It's hard not to notice the strength we've been seeing in the metals space lately. This surely is getting the Gold Bugs excited.

We wouldn't consider ourselves any kind of "bug," but it's fair to say we're biased toward charts that trend. If line goes up, we like to buy. If line goes down, we like to sell. Simple.

If we can get into an emerging trend early -- so much the better!

"Poor man's gold" (as JC called it), might just be starting a big relative outperformance trend that could spell a big opportunity for us.

We've adjusted a position in the Paid-to-Play portfolio today:

Don't listen to people who claim to know the future.

They're all full of shit.

Technical analysis isn't a mystical prediction machine. This is nothing but a simple, repeatable, and foolproof process for managing risk.

Whenever we're looking to buy a stock, a cryptocurrency, or any other publicly traded asset, we always prioritize where we're wrong rather than how much money we could make.

If you haven't learned by now that risk management is paramount when managing money, you're beyond saving at this point.

For us, most trades are rather simple.

The Outperformers.

The Outperformers is our custom-made scan that pinpoints the very best stocks in the market. It’s the fastest, easiest way to find quality names that are primed for significant moves.

The goal is that as the market rally progresses, the sector rotation within the market will reflect in this scan. So while our Top/Down Analysis helps us with the broader view of the market, this Bottom/Up scan makes sure that we catch the slightest change in sentiment.

The market breadth has definitely improved, but certain stocks are pushing higher on momentum, and we're here to identify just those! This week, we have a stock from the Auto sector making new highs. Let's take a look!

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 Kimmy Sokoloff

The trek lower in the indices continues.

We're near $SPX 3,900 support. After that it's 3,860.

We need to recapture 3,960 to head back uphill.

The largest insider transaction on today's list is a Form 4 filing by Charles River Laboratories International $CRL director Richard F. Wallman.

Wallman revealed a purchase of $328,350 in CRL.

Contrary to popular belief, I don't know what the market is going to do next.

I have no way of possibly knowing if the S&P500 is going to double from here or if it's going to get cut in half. Gold can go to $5000/oz or $5/oz. Crude Oil can go to $250/barrel or $2. I just don't know.

We all have our 'opinions', sure. I mean, how can we not? We're humans right?

But we're making decisions with unknown information.

It's the weekly currency edition of What the FICC?

Today we're highlighting three critical levels with huge implications for the US dollar.

Check it out!

We had a resting GTC order filled in the Paid-to-Play portfolio today:

From the Desk of Ian Culley @IanCulley

The US dollar Index $DXY is running into support at a shelf of former highs. 

How it reacts will influence how stocks fare heading into the year-end.

Let’s check out three charts and three levels to monitor.

From the desk of Willie Delwiche.

This All Star Charts PLUS Monthly Playbook breaks down the investment universe into a series of  binary decisions, tactical calls and asset allocation models. 

Paired with our Weight of the Evidence Dashboard and our Playbook Chartbook, this piece is designed to help dynamic asset allocators follow trends, pursue opportunities, and manage risk.

The trend in commodities has rolled over but, for the 96th week in a row, the up-trend in commodities relative to stocks remains intact. You need to go back to the early 70’s to see a longer sustained period of strength in commodities versus stocks. 

Why It Matters: For some, commodities are the forgotten step-child of asset allocation discussions. This is especially the case for those with a narrow frame of reference and a lack of historical perspective. Prior to the current trend favoring...

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

The market took another hit today. We broke below last week's lows and plowed through support levels.

The $SPX has support at 3,900, then 3,860. Resistance is at 3,959.

Focusing our attention on buying stocks over the past 5-6 months has paid very well. This is especially true in the stocks that have been showing the most relative strength this year.

The laggards remain laggards. The losers are mostly still losers.

The breadth improvement, however, remains in place.

Rotation overseas continues to broaden.

It's gotten harder and harder to make money from the short side since this Summer.

There's been no questioning how we've been positioned in crypto markets.

For the longest time, we've promoted high cash positions in this tape. Patience has been a significant virtue for traders to maintain.

Extending on this overarching theme, we yet again argued that caution is advised in the short term in yesterday's note.

While we've been putting forward the utility of patience in this cryptocurrency market for some time, we especially see a confluence of concerning data points.

Most importantly, the S&P 500 is once again testing its channel resistance and AVWAP off the highs, where it has found resistance over the last year.

Further, the dollar index is retesting its breakout level from the 2017 and 2020 highs following the collapse of the FTX and Alameda ecosystem.

We've adjusted a position in the Paid-to-Play portfolio today:

From the Desk of Kimmy Sokoloff

As of early this morning, futures are flat. The $SPX rejected the 200-day moving average yesterday and dropped right into support.

I'll be watching to see if SPX 3,962 is held throughout the day. Otherwise, we can see 3,932.

The largest insider transaction on today’s list is a Form 4 filing by Coliseum Capital Management LLC.

The hedge fund reported a purchase worth roughly $6.7 million in ModivCare $MODV. It now owns more than 9.12% of outstanding shares.

This is the video recording of our December 5th Monthly Charts Live Strategy Session

From the desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza

Welcome to our latest Minor Leaguers report.

We've had some great trades come out of this small-cap-focused column since we launched it back in 2020 and started rotating it with our flagship bottom-up scan, Under the Hood.

For the first year or so, we focused only on Russell 2000 stocks with a market cap between $1 and $2B.

That was fun, but we wanted to branch out a bit and allow some new stocks to find their way onto our list.

We expanded our universe to include some mid-caps.

To make the cut for our Minor Leaguers list, a company must have a market cap between $1 and $4B.

And it doesn't have to be a Russell component — it can be any US-listed equity. With participation expanding around the globe, we want all those ADRs in our universe.

The same price and liquidity filters are applied. Then, as always, we sort by proximity to...

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @sstrazza and Alfonso Depablos @Alfcharts

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...