I group the whole US market into narrative baskets. Over the last week the split got clean.

Here is the semiconductors basket.

Look at the 1-week column, every single name red, from NVDA and AMD to the equipment makers like ASML and LRCX.

https://preview.redd.it/uahvg5n4i8bh1.png?width=2720&format=png&auto=webp&s=4ae1d10a2a09cc8eb793bc5ea88ed29de9af0c81

Now the defense basket, same screen, same week. The 1-week column is green top to bottom, the primes leading, Boeing, RTX, GD, Lockheed and Northrop all bid.

https://preview.redd.it/a5vrfca6i8bh1.png?width=2720&format=png&auto=webp&s=fa1abc267c91c38c7f08cf951d1c913bd4a991f6

Money is walking out of the high-beta AI-hardware story and into defense. You would barely catch it at the index level, because tech holds the leaders and the laggards at once and they offset.

Grouping by story is the only place the rotation shows up this cleanly.

The AI-hardware names are stretched to the downside, so I build a watchlist for when the selling slows, and I stay out while it is still in free fall.

The semiconductor industry faces an increasingly difficult challenge.

AI chips, GPUs, and next-generation processors require ever smaller, thinner, and more efficient capacitors for power delivery. Traditional capacitor technologies are approaching their physical limits, creating demand for new solutions.

Smoltek is developing one of those potential solutions.

After more than 20 years of research and development, the company has developed CNF-MIM capacitors based on carbon nanofibers. According to the company, the technology aims to deliver significantly higher capacitance density in a much smaller footprint while also offering the potential for 30–40% lower manufacturing costs compared with current leading technologies.

The technology was originally developed at Chalmers MC2, one of Europe's leading nanotechnology cleanrooms, and is now transitioning from lab to fab together with industrial partners.

Current partners include:

• ITRI (Taiwan) – the semiconductor research institute that helped establish companies such as TSMC and UMC, now supporting Smoltek's industrialization.

• Yageo Group – one of the world's largest capacitor manufacturers, currently validating Smoltek's first commercial capacitor platform, Gen-One.

• Heraeus Precious Metals – collaborating with Smoltek on applications within hydrogen technology.

Rather than building expensive manufacturing facilities, Smoltek's strategy is to license its technology, with potential future revenue coming from upfront payments, milestone payments, and recurring royalties through Service License Agreements (SLAs) and Joint Development Agreements (JDAs).

Beyond semiconductors, the company is also developing technology for PEM electrolysis, where its nanotechnology has demonstrated the potential to reduce iridium consumption by more than 95%, addressing one of the major cost challenges in green hydrogen production.

With a market capitalization of less than SEK 600 million (approximately $60 million USD), the company remains an early-stage deep-tech investment.

Recent Financing

Smoltek recently completed an oversubscribed rights issue, with subscriptions reaching approximately 184% of the offering.

Including the oversubscription allocation, the company raised approximately SEK 82.1 million (before issue costs and loan offsets).

According to CEO Magnus Andersson, the proceeds will be used to accelerate commercialization and industrial scaling, with the objective of securing future SLAs and JDAs, while targeting positive cash flow from 2027.

Why I'm Following Smoltek

- 20+ years of R&D

- Proprietary carbon nanofiber technology

- Industrial partners including ITRI, Yageo, and Heraeus

- Commercial validation currently underway

- Recently completed an oversubscribed (184%) financing

- Asset-light licensing business model

- Exposure to both AI semiconductor infrastructure and hydrogen technology

- Started trading on the U.S. OTC market under ticker SMLTF

- Extensive IP portfolio with more than 90 patents and patent applications protecting the company's core technologies and manufacturing processes.

Risks

This remains a pre-revenue company. Commercial agreements are not guaranteed, commercialization could take longer than expected, and future financing may still be required if licensing agreements are delayed.

I'm sharing this because I find it to be an interesting deep-tech company that appears to be approaching a key commercialization phase.

