Metals have been gaining more strength with every passing day and have certainly been outperforming the market at present. We have a long setup from the Metals sector this time around as well.

Let's take a look at the trade for this week!

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.

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 stock is about to move...

Over the last few months, we've continued to hammer the point that the market is a mess and trading should be kept to a minimum.

We've taken shots at small long trades in a few altcoins during this time, only for us to ultimately get chopped up days after putting the positions on.

This is information.

Crypto as an asset class is range-bound at best, and unless you're incorporating a staking/yield/options strategy, the vast majority of crypto traders have been better off positioned in stables on the sidelines.

The macro environment continues to be heavily driven by geopolitical volatility and the situation in Eastern Europe.

Parabolic commodity prices are beginning to take their toll on the broad market indexes, which Bitcoin and crypto have been correlated with in recent months and quarters.

Moreover, whales and savvy traders are still in the process of selling.

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.

Is This The Beginning Or The End?

Not only did commodities have their best week in more than fifty years, but Copper and Gold broke to new highs – Copper to new all-time highs and Gold to fresh 52-week highs. And similar to the bullish momentum thrust in the BCOM index, when we zoom out on these charts we get the sense we’re at the beginning of a major trend -- not the end of one. Both Copper and Gold are just beginning to break out of decade-long bases. The last time they broke out of similar basing patterns these metals, and commodities as a whole rallied for almost a decade. If these breakouts are valid and we continue to see broad strength among commodity contracts, these raw materials could provide monster returns for years to come.

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.

Macro Universe:

• Our macro universe was red this week as 60% of our list closed lower with a median return of -1.27%.
• This week, Oil $CL was the winner, closing with a massive 26.30% gain.
• The biggest loser was US 10-Year Yield $TNX, with a weekly loss of -13.19%.
• There was a 4% gain in the percentage of assets on our list within 5% of their 52-week highs – currently at 30%.
• 38% of our macro list made fresh 4-week highs, 23% made...

The bull market in energy, oil, and resource names continues. And elevated options premium continues.

Today's trade is exploitation of both of these themes. Let's get right to it.

Warren Buffett is making his first appearance on The Hot List, as Berkshire Hathaway $BRK.A purchased more than 90,000,000 shares of Occidental Petroleum $OXY last week.

OXY explores for and produces crude oil and natural gas. It’s actually the largest producer of natural gas liquids in the United States.

It's happening.

Investors are bearish.

Especially American ones with a ton of Growth exposure!

Want to know what a bag holder looks like? I encourage you to take a look at your typical American portfolio with a ton of Technology stocks in it, Consumer Discretionary stocks and virtually no exposure to Commodities and Latin American equities.

Of course sentiment is bad. It should be bad!

But this bad?

More Bearish Financial Advisors than Bullish ones?

That doesn't happen very often.

It's always fun dropping by the Ritholtz office in New York City.

Basically what happens is we yell at each other for about an hour, and then we go out to eat and drink until we pass out.

It's pretty great.

On this episode of the Compound and Friends, I sit down with Josh Brown, Michael Batnick, and my old pal Dan Nathan joined us this time as well.

As usual, we ripped through some charts, but we also discuss the best burger in New York City.

I thought my answer was the right one. But it turns out Dan Nathan was right all along. I trust this man with my life.

Hope you enjoy!

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

Commodities are having their best week since 1970. And if you don't know what happened after that, let's just say it was a good decade for them as a group.

The CRB Index is up more than 13%. Crude oil is trading above 100. Wheat futures opened limit up last night, “dotting the chart.” Base metals such as aluminum and tin continue to print all-time highs.

And even precious metals have joined the party! 

Could it get any more bullish?

As it turns out, it can…

After almost a year of sideways action, Dr. Copper looks ready for a fresh leg higher, as it just closed the week at new all-time highs!

Here's a close-up look at the continuation pattern copper has been consolidating in since May of last year:

Digesting its gains following such an explosive move off the 2020 lows is constructive and has set the stage for a new rally.

While the past few weeks’ action in some commodities may suggest otherwise, charts don’t move in a straight...