On Wednesday, U.S. President Joe Biden's sweeping $2.3 trillion infrastructure bill received 58% approval from Americans in a new CBS news poll. If there's one area of American life that can draw on bipartisan support, its infrastructure; the poll went on to show at least 3 of 4 approve of spending additional federal money on five areas of investment, when asked generally without Biden's name or either party attached. This includes roads and bridges, water pipes, elderly home care, broadband internet in rural areas, and building public schools.

All of this is a long-winded way of saying the infrastructure bill has a chance of making its way through Washington D.C. expediently, or at the very least a compromised version. As polls like these trickled in, copper toppled $10,000 on Thursday and iron ore prices – an integral component to steel – hit a record high. The question then becomes, is there still room for these commodities to run? At the very least, we're going to highlight some stocks that could benefit from this commodity super cycle.

Nucor (NUE) and Steel Dynamics (STLD) both flashed bullish signals on the charts recently. NUE and STLD are both fresh off a round of record highs. According to a study from Schaeffer's Senior Quantitative Analyst Rocky White, these recent highs come amid historically low implied volatility (IV) -- a bullish combination for both stocks in the past.

White's study shows that for both stocks, there have been two other times in the past five years when the securities were trading within 2% of its 52-week high, while their Schaeffer's Volatility Index (SVI) stood in the 20th percentile of their annual range or lower, as is the case with NUE's SVI of 31%, which sits in just the fourth percentile of its 12-month range, and STLD's SVI of 35%, which sits in the bottom percentile of its 12-month range.

According to this data, Nucor stock enjoyed an average one-month return of 12.1% following these signals and was higher both times. For Steel Dynamics, the stock averaged a one-month return of 9.1% and also held a 100% positivity rate. For both NUE and STLD, moves of similar magnitude would put both stocks at new record levels.

Biden's bill may also mean copper – which is up nearly 300% year-over-year as of Wednesday – could receive some of those legislative tailwinds. Large amounts of copper are required to rebuild modern infrastructure and energy systems. Per a chart curated by Schaeffer's Senior Market Strategist Chris Prybal on Wednesday, large speculators of copper are starting to cool off, even as the metal advances. What that means is this latest copper rally is not supported by fresh buying, which underscores its technical tenacity.

Subscribers to Bernie Schaeffer's Chart of the Week received this commentary on Sunday, May 2.

Welcome back to our weekly series, Schaeffer's Cannabis Stock News Update, where we recap what happened in the world of marijuana stocks last week, and look ahead to how the cannabis industry will continue to develop in 2021.

Investor interest in the cannabis industry is growing at an explosive rate, and the leading players continue to break through legal barrier after legal barrier, especially in the United States. More than 40 U.S. states legalized recreational and/or medical marijuana by the end of 2020. Now, more and more companies are starting to see the opportunity in cannabis cultivation, marketing, distribution, and technology.

Here is a quick roundup of major cannabis stock news this week:

Arena Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:ARNA) provided a corporate update and reported financial results for the first quarter of 2021, on May 5. Revenues for the first quarter were nil compared to $0.3 million in the first quarter of 2020. Net loss for the first quarter was $118.4 million compared to a net loss of $100.2 million for the same period in 2020.

cbdMD, Inc. (NYSE:YCBD), one of the world's leading and most highly trusted and recognized health & wellness CBD companies, announced on May 3 that it will host a conference call after the market closes on Wednesday, May 12, to discuss the company's second quarter of 2021 financial results and business progress. YCBD also announced today that it has signed an exclusive sponsorship agreement to be the official CBD partner of the NOBULL CrossFit Games, which will be held in Madison, Wisconsin from July 27 to Aug. 1.

FSD Pharma Inc. (NASDAQ:HUGE) announced the appointment of Nathan Coyle, HUGE's Corporate Controller, as its Interim Chief Financial Officer on May 5, following the departure of Donal Carroll, effective immediately.

Jazz Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:JAZZ) provided the completion of its acquisition of GW Pharmaceuticals plc (NASDAQ:GWPH), a leader in the science, development, and commercialization of cannabinoid-based prescription medications on May 5.