Not financial advice. I'd be interested to hear what others think, especially anyone with experience in semiconductor packaging, passive components, or power delivery.

Some notable quotes from POET’s recent Annual Shareholders’ Meeting, along with my personal observations. DYODD. AI edited for polish, not content.

CEO: “We currently have approximately $830 million in cash on our balance sheet.”
As of the July 1 close, POET’s market cap was approximately $1.67B. In other words, roughly half of the company’s market value is backed by cash alone. Add in minimal debt, manufacturing assets, IP, and accumulated tax losses, and the market is assigning what I view as a surprisingly modest valuation to the underlying technology platform.

CEO: “We’ve got marquee customers, significant revenue potential.”
At this point, this isn’t simply a vision of what could happen. POET already has recognizable customers and a growing design pipeline. Execution is now the key.

CEO: “We’ve stated that our existing capacity is capable of producing a million optical engines a year.”
That’s an important milestone. It suggests the company has crossed from proving the technology to demonstrating commercial-scale manufacturing capability.

CEO: “Our projected demand exiting 2027 would put that at a million engines a month.”
To me, this was the most significant statement of the meeting.
If management’s projections prove accurate, they’re talking about demand approaching 1 million optical engines per month by the end of 2027.
Think about what that could imply for revenue.
Again—management’s projection, not mine. DYODD.

CEO: “We have about a 10X increase in capacity to do over the course of the next six to nine months.”
Successfully scaling manufacturing by an order of magnitude would be a major validation of the platform and should give large customers greater confidence that POET can support future volume requirements.

CEO: “With a couple of major exceptions, we do not expect to announce new customers over the next 12 months.”
I don’t view this as a demand issue. I hear management saying they’re focused on executing for the customers already signed. If anything, I would expect increasing investment in production capacity as existing programs move toward volume manufacturing.

CEO:
“We’ve built a design pipeline so strong that we need to be very, very maniacally focused on completing development, qualifying, and ramping production for these customers.”
“Just handling the customers we have currently signed up can provide a revenue pipeline that far exceeds triple-digit million dollars.”
“We don’t really have the bandwidth at this point to take on additional major projects.”
Those comments don’t require much interpretation. They suggest a company transitioning from winning business to delivering it.
My takeaway:
This felt like one of the most confident and execution-focused shareholder meetings POET has held.
If management executes on even a substantial portion of what was discussed, today’s valuation may eventually look very different.
Within the next 12 months—or perhaps sooner—you may look back at today’s share price and either wish you had bought, or simply smile because you did.
Not financial advice. Just one investor’s interpretation. DYODD.

It is interesting to see how capital is flowing into traditional industrial and materials spaces right now. From a fundamental perspective, this feels like a direct reaction to real physical infrastructure needs rather than just market noise. There is a lot of capital being spent on building out data centers and fulfilling defense contracts, which means someone has to supply the actual physical resources and handle the logistics.

This potentially implies we are going to see a wider spread of growth across the economy instead of just the biggest tech names driving all the expansion. When smaller regional operators and mid-tier suppliers start showing better margins and operational stability, it usually means the underlying supply chains are actually expanding. The power generation side of this is especially notable since electricity is becoming a real bottleneck for these new facilities. It is worth monitoring how utility and commodity providers handle this steady demand, even if the raw material markets stay a bit unpredictable.

With 40+ fund houses to choose from, multiple small cap funds and various different strategies of each fund house, isn't it difficult to choose one small cap fund?

But I am curious to know on what basis would you choose one and only one small cap fund if you had to stay invested it in forever?

Everyone keeps repeating that Palantir doesn’t own any SRFM and it’s just a customer relationship. That’s not how it looks once you actually read into it. Palantir has a meaningful chunk of SRFM shares that came out of a services deal, so they’re on the cap table and directly exposed to whether SRFM succeeds or fails. That’s real skin in the game, not just a logo in a press release.

