Why We Got Bullish on Coal Before Xmas VIEW IN BROWSER By Michael Salvatore, Editor, TradeSmith Daily In This Digest: - Thursday’s inflation numbers are full of holes
- New Flash Buys triggered on these stocks as the market rallied
- This unusual pick rose 13.5% in a lagging December
- A treasure trove of free ideas from TradeSmith’s CEO
- Our Tipping Point 2026 offer deadlines tomorrow
Thursday’s inflation report had some issues… Last week’s Core Consumer Price Index release from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) was an odd one. - Due to the government shutdown, it omits most of the inflation data from October.
- It calculates the annual pace of inflation to be 2.6%, a big drop from the previous month’s 3% reading.
Because the BLS had to fall back on assumptions to fill in for the omitted data, these figures are a little shaky. But the market celebrated anyway… After spending much of December in the dumps, the tech-filled Nasdaq 100 closed 1.5% higher for the day. And the S&P 500 closed almost 1% higher. This move higher triggered several new Flash Buys that should be on your radar. | Recommended Link | | | | TradeSmith has unleashed a mathematical monster that should terrify hedge fund managers. This Baltimore-based team’s breakthrough technology reveals each stock’s unique “volatility fingerprint,” helping regular people decide when to buy and sell. Click here to see how. |  | | We created Flash Buys for today’s fast-moving market… They trigger when a stock shows an abnormal burst of short-term strength relative to its recent trading behavior, often after a sharp selloff or period of stress. Unlike TradeSmith’s traditional Health signals that rely on historical volatility, a Flash Buy looks only at a stock’s most recent price action. The goal is spotting when selling pressure has exhausted itself and buyers are rushing back in. In our backtesting, we found that stocks produced average annualized returns of 23.4% after Flash Buy signals. And last Wednesday, we got a fresh Flash Buy on popular electric vehicle and AI play Tesla (TSLA). TSLA’s original Flash Buy actually dates back to Aug. 22, where it’s since seen several dips into “Hold” territory: our Yellow Zone. Since then, it’s up more than 40% and trading at a new all-time high. 
We saw another Flash Buy on Pulte Group (PHM). The last Flash Buy signal on this homebuilder stock preceded a peak gain of 31%. 
And Flash Buys aren’t the only signals we’ve been keeping an eye on. We’ve also been using our Seasonality tool to find unexpected winners… Stocks have been mostly flat this December. But two weeks back, we combined two different TradeSmith tools to spot a promising setup that’s played out well. First, we looked at our Trade Cycles seasonality data to determine that the Materials Sector ETF (XLB) had the best track record for rising in the month of December. Then we used Jason Bodner’s Quantum Score to find high-growth potential small-cap stocks in that sector. We landed on Warrior Met Coal (HCC), a coal stock that had a strong seasonality window ending on Dec. 25. And it’s up 13.5% since we put it on your radar. Bask in the irony with us for a moment. Without even realizing in the moment, we recommended a coal stock to own through a seasonality period ending Christmas Day, Dec. 25. Ironic or not, HCC is up a respectable 10% as the broad market has gone less than nowhere in December. Guess a lot of boys and girls are on the naughty list this year. 
So, TradeSmith Daily readers got a Santa Claus rally. It just wasn’t where I’d wager 99% of investors would ever think to look. And we only found it because of TradeSmith’s hedge-fund-level toolkit. Don’t forget about TradeSmith CEO Keith Kaplan’s X feed… If you aren’t following Keith Kaplan on X, here’s your regular reminder to fix that. Keith posts his thoughts every day on the market’s lesser-known megatrends… key price moves on hot stocks and sectors… and developing themes we’re seeing in our systems. One valuable example is this post from Keith on Dec. 16. Despite the lumpy price action in the tech sector, Keith showed that the “boring stuff nobody watches” was screaming higher. 
Since Keith posted this, all but two of the stocks he mentioned (COF and AXP) have kept charging higher. If you don’t already follow Keith’s X account, I highly recommend you do. It’s a goldmine of ideas about how to profit in this market. You can even take the ideas he posts on X, then use our tools and analytics to take a deeper dive to generate your own versions of these trades. Heads up: Something special is happening on Jan. 5… The TradeSmith offices are closed for the holidays. But when we’re back on Jan. 5, 2026, we’ll be sending out the first recommendations for the new Chaikin Flash Portfolio. If you’ve been following along, you know it’s result of our partnership with Wall Street legend Marc Chaikin and his data analytics company, Chaikin Analytics. The Chaikin Flash Portfolio is an automated model portfolio that combines TradeSmith’s short-term Flash signals and Marc’s Power Gauge stock rating system. Then it creates a five-position portfolio using a proprietary machine-leaning algorithm. This is our favorite type of blend: technical plus fundamental strength… plus strong money flow. And it’ll be all in one easy-to-follow model portfolio. Over an eight-year backtest, the Chaikin Flash Portfolio returned 35.8% a year. And it achieved this outperformance with a peak drawdown of just 32%. It’s part of TradeSmith’s mission to create simple but powerful data-driven strategies to help you beat the market. That’s what 2025 has been all about, and there’s lots more to come in the New Year. If you want to learn more about how the new portfolio can help you move quickly into stocks as recoveries begin… and step aside just as quickly when conditions deteriorate… follow this link for more from Keith and Marc. To building wealth beyond measure, 
Michael Salvatore
Editor, TradeSmith Daily Disclosure: Michael Salvatore holds shares of Tesla (TSLA) at the time of this writing. | 
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