In my mind right now, it's a bear market in stocks until proven otherwise.

But as everyone's favorite cable TV financial prognosticator Jim Cramer says: "There's always a bull market somewhere."

And one of those places appears to be in the energy and oil sectors.

Today's trade has a chart that appears to be ready to break out of a three-month base on its way to new decade highs.

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

1. No new positions today.
2. Rolled IGV Puts to June.
3. No exits since the last report.
4. Current status of open campaigns.
5. Volatility Snapshot.

Let’s dig in!

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’...

Aside from a few obscure Consumer Staples names, we've reached the end of the Q1 earnings season.

There were some fantastic double beats and rallies. Berkshire Hathaway $BRK.A / $BRK.B was one of those, and it closed last week at a new all-time high.

However, we saw a lot more stocks get slammed for beating expectations.

The world's largest retailer, Walmart $WMT, snapped a 3-quarter beat streak after it reported a double beat. The stock has continued to print fresh lows.

Crowdstrike $CRWD is another name that got slammed for reporting a double beat.

Last week, we told you that we were looking forward to the Lululemon $LULU earnings...

Today is celebration! 

Not only do we get a fresh batch of Monthly Candlesticks today at the close, but we also get all the quarterly data at the same time. 

This kind of party only happens 4 times a year - where we get the monthlies and the quarterlies on the same day.

That day is today. 

As we head into Q2 of 2025, I think the big theme here is Overhead supply in major U.S. Indexes and massive underperformance from U.S. Technology.

See U.S. Technology and High Beta hitting new 22-month relative lows and also check out:...

Lawmakers continue their blue-chip buying spree. 

And we have a fresh bet on Bitcoin, extending a trend we’ve seen since President Donald Trump’s inauguration.

Two major insider buys steal the spotlight: 

📌 Bitwise Bitcoin ETF $BITB

Sen. David McCormick invested $260,000 to $600,000 in this Bitcoin ETF, further evidence that elected officials aren’t shying away from crypto exposure, even as major cryptos complete tops. 

📌 Globalstar $GSAT

Executive Chairman James Monroe III shelled out $4.72 million, marking a hefty commitment to the satellite services company.

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

Click the table to enlarge it.

📌 ...

The prevailing theme this year is that more international markets are challenging the dominance of the United States in equity performance.

This rotation has taken place for quite some time now and at least in the short-term it seems overextended.

A number of global ETFs are at big resistance levels and backed off last week. More importantly, as global markets stalled last week, this money did not flow back into the US.

This raises an important question; if international markets pause their gains, does this money flow into the U.S. markets (risk-on) or into safe haven assets (risk-off).

To demonstrate this point, here's a few examples.

Austria $EWO is near the top of the list and paused as it retested this resistance.

Singapore $EWS did the same.

And China $FXI is failing to hold this breakout.

And while international markets paused last week, the S&P 500 closed down 1.50% last week.

Not great.

It's clear that a structural shift is taking place here.

...

The key theme here is the relentless strength out of the precious metal ETFs.

You can see below how they're clearly inhabiting the dark green.

With Silver looking like it's about to explode higher, this theme remains a no brainer until these trends can shift.

Meanwhile, software stocks - which have been a historical area of outperformance in the U.S. markets - have weakened to red territory.

This comes as growth has given up its leadership as money has rotated into prior laggards.

Just check out how Software $IGV has fallen into a downtrend.

Compare this with the relentless bid in the gold and silver miners - it's night and day.

There is so much alpha in the precious metals space right now.

The commodity supercycle is in motion, and the biggest opportunities are still ahead. JC and Jason nailed the gold trade last year — now they’re tracking the next wave. You can catch the replay to a recent live gold strategy call to see how they’re positioning.

...

We're seeing more defensive sectors climb the leaderboard as the outlook for the U.S. markets weakens.

Perhaps an element of interest is to consider the areas of the market with the lowest overall correlation to macro conditions. Areas like Energy $XLE and Utilities $XLU are sporting the lowest correlation, with XLE not being correlated at all to the broader movements in the S&P 500.

This data is shown in the chart below.

For nimble traders and investors, there are still opportunities, albeit more difficult in a tape like this.

By focusing on low correlated areas of the market, it can reduce our overall risk in an uncertain market environment.

Today's number is... 3

Three of my key Risk-On/Risk-Off ratios are reaching new lows.

Here’s the chart:

Let's break down what the chart shows:

The blue line in the top panel illustrates the relative ratio of High Beta vs. Low Volatility. In the middle panel, the gray line represents the relative ratio of High Yield Bonds vs. Treasury Bonds. Lastly, the black line in the bottom panel depicts the relative ratio of Equal Weight Consumer Discretionary vs. Equal Weight Consumer Staples.

If these ratios rise, the numerator (risk-on) is outperforming the denominator (risk-off); if they are falling, the denominator(risk-off) is outperforming the numerator (risk-on).