SRFM isn’t just bolting on some basic analytics. The whole SurfOS concept and a big chunk of their operating model is being built on Palantir’s stack – routing, fleet utilisation, broker OS, operational planning. The more the network scales, the more data they collect and the more the software can optimise pricing, capacity and routes. That’s where the growth angle kicks in: you’re not just relying on “more planes = more revenue,” you’ve got software that can squeeze more yield out of each aircraft, each route and each partner relationship.

Yes, the company is cash‑hungry. They’re paying part of their Palantir bill in stock because cash is tight and they’re still in the build‑out phase. That’s dilution, but it’s also a way to lock in a top‑tier data/AI partner they probably couldn’t fund purely with cash yet. Early stage, capital‑intensive platform plays basically always look ugly on the cash front while they’re wiring up the system.

What I’m actually betting on here isn’t “a small airline.” It’s an air mobility platform trying to own the software and data rails for a slice of regional/commuter travel, with Palantir wired into the core. If that works, growth doesn’t just come from adding planes, it comes from scaling a software‑driven network where every extra bit of volume feeds back into better optimisation and margins. The value is in the operating system and the network, not just in selling seats.

Looking at the recent market action, it is interesting to see how capital is migrating as interest rate paths stabilize. While financials and communication services are propping up the broader indices right now on softer macro data, the long-term play here seems to be about margin protection. When rate cuts look realistic, money usually starts sniffing around for deeply undervalued, asset-backed sectors that benefit from a cheaper dollar and lower cost of capital.

That is probably why junior resource plays are starting to show up on institutional radar screens again, especially those cutting costs via tech. A good example of this crossover is NovaRed Mining. They operate right in the Quesnel belt but are using their own platform called MetalCore AI to parse old public data to locate copper and platinum anomalies. It is a neat way to reduce the typical high risk of exploration drill programs by doing the heavy data lifting first. If the broader market keeps stabilizing into the second half of the year, these tech-driven commodity setups might capture a lot of the structural asset allocation moving away from overcrowded tech stocks.

My thoughts: not sure what to make of this, on one hand the proposed deal has turned into a much larger potential partnership, spanning other sites in Europe. One of the 6K amendments added a bunch of new sites under LOI across the Nordics and Europe. This solidifies my Core42 speculation HOWEVER there is still no signed tenant/terms, with a full announcement with terms/tenant coming in the “near term”. Near term could mean by June 30 (end of Q2) or could mean longer, so I’m really not sure what to think of this. Currently trading 6.46 (+13%) at 4:07 am ET

VivoPower Selects Global AI Industry Leader as Preferred AI Tenant for Lease of Norway Operational Data Center

June 29, 2026 02:30 ET | Source: VivoPower PLC

Preferred AI tenant selected based on commercial terms, financial strength, credit quality, and operational alignment with the long-duration lease structure

Further announcement with counterparty identity and material commercial terms expected in the near term, subject to and upon execution of legal documentation

LONDON, UK / OSLO, NORWAY, June 29, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- VivoPower PLC (NASDAQ: VIVO) (“VivoPower” or the “Company”), a B Corp-certified global developer and owner of powered land and data center infrastructure for AI compute applications, today announced that, further to its short list announcement of 21 May 2026, it has selected a preferred long-term tenant (“Preferred AI Tenant”) for its Mo i Rana AI data center in northern Norway. The Company and the Preferred AI Tenant are working together to finalize legal documentation as soon as practicable.

The preferred counterparty is a global AI industry leader that was selected from a competitive field of prospective AI tenants and was assessed by the Company as superior across each of the previously disclosed evaluation criteria — commercial terms, financial strength and credit quality, operational alignment, strategic fit, and optionality for capacity expansion.

Reflecting the strategic fit identified through the selection process, the bilateral discussions have extended beyond the Mo i Rana data center. Additional arrangements under negotiation relate to the Company’s wider powered land and data center development pipeline, and if progressed to completion, would be expected to deepen the relationship with the selected counterparty across multiple jurisdictions.

