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 May 9, 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.

For traders, being early is just as bad as being wrong. 

And I’ve been early on energy. There’s no doubt. 

We’ve taken some shots with call options and they haven’t worked. 

But I’m also building and increasing long-term positions in the traditional oil & gas space. Nothing fancy. I’m talking about the largest integrated players around the globe. 

Exxon, Chevron, Canadian Natural, Petrobras… I’m leaning into the big boys in my long-term account. How about those dividend yields?

And the data keeps telling me I’m on the right track. 

Pull up a price chart and tell me I’m crazy. Because you’d be right. 

Energy bulls are trying to catch a falling knife right now. That’s a top in crude for the time being…

However, my technical upbringing has me focused on other things. I’m a...

Stocks gave some back this week, but when I look beneath the surface, I really like what I see from market internals.

Quantum stocks are red hot again. 

Space & exploration names are perking up. 

The new nuclears are having a monster week. 

Heavily shorted stocks are squeezing.

And let’s not forget the cryptos. How about those new highs in Bitcoin!?

Speculative growth and technology continue to lead and have been doing it consistently since the April lows.

Participation is broadening, and a growing list of risk-on stocks are assuming new leadership roles.

It’s all very bullish, and we want to stay overweight offense as long as this is the environment.

So today, we updated our Speculative Growth Leadership Scan that we shared ...

I don’t know much about Peru, outside of the fact that they make some great ceviche.

But I’ve been thinking about the country a lot today.

MSCI Peru $EPU was on a short list of international ETFs that made new highs today.

At first, I was puzzled by this. It was a sea of red out there. Everything got hit. Not just in the US, but across the globe. 

Then I looked at the funds holdings and realized how it happened. EPU is basically a big basket of metals stocks. 50% of the fund is invested in materials. 

Here it is resolving higher from a multi-year base:

Gold and silver miners were the only stocks that worked today. Both of the shiny metals look fantastic, and I think silver is just breaking out now. 

EPU’s exposure to...

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza and Ricardo Sarraf @nullcharts

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...

I’m liking energy more and more with each passing day.

And the bull thesis couldn’t be simpler.

It’s a raging bull market for stocks around the world. It’s being led by offense. 

Internals continue to improve. 

And like any bull cycle, as time passes and the market grinds higher, it drags a growing list of non-performers higher with it.

Some call it rotation, but it’s really just a broadening of participation over longer timeframes. 

What I mean is that more groups join the party as the bull market progresses. The ones that had previously not been working, start working. We see it every time.

In bull markets, the laggards catch up to the leaders. And not vice versa.

And it’s happening now, isn’t it?

Look at international markets. Even the worst-performing regions, like Southeast Asia and South America, are now working. They’re actually outperforming in the short-term.

And in the US, look at old laggards like small-caps, speculative growth, and transports. They are working too,...

We’re back from New Orleans, so I’m doing a lot of catching up this weekend.

When I was plowing through charts yesterday, I realized two appeal to me a lot more than the rest right now.

One of the things I always do at Portfolio Accelerator is share my best ideas for the coming months and quarters.

I’ll share some tactical opportunities and discuss the themes and areas of the market I’m interested in trading.

But I’ll also zoom out and talk about some of the fresh new uptrends I’m buying with a longer timeframe in mind.

I’ve been an Asia bull for some time now. China has already been the best idea at past conferences. BABA, BIDU, and TCEHY are currently conviction longs for this theme. 

Southeast Asia’s online retail giant, Sea Ltd $SE is another one I shared with our clients at one of last year’s events. It’s been a top international stock. It’s one of my largest long-term holdings...

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...

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...

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 May 9, 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.

Short sellers are getting squeezed, and you can see it.

These investors have been caught offside, and they're being forced to liquidate their short positions.

They're suffering right now, and that's precisely when we want to come in with the Freshly Squeezed strategy.

Here's our latest Freshly Squeezed table: 

As you can see, Hims & Hers Health $HIMS, Sezzle $SEZL, and Porch Group $PRCH are at the top of the scan. 

Over the last 10 trading sessions, they've rallied 85%, 81.6%, and 74.5%, respectively.

We also have tables sorted by short interest and days-to-cover.

Now, let's talk about today's setup and why we think the short sellers are about to get their faces ripped off.

First, here's some context 👇

Sezzle $SEZL is an emerging "buy now, pay later" platform based in...

The stock market just closed higher for 9 straight sessions.

We’re seeing a textbook V-shaped recovery unfold, especially with major indexes and sectors reclaiming key levels and repairing the damage from last month’s selloff.

When we look under the surface, the more speculative, high-beta areas of the market are starting to wake up and look ready to catch higher.

We call that risk appetite. And that’s exactly what our custom speculative growth index was designed to track. 

After a sharp pullback, the riskiest stocks in the market are bouncing right where they should.

Former resistance has turned into support. It’s the polarity principle at its finest.