risen to the top of the leaderboard and is up +36% YTD while the S&P 500 is down for the year.

We would encourage you to go through this list of ETFs in the above table - it's only 44 ETFs. What you'll see is a large number of country ETFs making new highs and rallying significantly in recent weeks.

While one could argue this trend is extended to the upside in the short-term, the longer-term implications of such an aggressive capital inflow into international equities is significant.

We could be at the beginning stages of outperformance from global relative to the U.S - a trend we haven't seen for 15 years.

Precious metal miners have climbed to the top of the rankings in an impressive fashion. This has been a persistent and growing trend over the last few weeks as Gold climbs to all time highs in the face of uncertainty in risk markets.

But it's not just these stocks showing relative strength. Insurance $IAK, for instance, has barely budged while U.S. stocks have aggressively sold off.

Broadly speaking, seeing rotation into these less growth-oriented industries makes sense as apart of a more defensive rotation. Insurance has exhibited less volatility, which could make it attractive for those looking for more stable equity market exposure in a volatile tape.

We can certainly see some movement on this week's thematic table as equity markets have extended their decline.

The basic summary here is that high beta and growth have dropped on the list; examples of this include the Ark speculative growth funds and crypto stocks.

In addition to this, it's to no one's surprise that low volatility stocks have climbed to green territory on the rankings. These stocks outperform during market corrections and this is another example of that.

Extending on the speculative growth theme, Chinese equities (and international equities more broadly) have been a strong area of outperformance as money has rotated out of the United States and into international equity.

However, a scenario we're considering is if we see an oversold bounce in the coming weeks whether this money flow will reverse and funds will rotate out of international as a source of funds back into the U.S.

Pictured below is China $FXI hitting a significant level of resistance; we'd be surprised to not see some level of digestion here as this theme takes a well deserved pause.

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.

...

Today's setup is in a hotel name that has been getting clobbered as of late and may be on the verge of completing a major topping pattern. 

Unless the broader market sticks a landing soon and rallies hard, lifting all boats with it, I have a hard time believing this stock doesn't have further to fall.

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

1. New position in XLC.
2. No adjustments are needed today.
3. Exited TLT campaign for a scratch.
4. Current status of open campaigns.
5. Volatility Snapshot.

Let’s dig in!

Qifu Technology $QFIN reported earnings on Monday, and the market rewarded it with a fresh all-time high.

The stock rallied 9.1% for its 3rd consecutive positive earnings reaction. It has been consistently rewarded for its reports.

We also love the technical setup, which we'll talk about later.

Q4 2024 was a record-breaking quarter for the company. Non-GAAP net income reached an all-time high of RMB 1.97B, a 71.5% year-over-year increase.

The market has given the stock a forward earnings multiple of 6, a bargain for a company growing at this rate. We think the valuation has plenty of room to run to the upside.

In addition, the Chinese government is encouraging the development of the consumer credit industry. This is a sweet tailwind for investors to ride.

Shareholders have been spoiled lately. The company repurchased approximately 12% of its share count in 2024 and paid an additional $180M in dividends.

This aggressive return of capital is expected to continue for the foreseeable future.

They're also playing with all of the new AI tools. This is expected to reshape operations, boost efficiency, and unlock great potential within...

When the CEO and CFO start buying with their own cash, I pay close attention.

These are the purchases that really matter. These are the people who know the business inside and out.

This isn’t about stock options or compensation—these are open-market buys

Let’s get into it:

📌 John F. Barry, CEO of Prospect Capital Corp $PSEC, made a bold move with a $2,028,024 purchase.

📌 Andrew Casey, CFO of Amplitude Inc $AMPL, revealed a purchase of $239,765 in his own company’s stock.

Here’s The Hot Corner, with data from March 17, 2025:

Click the table to enlarge it.

📌 Phillip Frost, the Chairman and CEO of Opko Health Inc $OPK, filed a Form 4 showing a 200,000-share purchase.