Subject to execution of legal agreements, the Company expects to make a further announcement in the near term disclosing the identity of the counterparty and the material commercial terms of the lease and any additional strategic arrangements.

Useful $FPC interview covering Horne 5 economics, permitting progress, and next steps.

Would you watch the permit, funding plan, or partner potential first?

Disclaimer: Not financial advice. Do your own DD.

Wall Street’s Problem: Retail Is Moving Faster

The SDOT rally highlights a bigger issue for Wall Street.

Traditional market research is slow. Analyst reports take time. Institutional positioning takes time. Risk committees take time.

Retail trading communities move instantly.

A ticker can go from unknown to viral in minutes if it appears inside the right alert room and then spreads across Discord, Reddit, YouTube, StockTwits and X.

That is why some hedge funds and short sellers may be watching these communities more closely.

The danger for short sellers is not simply that retail traders are excited. The danger is that retail attention can arrive suddenly in stocks where liquidity is already thin.

In that environment, even modest buying pressure can create outsized price moves.

SDOT appears to be the latest example of that dynamic.

After 8 years, 11,000+ hours, countless mistakes, blown accounts, books, mentors and chart reviews, these are the 20 principles that mattered most. I hope they will save you years on your trading journey. This is part 1 of 2 - the next part will be uploaded soon. You can also check out my trading platform here.

You today versus you after your trading & investing journey

A STRONG FOUNDATION

1. Managing expectations.

When I was 14 years old I thought I'd get a six-pack in a few months. Turns out I was wrong and naive. It took years of training, experimenting and making mistakes before I got the results I wanted. Learning how to trade turned out to be VERY similar.

For some reason, people assume they can become consistently profitable in a year or two. Yet the same people would never dare to think that they can become a surgeon, lawyer or professional athlete that fast. So why is it that when it comes to the stock market, everyone seems convinced they're different? I was willing to work hard, study charts, read books and put in the hours. But what I underestimated was how many different ways there are to be wrong in this business.

• Time horizon - Assume it will take significantly longer than you think. Most people dramatically underestimate how much experience is required before they can consistently make money.

• Experience - Trading is a field where experience compounds. Reading 100 books will never ever replace seeing the same pattern play out hundreds of times in real market conditions.

• Humility - The less experience you have, the less you realize what you don't know. You are unconsciously incompetent. That's one of the reasons beginners often become overconfident so quickly.

The game taught me the game. It didn’t spare the rod while teaching. - Jesse Livermore

https://preview.redd.it/rjfpwwxjk89h1.png?width=2106&format=png&auto=webp&s=76ea78f4f62160fe2fb4e5a2560710f444957385

2. Learning how to learn.

One of the biggest problems in trading is information overload. There are millions of videos, tweets, books, newsletters, Discord channels and podcasts competing for your attention. The problem is that a big percentage of it is wrong, misleading, fraudulent, or irrelevant. When you're new, you don't know what you don't know, and this makes finding genuinely useful information incredibly difficult.

For years I convinced myself I was improving because I was consuming content. But what moved the needle was doing actual deep work, studying with focus, meeting my trading mentor, studying charts, and going through my setups. Profitable traders might have their own strategies, but they all spend a lot of time going through their watchlist, setups and trades.

• Discovery - Books, interviews, posts, articles, and communities can expose you to new ideas and occasionally provide insights that might just completely change how you think about the market.

• Chart study - This is where most of my progress came from. Looking at thousands of charts builds pattern recognition in a way passive learning never can.

• Trade review - Every serious trader I know reviews their winners, losers, entries, exits and mistakes. The market gives feedback every day if you're willing to listen.