HEXO Corp (NYSE:HEXO) announced on May 3 that it has repaid the total outstanding balance on its credit facility established under its credit agreement with the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce as sole bookrunner, co-lead arranger and administrative agent. The Bank of Montreal will act as co-lead arranger and syndication agent, together with accrued interest and associated fees, in the ‎amount of approximately $28.9 million.

Innovative Industrial Properties, Inc. (NYSE:IIPR), the first and only real estate company focused on the medical-use U.S. cannabis industry, announced its first quarter of 2021 financial results on May 5. 

Organigram Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:OGI) confirmed on May 3 that Greg Engel is stepping away from his role as CEO effective Monday. However, he will continue to act as a special advisor to the board of directors through the transition period.

Tilray, Inc. (NASDAQ:TLRY) and Aphria, inc. announced the completion of the previously announced business merger, ushering in a new era in the global cannabis industry on May 3. The combined company will operate as Tilray. TLRY's shares will continue trading on the NASDAQ. Starting on May 5, Tilray's shares commenced trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

22nd Century Group, Inc. (NYSE:XXII), a hemp/cannabis research company, announced on May 6 that it filed its first quarter of 2021 financial results. Net sales revenue for the first quarter of 2021 was $6.8 million, comparable to the first quarter of 2020 at $7.1 million. The first quarter of 2021 was $5.0 million compared to $4.0 million in the same quarter last year.

It's been an eventful first quarter, with no shortage of earnings reports and economic data. With that being said, May's second week will be a relatively quiet one. It'll be a slow builder, as economic data trickles in over the course of the week, but looking ahead, investors have some job openings data to pair with more initial and continuing jobless claims. In addition, there's a Federal budget balance report due out, as well as consumer sentiment and retail sales data. The earnings docket is full as well, with Airbnb (ABNB), Alibaba (BABA), JD.com (JD), The Children's Place (PLCE), Walt Disney (DIS), and Yeti Holdings (YETI) all slated to report.

Below is a list of key market events scheduled for the upcoming week. All economic dates listed below are tentative and subject to change.

Kicking things off, Monday, May 10 is a quiet day, with no economic data on the books.

Things start to pick up on Tuesday, May 11, as investors digest the latest National Federation of Independent Business' (NFIB) small-business index reading, as well as job openings data.

On Wednesday, May 12, attention turns toward the consumer price index (CPI) and core CPI readings. In addition, the latest Federal budget balance is due out.

More initial and continuing jobless claims data are due out on Thursday, May 13. Plus, with inflation a hot topic of late, the producer price index (PPI) will garner some much earned attention.

It'll be an absolutely packed Friday, May 14, featuring retail sales, the import price index, and industrial production. Consumer sentiment, business inventories, and capacity utilization reports are also slated for release.

The shares of streaming name Roku Inc (NASDAQ:ROKU) are in rebound mode this morning, handily erasing last night's 6.6% drop and last seen up 11.1% at $315.57. The company announced first-quarter earnings of 54 cents per share, much higher than the 13 cent loss per share expected by analysts. Revenue also topped expectations, while the company shared an upbeat current-quarter forecast. 

Should these gains hold, ROKU could snap an eight-day losing streak -- its longest in over two years. The equity is a ways away from its Feb. 16, all-time high of $486.72 still, pressured lower by its 60-day moving average in April, though it sports a year-over-year lead of over 122%. 

Analysts have chimed in on Roku's results, but sentiment is mixed. No less than four members of the brokerage bunch slashed their price targets, including Pivotal Research all the way down to $350. Evercore ISI, meanwhile, hiked its price target to $430 from $400. 

Most brokerage firms covering ROKU are bullish, with 15 analysts calling the security a "buy" or better, compared to only three "hold" or worse ratings. Plus, the 12-month consensus price target of $465.06 is a 48.7% premium to last night's close.

Short interest, meanwhile, has been on the rise. In the last two reporting periods, short interest rose 16.5%. There's still plenty of room on the bearish bandwagon, however, with the 3.61 million shares sold short making up only 4.4% of the stock's available float, or a little under one day of pent-up buying power at ROKU's average pace of trading. 

What's more, the equity's Schaeffer's Volatility Scorecard (SVS) sits at 94 out of a possible 100. This means Roku stock has managed to exceed volatility expectations during the past year -- a boon for option buyers. 

Stock futures are mixed today, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJI) down around 60 points following a miss on April's non farm payrolls report, which showed an increase of 266,000, compared to the expected 1 million. Digging deeper, the blue-chip index -- fresh off two-straight record closes -- is also suffering after data showed the unemployment rate rose to 6.1% last month, versus the anticipated 5.8%. Meanwhile, S&P 500 Index (SPX) and Nasdaq-100 Index (NDX) futures are in the black, after the 10-year Treasury yield dropped 5 basis points, triggering a jump in tech stocks.

Continue reading for more on today's market, including:

• A few useful ways to analyze market performance. 
• Regeneron stock rose after a stellar earnings report.
• Plus, Beyond Meat stock notches bear notes; Peloton's expectations after recall; and Cinemark gears up to reopen.

5 Things You Need to Know Today

1. The Cboe Options Exchange (CBOE) saw more than 1.5 million call contracts traded on Thursday, and 877,999 put contracts. The single-session equity put/call ratio rose to 0.57 and the 21-day moving average rose to 0.48.
2. The shares of Beyond Meat Inc (NASDAQ:BYND) are plunging, down 8.3% ahead of the open and has suffered at least four price-target cuts, after the company reported first-quarter losses and revenue that missed Wall Street's estimates. According to the plant-based burger maker, the pandemic has taken a big toll on demand. Nearing 2021's halfway mark, BYND is down 4.8% on the year.
3. Meanwhile, Peloton Interactive Inc (NASDAQ:PTON) is surging, last seen up 6.8% before the bell, despite anticipating a hit of $165 million after recalling its treadmills. In addition, the company cut its sales and profit forecast for the current fiscal year, but reported smaller-than-expected losses and revenue. In response, a slew of bear notes have come in for the exercise equipment concern. Year-to-date, PTON is down 44.8%.
4. Movie theater operator Cinemark Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:CNK) is brushing off first-quarter losses that were larger than Wall Street expected. Instead, the equity is getting a bump from a revenue beat, paired with optimistic comments regarding theater reopenings and the summer movie season. Last seen up 0.8% in electronic trading, CNK has tacked on 17.7% in 2021.

5. Today features nonfarm payrolls, an update on the unemployment rate, and average hourly earnings. Wholesales inventories and consumer credit data is also due out.

European Markets Extend Wins on Adidas Earnings

Asian markets were mixed to close out the week, as investors continued to wait for the results of the U.S. jobs report. Leading the gainers was South Korea’s Kospi, which added 0.6%, followed by Japan’s Nikkei’s modest 0.09% gain. Meanwhile, China’s Shanghai Composite dropped 0.7%, and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng finished slightly below breakeven with a 0.09% loss.

Markets across the pond are higher, however, amid rising commodity prices and another batch of corporate earnings, including blowout reports from Adidas and Siemens. In other news, the European Union (EU) seemed supportive of waiving patent protections for Covid-19 vaccines, and investors are eyeing election results across the U.K. In turn, the German DAX was last seen up 1.3%, London’s FTSE 100 is up 0.6%, and France’s CAC 40 has added 0.2%.

Last month, Senior Market Strategist Matthew Timpane stopped by Benzinga  was a featured presenter at the April 2021 Benzinga Boot Camp and discussed “Finding an Edge to Your Options Trading.” You can view the entire presentation at https://benzinga.wistia.com/medias/q46jcrme4x 

Below is an excerpt of the article, which can also be found here.

Attitude is everything in the world of trading, according to Schaeffer Investment Research’s Matthew Timpane who is a senior strategist for the now 40-year old company. Speaking at the April 2021 Benzinga Boot Camp, Timpane discussed at length how a trader’s mental attitude can determine success in the market.

“You need to change your mindset from what got you successful, either in business or sports in school because constantly digging in and pushing forward isn’t necessarily the best method in trading,” he said. “You need to learn to let go at the end of every market day and when you’ve completed your recap and last-minute research, don’t bring it home and put it on your family and friends.”

Timpane says that at Schaeffer’s, Expectational Analysis® is an extremely important part of their trading process, enabling them to take a contrarian approach, researching market segments that don’t necessarily mean trading against the trends, “but looking for pessimistic market participants in a stock that is bullish. It gives us the most bang for our buck” Timpane shared some of the key facets of Schaeffer’s Expectational Analysis® approach with a focus on sentiment-based indicators.

Open Interest Configurations

We look at these and we have screens that tell us where stocks have high levels of concentration. On buys to open calls or puts (mostly retail), we are able to look into this and see who is selling and buying and it gives us an edge. Kroger (KR) stock as an example had a huge 35 put strike level, so when it broke above it, you knew that could be supportive. Since then it’s been a pretty good trade and we’re still in this thing.

Put/Call Volume Ratio

These are unique and we identified that Kroger had a tendency to price appreciate when call volume was rising. We identified that the stock was indeed rising and because it’s a 50-day ratio, we knew that there are more put buyers than call buyers, and it’s going to give us an opportunity to get into this thing as people are pessimistic in a bullish chart pattern. We not only do that on individual stocks for subscribers but we do this for analysis.

Short Interest

It’s very common that other people look for stocks with high short interest for potential squeeze opportunities after the recent price actions we saw with GameStop (GME) and AMC Entertainment (AMC) earlier this year. But we’ve been doing this for years. We look for stocks that are either in short recovery mode or short interest is rolling over from highs and sometimes we find stocks that increase in price as short interest increases. Not all stocks act alike and we find that kind of interesting.

Looking for Catalysts

When trading we’re not necessarily looking at discounted cash flows or discounted models from five to ten-year evaluations. We’re looking for catalysts that can move stock in a short time period because understanding where a company will be in a decade doesn’t really give us much of an edge. The fundamentals you’re really looking at when trading is earning surprises and history, insider transactions, and stock buybacks.

Don’t believe everything you’re told. Don’t choose stocks based on things you read on Twitter. Some people are buying the next big thing and you may hit a winner like Tesla but there are also multiple Sun Edisons out there, which a while back was one of the largest wind and solar plant companies and went bankrupt twice under different names.

Today features nonfarm payrolls, an update on the unemployment rate, and average hourly earnings. Wholesales inventories and consumer credit data is also due out.

The following companies are slated to release quarterly earnings reports today, May 7:

Looking ahead to next week, May's second week will be a relatively quiet one. It'll be a slow builder, as economic data trickles in over the course of the week, but looking ahead, investors have some job openings data to pair with more initial and continuing jobless claims. In addition, there's a Federal budget balance report due out, as well as consumer sentiment and retail sales data. The earnings docket is full as well, with Airbnb (ABNB), Alibaba (BABA), JD.com (JD), The Children's Place (PLCE), Walt Disney (DIS), and Yeti Holdings (YETI) all slated to report.

All economic dates listed here are tentative and subject to change.

Any prudent investor will tell you it is important to do your research before buying any given stock, index, or exchange-traded fund (ETF). Two helpful ways to evaluate an asset's performance are trends and trading ranges, both of which analyze certain patterns to determine where an asset may be headed next, or perhaps where it may have gotten stuck.

Trends

There are a couple of different methods traders can use to identify trends. The most straightforward way is to analyze an asset's peaks and valleys. For example, if a stock is carving a channel of higher highs, punctuated by a series of higher lows, then it is likely in an uptrend. Conversely, a series of lower highs and lows is indicative of a downtrend.

Investors can also determine an asset's direction by using moving averages, which are trendlines that reflect the price movement of an asset over a given period of time. This is often a reliable indicator, as moving averages are based off historical performance. For instance, a stock that is above a long-term moving average tends to stay on that path higher, while a stock that is below it may struggle to overcome that area of resistance.

Trading Ranges

When an asset experiences up-and-down movement, but no definite downtrend or uptrend can be established, that is referred to as a sideways trend, or a trading range. This can be observed when an equity adds 5% in one day, say, then erases those gains by falling 1% every day, over the next five days. In other words, the stock is back exactly where it started.

Sideways trading can sometimes be a good thing, and other times a bad thing. It is not uncommon for a stock to trade within a range before it rallies higher, especially when it stands far above a long-term moving average. What can happen in this scenario is that the trendline eventually catches up to the stock's movement, catapulting it to higher levels.

However, stocks can also get stuck in between two areas of support and resistance, without the necessary momentum to break out of this trading range and move in a clear direction. In other words, this is a range-bound stock. Sometimes, that sideways activity can go on for years.