There weren’t any S&P 500 earnings reactions yesterday…

But one earnings reaction really stood out to us.

While most of the market’s attention is fixated on tech and AI, Heico Corp $HEI has quietly emerged as one of the strongest earnings performers in the Aerospace and Defense space.

This company isn’t your typical defense contractor. 

They specialize in manufacturing and servicing critical aerospace components, including FAA-approved replacement parts and high-reliability electronic systems used in military, commercial, and space applications.

It’s a high-margin, high-moat business - and the market is noticing.

The fundamental backdrop for Aerospace & Defense has rarely looked this strong.

Geopolitical tensions are rising. 

Global defense budgets are expanding. 

And commercial air traffic continues to rebound post-COVID.

The iShares Aerospace & Defense ETF includes GE Aerospace $GE, RTX $RTX, Boeing $BA, and Heico $HEI.

Price recently broke out to new all-time highs after a multi-month...

Every day, we sift through the filings to spot where the real conviction lies – cutting through the noise to highlight the most meaningful insider moves.

Here's what stood out today:

📌 Vestis Corp $VSTS – Director Keith Meister stepped in with a monster $4.7 million purchase with VSTS trading at all-time lows. This purchase stands out for its size in the sub-$1 billion uniform rental company.

📌 Murphy USA $MUSA – Director David Haley scooped nearly half a million dollars worth of MUSA stock. This comes as the stock carves a year-long head-and-shoulders pattern.

Here’s The Hot Corner, with data from May 28, 2025:

Click the table to enlarge it.

📌 Sweetgreen $SG – Director Clifford Burrows  stepped in with a quarter  million dollar purchase in the hip fast food chain. This purchase comes as the...

Today's number is... 3

Let's check in on how the third year of this bull market is progressing.

Here’s the chart:

Let's break down what the chart shows:

• The light blue line represents the performance of an average first year during a bull market for the S&P 500. The dark blue line illustrates the performance of the first year of the current bull market for the S&P 500.
• The light gray line indicates the performance of an average second year within a bull market for the S&P 500, while the dark gray line shows the performance of the second year of the current bull market.
• The light red line depicts the performance of an average third year during a bull market for the S&P 500, and the dark red line represents the performance of the third year of the current bull market for the S&P 500.

The Takeaway: By my definition, a bull market starts with a 20% rally after a 20% drop. Based on that, we’re still in a bull market that began in late 2022.

I’ve been tracking insider transactions for the past three years.

I’ve learned a ton along the way.

From Form 4s and 13Ds/Gs to political filings—hedge funds, the C-suite, you name it. 

There are a million reasons insiders sell: paying for a wedding, getting divorced, buying a house, taking a vacation. But there’s only one reason they buy. And that’s because they think the stock’s going up.

I’ve seen it all—from Nancy Pelosi riding the Mag 7 wave, to CEOs and CFOs stepping in during selloffs, and top hedge funds putting serious skin in the game. We cover all these different insiders. 

Sometimes there’s something there. Sometimes there’s not. 

This morning, we got a big one. I woke up to a monster Form 4 from Toyota Motor showing a $250 million investment in Joby Aviation $JOBY.

Joby’s building electric aircraft for urban air mobility—think of them like flying taxis.

And this is...

Fun facts most people don't know about Build-a-Bear Workshop:

• It still exists and is publicly traded under the ticker $BBW
• Shares are up nearly 50x since the COVID lows
• The stock went public in October 2004, hit $35 two months later and didn't make a new high for another 19yrs, nearly twice the expected lifespan of a Black Bear in the wild.
• (New Item): Build-a-Bear just reported its best first quarter ever.

I break down the quarter and give the company its full grade for members in the LINK

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Welcome to The 2 to 100 Club.

In this scan, we look to identify the strongest growth stocks as they climb the market-cap ladder from small- to mid- to large- and, ultimately, to mega cap status (over $200B).

Once they graduate from small-cap to mid-cap status (over $2B), they come on our radar. Likewise, when they surpass the roughly $30B mark, they roll off our list.

But the scan doesn't just end there.

We only want to look at the strongest growth industries in the market, as that is typically where these potential 50-baggers come from.

Some of the best performers in recent decades – stocks like Priceline, Amazon, Netflix, Salesforce, and myriad others – would have been on this list at some point during their journey to becoming the market behemoths they are today.

When you look at the stocks in our table, you'll notice we're only focused on Technology and Growth industry groups such as Software, Semiconductors, Online...

With Bitcoin holding high in the 107-108K neighborhood, above last year's resistance, it feels like the stage is being set for another crypto bull. Not just for bitcoin, but for many of the so-called "alt-coins" as well. And today's trade is in the company that is best positioned to take advantage of a resurgence of alt-coin activity. 

And following a recent gap move higher, the consolidation over the past couple weeks and today's morning dip provide a great entry point.

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

1. New position in TLT.
2. No adjustments since the last report.
3. No exits since the last report.
4. Current status of open campaigns.
5. Volatility Snapshot.

Let’s dig in!