• Finding your style - At some point you need to stop searching for new ideas and start refining a process that fits how you naturally think and make decisions.

https://preview.redd.it/8wi46npkk89h1.png?width=2100&format=png&auto=webp&s=13d710550d9b034b28bf5e92402c6311fe09b0ae

You need to study thousands of charts with your setup. - Kristjan Qullamaggie

3. A look at the market cycle.

Before trading stocks, I spent years trading FX. Looking back, switching to stocks was one of the best decisions I ever made. Unlike many markets, stocks have a natural upward skew because businesses are constantly trying to grow, innovate and increase profits. Like many beginners, I became obsessed with beaten-down stocks because they looked cheap. I assumed the best opportunities would be ‘hidden’. I was constantly looking for obscure companies and undiscovered ideas that nobody else had found yet. Then I started studying actual market winners and I read Stan Weinstein's book on stage analysis which really changed things for me.

• Market skewness - Stocks have a natural upward bias because businesses are constantly trying to grow. That alone gives both investors and traders a structural advantage compared to other markets like FX or crypto.

• Institutional buying - The biggest winners are almost always accumulated by institutions long before the public notices. Following that money is usually more productive than trying to outsmart it.

• Relative strength - One of the first things I look for is whether a stock is outperforming the market. Leaders tend to keep leading longer than most people expect. This comes in ‘waves’ and will change over time.

• Weinstein Stages - The goal is to get in during a late Stage 1 or an early Stage 2. It will make your life much easier if you simply ignore everything else. Read the book from Stan Weinstein if you have to.

The trend is your friend until the end when it bends.- Ed Seykota

https://preview.redd.it/52m28salk89h1.png?width=2100&format=png&auto=webp&s=5f3a806318921548d6aaa3866e2577482e89d0c8

4. The only indicators you need.

I got completely lost in the indicator rabbit hole for years. I've tried just about everything. Like most traders, I was convinced there was some magical combination that would finally make everything click. What I eventually realized is that most indicators are describing some variation of the same things: price, time, volume and sometimes momentum. The more indicators I added, the harder decisions became because I could always find evidence supporting both sides of a trade. Indicators are like crayons on the chalk board. It all might make sense in retrospect but few are actually helpful and somewhat predictive in nature.

• Moving averages - I always use the 10, 20 and 50 EMA. I generally don't do anything with stocks trading below the 50-day moving average, and I use the slope of the 200-day moving average as part of my scan criteria.

• Dollar volume - I prefer dollar volume over regular volume because it gives a much better indication of actual money flowing into or out of a stock, making institutional activity easier to spot.

• Simplicity - These days I'm much more interested in removing things than adding them. My overall decision-making improved as my charts became less complicated. I love clean charts.

• MACD - This is optional but you can try to add a 3/9 MACD to more easily spot ‘dips’ to buy up a stock during an uptrend. This is somewhat aligned with Linda Raschke’s method of trading which is based on The Taylor Method.

Price is the final arbiter.- Paul Tudor Jones

https://preview.redd.it/e56f3rylk89h1.png?width=2108&format=png&auto=webp&s=c7d31af8d800269fb5cdcc1031ebf09135406e3b

5. The power of simplicity.

I am a big believer in keeping it simple so I hate tools overcomplicating things. Some tools are genuinely useful and I still use some of them (see list of tools at the end). Others were a disaster. In some cases, it took months just to learn a new platform before eventually abandoning it and basically moving on to the next one. (I'm looking at you, Sierra Charts.)

One thing I learned is that most trading software is about as user-friendly as a maze is to a drunk. It throws an absurd amount of information at you and assumes more information automatically leads to better decisions. In reality, it often does the opposite. It’s not exactly helpful if someone tells you there are 4,282,292 trees nearby when you are lost in the jungle. Yet that seems to be how many of the tools and platforms operate.

I realized that good software saves time, but great software helps you make decisions. That's partly why I started building tools for myself. I just got tired of jumping between a dozen tabs just to answer relatively simple questions. Point being, everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler. Do what works for you, keep it simple.

• Information overload - Most of the trading software gives you more information than you need, not less. The real challenge is filtering signals from noise.

• Decisions - Good software helps you analyze. Great software helps you decide. That doesn’t exist yet but I’m hoping to build it some day if I can get enough support from people.

• Process > Tools - The successful traders and investors are successful because they have a process and execute it consistently. Tools matter, but they're multipliers, not necessarily an edge in itself.

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. - Leonardo da Vinci

https://preview.redd.it/w6fdxxnmk89h1.png?width=2102&format=png&auto=webp&s=1cae70def68fb16f212ee7ae9052a4318994deeb

6. Style and personal preferences.

For years I'd discover some successful trader, study everything they did and then try to become a copy of them. I'd read Minervini and want to trade like Minervini. I'd see an interview with some algorithmic trader and try that. Then I'd discover some new strategy and spend months on that.

Looking back, a big part of my journey wasn't finding the "best" strategy. It was figuring out how I'm wired and building a style around that. These days my approach is really just an amalgamation of ideas I've stolen from dozens of traders over the years and combined into something that fits me.

• Personality - Some people are momentum traders. Others are investors. Others are contrarians. Fighting your personality is usually a losing battle. It will take time to find your own ‘style’.

• Principles - Different people use different methods, but many operate from the same basic underlying principles: proper risk management, patience, discipline, good timing, and conviction.

• Your style - The goal isn't to become a carbon copy of somebody else. The goal is to take the ideas from others and gradually build a style that makes sense to your own brain. It needs to ‘resonate’ with you.

I don’t have to turn you into me! I have to turn you into you!  - Master Shifu

https://preview.redd.it/pqx6qirnk89h1.png?width=2104&format=png&auto=webp&s=d584f19df0b18b8be3ac87904c83f08a40dbb26d

WHAT ACTUALLY MOVES STOCKS

7. Understanding market conditions.

One of the most humbling realizations I've had is that you don't get to dictate market conditions. Ever. You can't control whether your setup works today, tomorrow or next week. This isn't like a normal job where you exchange time for money. As my mentor likes to say, it's feast or famine.

I often compare trading to surfing. You can have the best surfboard in the world and be the most skilled surfer on the planet, but if there are no waves, you're not catching anything.

No matter how good my scanners, watchlists or entries are, if market conditions aren't supportive, very little works. On the other hand, when conditions are right, leaders act well, breakouts hold and money flows naturally into risk assets. One thing I've noticed is that setups working or failing is often a market health indicator in itself. If setups aren’t working, be very careful.

• QQQ - This is the first thing I check every day. If it's trading above the 20 EMA and 50 EMA, conditions are generally bullish. Above the 10 EMA often signals a particularly strong environment. Below the 20 EMA, and below the 50 EMA, I don’t trade basically. Above all, I want to see a positive slope on the moving averages.

• IWM - Small and mid-cap stocks tend to tell you whether institutions are willing to take risk. When the Russell 2000 is outperforming, speculative setups generally work better. When it's weak, I become more cautious.

• VIX - I like seeing the VIX below 15. Lower volatility tends to create a healthier environment for momentum and breakout strategies. Personally, I avoid trading when the VIX moves above 20.

• Breadth - If 8 out of 11 sectors are declining, that's usually not a great sign. Strong markets tend to have participation across sectors, not just a handful of names carrying the indexes.

• Success rates - This is probably the most important one. If good setups are repeatedly failing, I don't need the news to tell me something is wrong. The market is already giving me the answer.

• Price action > News - I do enjoy reading the news, but I pay far more attention to price action. In my experience, the market usually knows something long before the headlines catch up.