📌 Last but not least, RA Capital Management, in its latest Form 4, revealed a...

Today's number is... 90%

The S&P 500 has just posted back-to-back days of 90% or more advancing issues.

Here’s the chart:

Here’s a bonus table that highlights the S&P 500’s forward returns following back-to-back days of 90% advancing issues:

The Takeaway: Back-to-back days with 90% of advancing issues in the S&P 500 don't happen too often. This signal indicates that the bulls are still in the game! Since 2008, this has only happened nine times, and yesterday marked the tenth occurrence.

When we analyze the data, we see that the short term might be a bit choppy. However, as we know, volatility can lead to big moves in either direction. Historically, these large swings tend to cluster around the bottom points of market corrections.

On a positive note, when we look one year after this signal, we find that 88.9% of the occurrences have resulted in positive returns, with an average gain of over 16%. 

Is this the first sign of a tailwind for the Bulls? Maybe…

I will be closely monitoring whether the bulls can maintain their recent leadership...

Just landed in Miami Beach for the Future Proof Citywide—one of the best finance conferences out there.

This place is buzzing. People like Josh Brown, Michael Batnick, Tom Lee and Dan are all here. 

Even Michael Saylor showed up this morning!

It’s shaping up to be an incredible week.

I rolled in with my friends Steve and Patrick.

These gatherings are always an opportunity to catch up, exchange ideas, and soak in the energy of the industry’s best.

But back to the markets—after two solid days, U.S. equities are in rebound mode.

Now it’s up to the bulls to prove themselves. 

The strength of this bounce will determine...

Silver is squeezing higher to new multi-month highs and looks poised to climb higher to fresh multi-decade highs shortly.

This is happening on the heels of this precious metals bull market recently turning 1 year old.

Gold futures are also trading above 3,000 dollars for the first time ever.

All of this combined has fueled the animal spirits in the mining industry.

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 March 14th, 2025. 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.

Click here for a behind-the-scenes look at our process.

Whether we’re measuring increasing interest based on large institutional purchases, unusual options activity, or simply our proprietary lists of trending tickers, there’...

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

1. No new positions today.
2. Rolled  XOP position to May options.
3. No exits since the last report.
4. Current status of open campaigns.
5. Volatility Snapshot.

Let’s dig in!

What if there isn't a recession? 

Retail sales came in soft for February, with some strength in staples. Discretionary was so/so which would have seemed bad two months ago but comes as a bit of a relief in light of the bloodletting we've seen in stocks levered to the consumer over the last month.

Shares of Walmart are down 17% in the month since the company took down guidance for the year based on Tariffs and the general ennui of consumers in the face of "economic uncertainty". Walmart wasn't a cheap stock at $105 but at $80 shares are pricing in a weak St Patrick's Day, a soft Easter and about a 70% chance of a lousy Christmas.

Being the low-price provider of discount grocery and household items isn't a bad thing in a weak economy. Walmart is the world's largest employer (except the Chinese Army). COVID and the resulting supply chain disasters made Walmart a much better operator. For Walmart to keep breaking lower from here it's going to take more than flexing and sentiment. It'll certainly take more than a .3% change in retail sales for February and some weak Consumer Sentiment surveys.

What happens if the sky doesn't fall? What if the...

What a year this has been for the stock market.

These are historic returns being put up in 2025, so investors should be very pleased right?

Nope.

We have some of the most historically bearish sentiment on record. And it's mostly because Large-cap U.S. growth has been such a massive underperformer in 2025.

Look at these epic returns across Asia, Europe and Latin America. And compare them to the negative performance in the United States.

Listen, I understand that many Americans have an irresponsible amount of U.S. Large-cap Growth in their portfolio. 

I get that.

And those kinds of people are getting smoked in this environment. 

The U.S. is the last place you want to be invested this year. And the data shows.

What's hilarious is that in Q4 last year, the journalists parading around as economists suggested on the cover of their print magazine that the United States was the envy of the world.

...