Abercrombie didn't have to be perfect. With the stock down 50% since January, even after a HUGE bounce, Abercrombie & Fitch just had to be decent. Anything better than about a 20% guidance cut would have been acceptable. Word was that foot traffic at Abercrombie was lousy. That left ne'er do well Hollister to bail out the corporate ship while $ANF tried to find a bottom. Hollister has had a nice few quarters but that wasn't going to be enough to offset the end of Abercrombie's name-brand and the huge 5 year heater of double-digit comps and fat margins.

Turns out, Hollister had plenty. The tariffs weren't so bad. Business was pretty much fine. Wall Street rejoiced... 

Abercrombie didn't have to be perfect. With shares sitting 50% lower since January sentiment around $ANF was somewhere between "skeptical" and "afraid to look". Word was that traffic was bad at Abecrombie's name-brand stores, leaving Hollister, the surly, less-good-looking younger sibling division of $ANF. Hollister had been good lately but not great. This was supposed to have been a tough quarter for "not great".

As it turned out, Hollister was pretty damn great and the warning was less-than-feared. The stock market rejoiced:

AutoZone $AZO just reported mixed results, narrowly beating on revenue but missing earnings.

Once again, the stock was punished, marking the 4th negative earnings reaction in the last 5 quarters.

That’s a clear trend.

The core business remains solid. 

The company continues to grow steadily, expand its store base, and generate strong free cash flow. 

Their relentless focus on cost control and one of the market's most aggressive share repurchase programs has helped drive long-term shareholder value for decades.

But right now, the market is focused elsewhere.

Margins are under pressure, especially in the commercial segment, where growth has been decelerating. And with comps getting tougher and operating expenses creeping higher, even a slight EPS miss is enough to trigger a selloff.

This isn’t a question of survival because it remains one of the most efficient retail operators. 

But investors are clearly demanding more than stability. 

In a market that’s rewarding accelerating growth and margin expansion, good just isn’t good enough anymore.

Until the narrative shifts, the stock may continue to...

Thanks to everyone who joined us for today's Hot Corner Insider Weekly Strategy Session.

Every day, we sift through the filings to spot where the real conviction lies – cutting through the noise to highlight the most meaningful insider moves.

Here's what stood out today:

📌 Joby Aviation Inc $JOBY – Toyota Motor $TM came in with a monster Form 4 showing a $250 million purchase, boosting its total position to 128,454,401 shares. 

That gives Toyota a 16% stake in JOBY. Even more telling, JOBY now represents 29.12% of Toyota’s equity portfolio, making it its second-largest holding after Grab Holdings $GRAB. 

That’s a serious vote of confidence in the flying taxi space.

Here’s The Hot Corner, with data from May 27, 2025:

Click the table to enlarge it.

📌 KKR & Co. $KKR – Timothy Barakett, the founder of Atticus Capital, filed an eye-popping Form 4 after...

Sign up for my free note here.

Over the years, my process as a trader and investor has gone through constant refinement. I've learned to trust the charts, simplify my approach, and focus on clean, asymmetric setups.

But something has truly elevated my game recently — and that’s trading options.

I’ve been doing it for quite some time now, but what really helped me take things to the next level is working with Steve and learning how to gain leverage while keeping risk clearly defined. That’s been a game changer.

It’s all about getting more juice out of the same setups — with full control over risk.

Lately, there’s one stock in particular that’s been an absolute textbook example of this.

BigBear.ai Holdings $BBAI.

I’m watching the sun sink into the gulf of whatever water from my mobile office. 

We’ve done the drive from Key West to Naples a bunch lately and it’s just lovely. 

No major highways. You take a road from the middle of the ocean to another through the middle of the Everglades. 

It is cruising, defined. Florida style. 

You can see both sharks and gators right out your window along the way. 

Anyway, I’ve found that I really enjoy reading and writing from the car. It frees me from my desk-brain. 

I also really enjoy uncorrelated exposure. It frees me from my overweight risk-on equity positioning.

And I don’t mean defensive exposure. 

I’m talking about exposure to things that can move fast and generate alpha in bull cycles but don’t necessarily move with the broader US...

I first cut my teeth as a high-volume, intra-day stock trader.

My earliest trading lessons came from staring at charts, watching price levels, and learning (often the hard way) how momentum behaves. I became obsessed with breakouts, pullbacks, volume surges—anything that would give me an edge on timing a move.

Sometimes that edge consisted of consuming multiple cans of Yoohoo!

(I know, gross.)  

Anyway, back then it was simple: find an intraday trend, hop on, and manage risk. That foundation still informs everything I do.

Eventually, that trend-following mindset led me into commodities. I loved the purity of it. There’s something clean and honest about commodity trends—they either work or they don’t, and often they run much farther than you’d expect. Studying seasonality, macro cycles, and supply/demand dynamics helped me spot inflection points in a way that complimented the chart work I’d learned from stocks.

But there were dry spells, too—periods where the trends would stall or chop. That’s when I started exploring premium selling strategies in options.

One of my trading buddies...