There is a time to go long, a time to go short and a time to go fishing. - Jesse Livermore

https://preview.redd.it/5c3hvtiok89h1.png?width=2104&format=png&auto=webp&s=a3bd811cf4adad6a7fb35131bf306b9e2de2200c

8. Sector & industry rotation.

There are two primary ways I find stocks. The first is through scanners that filter roughly 6,000 US stocks down to a manageable watchlist of about 100 stocks give or take. The second is by following what I call momentum leaders within the strongest sectors and industries. Why? Because stocks rarely move in isolation. Money flows through the market in clusters. First a few stocks start moving. Then a theme starts working. Then an entire industry starts showing strength. Then a sector starts attracting attention. True leaders automatically separate themselves from the pack but stocks move together in the end.

Once I started paying attention to sectors and industries (e.g. by looking here) instead of just individual stocks, finding opportunities became dramatically easier because I stopped fighting where money was already flowing.

• Industry leaders - I always want to know the top 5 stocks within a strong leading industry. That's often where the biggest opportunities are. When you see a new industry on the 1W or 1M, pay attention.

• Sector rotation - Money rotates between sectors. Understanding where capital is flowing to and from gives you a huge advantage because you're no longer guessing where leadership will come from.

• Spotting rotation - Each day I like to look at sector and industry performance across the last 3 months, 1 month and 1 week. This helps me identify emerging themes before they are obvious to everyone else.

• Following strength - Instead of asking what stock might move, I prefer asking where money is already flowing. More often than not, that's where the next opportunity comes from.

You want to own the leading stock in a leading industry. - William O'Neil

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9. Why winners keep winning.

People love hunting for bargains. This is especially true in the stock market. We assume a stock that's down 70% must be a better opportunity than a stock making new highs. But the market rarely works that way. The truth is that the strongest stocks often become even stronger. Stocks making new highs frequently keep making new highs. On the other hand, stocks that are weak and beaten down usually keep falling, often much further than anyone thinks possible.

If you think about it, a $5 stock can be incredibly expensive while a $500 stock can be incredibly cheap. When I started studying historical winners, I kept seeing the same pattern. Names showing exceptional relative strength often continued outperforming for months and sometimes years. Meanwhile, many of the stocks that looked cheap stayed cheap or got even cheaper. One of the biggest shifts in my trading came when I stopped asking what looked undervalued and started asking where the market was already showing me strength.

• Momentum - Unless I'm looking for a short, I like to see momentum. I want stocks outperforming the market and showing more buying than selling pressure. If a stock is acting well while the broader market is struggling, that's usually information worth paying attention to.

• Fundamentals - I primarily focus on accelerating sales and earnings growth. Ideally the company is also profitable and generating strong returns on capital (ROE). But above all I want to see acceleration. Institutions pay for growth.

• Uptrend - I want the stocks making higher highs and higher lows while trading above rising moving averages. My favorite names usually have a strong slope on both the 50-day and 200-day moving averages, which often signals sustained institutional demand over a longer period.

Buy high and sell higher. - Nicolas Darvas

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10. How I scan for stocks.

Now that you learned a thing or two (hopefully) the question is, what should you look for? One thing that took me far too long to understand is that there are really three ways to evaluate a stock and you always need to be able to ‘scan’ the market and find stocks. This is a must.

• Technicals - Shows you what the market thinks. The chart is a visual representation of supply and demand. Whether a stock is weak or strong can often be determined from the chart alone.

• Fundamentals - Shows you how the business is doing. Revenue growth, earnings growth, margins, cash flow, and profitability help paint a picture of the underlying company mechanics.

• Relative Strength - Shows how a stock compares to everything else. A company can have great fundamentals and a decent chart, but if there are 50 better opportunities in the market, why own it?

Once I understood those core market concepts, the next challenge was finding opportunities consistently. That's where scanning comes in.

Just so you know, there are about 6,000 stocks listed in the United States. I’d say about 3000 of those are illiquid, low-quality, speculative garbage or businesses you would never want to touch. That’s also why I didn’t even include them on my own platform. They are basically nuclear waste.

Here are some of the things I scan for:

• Uptrends - I primarily trade momentum, so I want stocks making higher highs and higher lows with rising moving averages. Ideally the 20, 50 and 200-day moving averages are stacked correctly and sloping upward.