The Takeaway: These three ratios are my go-to favorite Risk-On/Risk-Off barometers: High Beta vs. Low Volatility, High Yield Bonds vs. Treasury Bonds, and Equal Weight Consumer Discretionary vs. Equal Weight Consumer Staples.

In healthy bull markets, these ratios move up and to the right on the chart.

Right now, they are not…

They are moving lower...

We talk a lot about rotation around here. But there isn't anywhere that it's as pronounced as in U.S. stocks compared to everything else.

This week we talked about U.S. Technology and High Beta hitting new 22-month relative lows. 

Keep in mind, that despite so many things working this year, the exposure that U.S. Indexes have to American Tech stocks is off the charts. 

You simply don't have any American Mega-cap Tech stocks in Europe (FEZ), which is up over 14.5% this quarter. Latin America (ILF) and Africa (AFK) are each up 13.5% this quarter. And Chinese Internet (KWEB) is up 20%. 

These are historic returns to start the year. And I'm not cherry picking here. We're literally talking about every continent except North America. 

Meanwhile, the S&P500, Dow Jones Industrial Average and Nasdaq100 are all...

If global growth is going to pick up, you’ll likely see it first in the copper to gold ratio. 

Historically, it moves in lockstep with the 10 year yield — and right now, there’s a glaring gap. If that gap closes, copper’s about to get loud.

And it’s already whispering.

Copper just hit a 52 week high.

International stocks are starting to hum.

Momentum always shows up quietly before it slams the door.

Here’s the kicker: global growth isn’t being driven by the usual suspects. It’s not the U.S. or Europe. It’s the rest of the world — emerging market and developing economies are growing at 4.2%, more than double the 1.8% of advanced economies. 

The world is moving at 3.2%, and the heavy lifting is coming from places most investors still ignore.

That matters. Because copper doesn’t just track growth — it sniffs it out early. And right now, it smells something big.

(TLDR) Why we think copper moves higher from here:

• Copper just broke out to a new 52 week high
• International equities are gaining momentum alongside it
• The...

Don't miss the ASC Premium Monthly Strategy Session on Tuesday, April 1st, at 8 pm ET! 🚨

👉 Click here to register for the LIVE event.

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 are so many things working this year. American Growth stocks are just not on the list.

The underperformance from this group is on another level. These are things that haven't been seen in 20 years.

Look at U.S. Technology hitting new cycle lows relative to the S&P500. The struggle has been real since last summer. And the selling has not slowed down.

Also notice how the High Beta Index is hitting new lows relative to Low Volatility.

Over half the S&P500 High Beta Index is in Technology.

Berkshire Hathaway, for example, which is hitting new all-time highs, is one of the largest component of the Low Volatility Index.

It's the High Beta stuff - Tech and Consumer Discretionary, that's leading the way lower in the United States.

Here is the Semiconductors Index peaking last summer relative to the S&P500 "in the middle of an AI Revolution" lol. 

AI revolution. More like an AI hallucination...

There are so many things working in this market.

Every single sector in the U.S. is either flat or up in 2025, except for Technology and Consumer Discretionary which are both down double digits this...

Sign up for my free note here.

In strong, healthy bull markets, high-beta stocks tend to lead.

These are the riskier, more volatile names—mostly Tech and Discretionary. They're the high-flyers that drive markets higher.

On the other hand, low-volatility stocks are more defensive in nature. Think Consumer Staples and Utilities. They're where investors hide when uncertainty rises.

Right now, the SPHB/SPLV ratio is collapsing to fresh 52-week lows.

When risk-on stocks underperform and defensives take the lead, it's a sign of shifting tides.

The bulls are running ...

Copper futures are breaking out to new all-time highs. Is this a signal for the whole Base Metals complex?

We think so and here's why.

When Copper leads, the rest of the base metals often follow. 

We've seen this happen in numerous cycles. The last occurrence was in 2020.

This trade is even better when Gold is the first one out of the gate, which is the case this cycle. We discussed it a few weeks ago - be sure to check out that post if you haven't already.

The evidence for a base metals rally has been stacking up recently. Aluminum is shaping up nicely, and we think it could be one of the next to go.

From there, we expect Steel, Nickel, Tin, Zinc, and all of the rest to follow.

This index holds an equally-weighted basket...

Our International Hall of Famers list is composed of the 100 largest US-listed international stocks, or ADRs.

We've also sprinkled in some of the largest ADRs from countries that did not make the market cap cut. 

These stocks range from some well-known mega-cap multinationals such as Toyota Motor and Royal Dutch Shell to some large-cap global disruptors such as Sea Ltd and Shopify.

It's got all the big names and more–but only those that are based outside the US. You can find all the largest US stocks on our original Hall of Famers list.

The beauty of these scans is really in their simplicity.

We take the largest names each week and then apply technical filters in a way that the strongest stocks with the most momentum rise to the top.

Based on the market environment, we can also flip the scan on its head and filter for weakness.

Let's dive in and take a look at some of the most important stocks from around the world.

Here's this week's list: