The market is in a recovery mode and certain stocks are outperforming others. As always, those are the names we're interested in!

Let's check out a long idea from the Paper segment.

We retired our "Five Bull Market Barometers" in 2020 to make room for a new weekly post that's focused on the three most important charts for the week ahead.

This is that post, so let's jump into this week's edition.

This is the video recording of the March 2022 Mid-month Conference Call.

• The Inflation Trade Persists - In Bonds & Commodities
• Bearish Sentiment in Stocks - Setting Up For Further Squeeze
• Stocks for Rising Rates Showing The Most Strength
• Metals & Mining Stocks Still Showing Leadership
• A lot of Bullish Retests In Global Markets Ex-U.S.
• My Favorite Gold Stocks To Own Right Now
• Which Growth Stocks to Bottom Fish Down Here
• Why Aussie/Yen is so important to watch right now
• Bitcoin AVWAP at 46K

From the desk of Steve Strazza @sstrazza

This is one of our favorite bottom-up scans: Follow the Flow. 

In this note, we simply create a universe of stocks that experienced the most unusual options activity — either bullish or bearish… but NOT both.

We utilize options experts, both internally and through our partnership with The TradeXchange. Then, we dig through the level 2 details and do all the work upfront for our clients.

Our goal is to isolate only those options market splashes that represent levered and high-conviction, directional bets.

We also weed out hedging activity and ensure there are no offsetting trades that either neutralize or cap the risk on these unusual options trades.

What remains is a list of stocks that large financial institutions are putting big money behind… and they’re doing so for one reason only: because they think the...

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza.

Welcome back to our latest Under the Hood column, where we'll cover all the action for the week ended March 18, 2022. This report is published bi-weekly and rotated with our Minor Leaguers column.

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.

Watch this video for a behind-the-scenes look at our process.

Whether we’re measuring increasing interest based on...

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Our Top 10 Charts Report was just published.

In this weekly note, we highlight 10 of the most important charts or themes we're currently seeing in asset classes around the world.

A Reversal In Risk

Not only are the most battered areas of the market digging in at logical levels of support and resolving higher, so is high-yield debt relative to Treasuries (HYG/IEI). This crucial ratio is an inverse illustration of credit spreads as we’re comparing the bond prices instead of the yields. HYG/IEI putting in a potential failed breakdown and resolving higher speaks to a reprieve in market stress and bodes well for risk assets. It’s no coincidence that we’re seeing similar action at the index level as the S&P 500 is back above its January lows. Bulls want to see this ratio catch higher in the coming weeks as this would support a tradable low and fresh rally for stocks as risk-seeking behavior re-enters the market. There is still some work to do, but we’re moving in the right direction.

...

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Check out this week's Momentum Report, our weekly summation of all the major indexes at a Macro, International, Sector, and Industry Group level.

By analyzing the short-term data in these reports, we get a more tactical view of the current state of markets. This information then helps us put near-term developments into the big picture context and provides insights regarding the structural trends at play.

Let's jump right into it with some of the major takeaways from this week's report:

* ASC Plus Members can access the Momentum Report by clicking the link at the bottom of this post.

• This week, our macro universe was green as 70% of our list closed higher with a median return of 2.67%.
• High Beta $SPHB was the winner this week, closing with a massive 8.93% gain.
• The biggest loser was the Volatility Index $VIX, with a weekly loss of -22.37%.
• There was a 2% gain in the percentage of assets on our list within 5% of their 52-week highs – currently at 21%.
• 38% of our macro list made fresh 4-week highs, 9%...

From the desk of Willie Delwiche.

Key Takeaways:

• Rally lacks conviction.
• Looking for a thrust I can trust.
• Fed and bond market moves become headwinds for stocks.

In addition to these market concerns, the liquidity backdrop is presenting a more acute challenge for equities. The Fed raised rates 25 basis points last week and the futures market is now looking for another 100 basis points of tightening combined at the May and June FOMC meetings. Corporate bond yields are rising at their fastest pace since the financial crisis and more than half of global central banks are now in tightening mode. During the last cycle, it took the 2-year Treasury yield more than 6 years to move from its low to back above 2%. This cycle it completed that move in just over 1 year. The pace of tightening (from the bond market and from the Fed) matters for equities. Stocks tend to struggle when that pace is elevated, as it appears to be in this...

For some time, we've reiterated our neutral approach. By staying out of the market in this sloppy tape, we've avoided emotional and financial whipsaws.

During this period, we've been downright obnoxious about how little edge there is in pushing longs.

But this could finally be changing.

As we'll discuss in today's note, we're seeing signs selling pressures are beginning to subside. Price action is heavily coiled, and the clock's ticking for a resolution out of this range.

Looking ahead into April, we forecast a high probability of an upward resolution from this consolidation.

Trading opportunities aren't limited to just U.S.-based corporations. And thanks to ADRs, we don't have to go to other foreign exchanges to exploit opportunities in different countries. These companies have tracking shares -- often with tremendous liquidity -- on our exchanges here.

One such opportunity, with a big base that is showing signs of resolving higher, recently appeared in our International Hall of Famers report last week.

The highlight of today’s list is the Altimeter Capital Form 4, which revealed a $7 million purchase in the mid-cap software stock Confluent $CFLT.

Altimeter now owns 5,131,700 shares of CFLT.

There was also a significant Form 4 filing by Sequoia Capital’s Roelof Botha, detailing a purchase in the diagnostics and research company Natera $NTRA.

Botha purchased roughly $5 million of NTRA stock, bringing his total share count to over 1.3 million.

We discussed it earlier this week, but now that the weekend is here, it's a good idea to take a step back and recognize what's going on.

The bottom line is this: the number of Breadth Thrusts are adding up.

It's Saturday Morning Chartoons time. 

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.

You can find the whole list of trades here.

Below you'll find the full PDF of this week's charts:

From the desk of Steven Strazza @Sstrazza and Ian Culley @Ianculley 

Gold looks like it’s ready to run.

The largest gold miner in the world, Newmont Mining Corp. $NEM, has broken out of a multi-year base.

Silver and platinum have dug in at critical support levels and are catching higher.

And, most importantly, gold is in the process of reclaiming its former all-time highs from summer 2020.

These are all bullish developments, suggesting gold -- and precious metals more broadly -- are ready to join in on the party that most commodities have been enjoying for more than a year.

Last month, gold broke above its former 2011 highs near 1,924. Here’s a zoomed-out view of the chart:

Now that we are back above this key peak from the previous commodity supercycle, it’s time to bet on a fresh leg higher for the shiny metal. 

Seeing gold push back above its prior cycle highs and begin to participate is incredibly constructive for the...

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

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:

...

From the desk of Willie Delwiche.

The FOMC meeting is out of the way and the quiet period for Fed speakers that preceded it has ended. We are now getting a barrage of “how we got it wrong” inflation retrospectives and “how we can get it right” policy tightening perspectives from Federal Reserve Presidents and Governors. A proper understanding of both of these helps explain the path we’ve traveled and what might lay ahead. While labor supply crunches and supply chain disruptions have played their part, the Fed seems to have forgotten Milton Friedman’s famous quote: “Inflation is always & everywhere a monetary phenomenon in the sense that it is and can be produced only by a more rapid increase in the quantity of money than in output.” Money supply rose 25% in 2020 and another 13% in 2021. The Fed’s balance sheet expanded by 78% in 2020 and another 18% in 2021. Inflation soared and has proven not to be transitory in large part because these liquidity increases have persisted. If the Fed is going to get ahead of inflation, it will have to stop blaming exogenous factors and focus on the instruments over which it has some control. And Financial assets will have...

This is the video recording of our March 18, 2022, All Star Charts Crypto Weekly Strategy Session.

Is that a dead cat bounce in the Biotech ETF $XBI that will quickly fade? Or is this week's hard pivot off the $80 level the new floor?

I don't know the definitive answer, but the bet I'm going to make is that $80 will hold at least for a few weeks. If it does and as long as $XBI doesn't overshoot on the upside from here, I think this ETF is offering us a great opportunity to sell some premium here.

So let's get into how I'd like to play it.

We’ve talked a lot about the unusual options activity in commodity stocks like Freeport-McMoRan $FCX in recent weeks and months. 

Yesterday, we saw more of the same, as options traders made some major splashes in April monthly calls for both the oil services giant Schlumberger $SLB and the British integrated oil and gas name Shell Plc $SHEL.

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Yesterday, we discussed one of our favorite stocks from the hot list right now and today, we have another new idea.

Before we get there though, let’s reiterate yesterday’s trade.