• Combos - These are stocks that have at least 25% quarterly sales growth, 40% yearly growth, 150% more volume than the last 20 days, and are in an uptrend. This is heavily inspired by O'Neil's work.

• Leaders - Momentum leaders are usually stocks that move as a cluster in a particular industry or theme. These are the potential giants of tomorrow that I want to have on my radar as early as possible.

I then get a list of stocks and go through that list. I usually have two lists, one is about 100 stocks I want to keep an eye on, and the other is a list of my top 10 stocks for the week. Once I go through the charts I look for the following in most cases, which are my ‘basics’.

• Linearity - Above all I like to get in stocks that just have a very beautiful move to them. The charts are nice to look at, clean, with orderly pullbacks, and they are respecting the moving averages.

• Volume - I want to see either a Pocket Pivot or very high volume on a candle that breaks out of a tight range. Volume needs to be there. I want to see high volume on legs up, and low volume on pullbacks.

• ADR - Ignore slow stocks completely (<4% ADR). You want stocks that are fast enough to give you good gains (>4% ADR) but not too wild and volatile which will just lead to getting stopped out (>8% ADR).

After this, which yields me around 100-150 stocks, I look for stocks that are set up according to one of the setups that I like to look for.

• Setups - With the exception of my mean reversion setup, I look for tightness to enter and look for bases, VCPs, wedges, and flags. I do not care for anything else, unless I’m deliberately experimenting.

For those curious, my basic scanner is surprisingly simple:

• ADR: 4-8%
• Market Cap: $300M+
• Liquidity: 100K+ dollar volume
• Trend: Rising 50 and 200-day moving averages

Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity. - Seneca

https://preview.redd.it/7jivksoqk89h1.png?width=2100&format=png&auto=webp&s=0e087744dadb4fbe72d0a48a7c2583356ada5886

PART 2 COMING SOON

I know this was a long read, so if you made it this far, thank you.

I hope there is at least one idea in here that will make you look at the markets differently from now on. Looking back, most of the lessons that moved the needle for me weren't particularly complicated. The difficult part was figuring out which lessons actually mattered and then applying them consistently over a long period of time.

Just for the record, none of these are affiliate links.

PS: If you made it this far, consider sharing this with others.

BONUS

Make sure to check out this, which is built based on the principles shared in this post.

RESOURCES

How Trading Really Works (slides)
How Trading Really Works (youtube)

BOOKS

Reminiscence of a Stock Operator - Edwin Lefèvre
How to Make Money In Stocks - William O’Neill
How I Made $2 Million in the Stock Market - Nicolas Darvas
Principles of Professional Speculation - Victor Sperandeo
Trade like a Stock Market Wizard - Mark Minervini
Market Wizards - Jack Schwartz
Dao of Capital - Mark Spitznagel

YOUTUBE

Stockbee
Qullamaggie
Trading Lion
Roaring Kitty

TOOLS

TC2000
Spiceliner
Finviz
TradingView

PEOPLE

Jeff Sun
Qullamaggie
Mark Minervini
Evan Evans
Dan Zanger
Lone Stock Trader
Jim Roppel

BONUS. A TLDR for the lazy lurkers

1. It takes way longer than you think. Expect 5–10 years, not 1–2.
2. Studying ≠ learning. Focus on setups, charts, and understanding.
3. Stop buying garbage. Follow strength, ignore the "cheap" stocks.
4. Most indicators are noise. Simple charts lead to better decisions.
5. Keep your tools and platforms simple. Build a process for yourself.
6. Trade your personality. Build a style that fits you, not your hero.
7. The market comes first. Great setups fail in bad conditions.
8. Money moves in sectors. Follow where capital is flowing.
9. Strong stocks get stronger. New highs often lead to more new highs.
10. Scan for quality. Uptrends, growth, volume, strength, and liquidity.