A very volatile week comes to an end with the markets losing anywhere from .5% to 1% on the day. The good news about this pullback was that it did come on lower volume. But it is possible that could have been a function of a long-weekend. The bottom line is that the week ends on a weak note and stocks finished lower on the week anywhere from 3.6% to 5.2%.
Overall the theme of this week was volatility and uncertainty. Even though there were two quiet day this week, there were three very loud days that showed the market is still not a rational animal right now and is instead a wild scared beast that reacts on a whim to any and all news deemed relevant to short-term traders at the time.
Sadly, almost all form of momentum investing (besides staying short) is working on the long side. Every time we seem to have some leaders start to show up that could lead the market in a new direction they get hit. The most recent example is the Education stocks that got whacked on Thursday after STRA came out and disappointed.
The good news for us is that we can get short these stocks as they fail at resistance on higher volume and begin to rollover. The bad news for us is that it means that the market is still not going to be moving higher for any of us to get rich or wealthy from capital gains anytime soon. About the only good news out of that is that after enough failures people will come to expect it and then the leaders will work.
That might be the case now as Mining-Gold/Silver stocks are not only #1 but have hit #1 BEFORE most of the stocks in this sector has setup and broken out with their price above the 50 day moving average with the 50 DMA above the 200 DMA. This is one of the first groups in a while that I can remember setting up in bullish charts before ALREADY having a major previous run-up. This is why this group feels stronger than past leading sectors.
Now while that may not be good for the market it could very well be very good for us that are long Gold in our IRA and have gold stocks that we have locked on our radar screens ready to go heavily long if those magical beautiful setups occur.
Basically what I have been seeing in leaders are that PAST leaders breakdown that are currently at the top of the list for past six-month and twelve-month performances thus leaving a group that has already been going up for a while and still moving up as the #1 group. This isn't by strength but by default of being the strongest WEAKEST. That is why after these groups are becoming #1 we have been seeing them crack and break not too much long after.
I mean if we just look at the recent top sectors we had security stocks, medical stocks, and recently education stocks that have all failed after becoming the new leaders because they were already in LONG-TERM (going back to 2000 or 2003) major uptrends. They were not anything new.
Now at the same end everyone can say well Gold isn't new either, Einstein! However, a lot of the charts that are setting up in proper bases are longs that have not had a major run yet that are still very fresh and could still have a long way to go especially with the conditions of the world economy the way it is. The old gold stock leaders are not really "leading" this time around (gold stocks helped lead in 2005 and Gold has been moving higher since 9/11). Instead there are plenty of "fresh and nice" charts.
I am still praying that the IYW is hinting at technology turning because time-after-time big bull markets are started and led by the technology sector because this is OBVIOUSLY where innovative and exciting companies are coming from. That is unless they make an amazing energy drink like HANS! Then they can grow 9,250% in four years. But the real money is made in technology stocks that are major innovators like CSCO which grew 60,000% in a little over 9 years. TASR also moved 2,390% for me in nine months. So as you can see, no matter if it is an electricity gun, a router, or an energy drink, if it is new...it can make you a LOT OF MONEY if the company is being run correctly! This is why CANSLIM rocks!! You can always find these stocks by researching and using Investor's Business Daily products (and no I am NOT paid by IBD; the tools are just that great!).
I want to wish everyone a very happy Valentine's Day and have a great 3-day weekend/President's Day! ALOOOOOHA!!
top longs/(shorts) with their total returns since my first purchase MAKING ME MONEY TODAY: ANCI 57% (OKE 36% POT 46% AAPL 38% PG 19% AMX 46% MOS 50% AMSG 17% PRGO 19% APD 41% CYT 64% CASY 27% ARB 70% RDK 29% IPHS 31% RIMM 51% MCY 22% CETV 89% SPG 53%)
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Showing posts with label stock market. Show all posts
Showing posts with label stock market. Show all posts
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Thursday, February 12, 2009
A Bearish And Slow Day Turns Into A Very Bullish Close On Higher Volume For All The Major Market Indexes
Today was basically a day of slow steady selling until the final hour hit. That is when a major rally pushed the indexes higher to close near the HOD with volume higher than the session before. It was quite obvious the Nasdaq led with the volume compared to the NYSE. However, sadly, leading stocks did not participate like you would like to see as the IBD 85-85 finished off 2%.
As a natural bull by heart and forced bear due to the ugly market action, I still must admit it has been nice to see the market stabilize the last two days instead of crack wide open like it acted like it was going to do. It seemed like this market was ready to break wide open as less and less stocks looked good. The good news comes via the past two days as some stocks avoided the major selloff three days ago and still have decent charts. I have posted these in the new longs area. Let's hope soon we can go long some of these charts off of nice chart patterns.
However, if they don't setup and instead the market breaks down, I am sure that Gold and Silver stocks and the commodities will continue to do well. We are already long one nice gold stock and have many other on our watchlist but that can only be gained by going on the Silver or Gold areas.
If the market does rally and the volume continues to come below average of the last 50 days I would be more inclined to look to short the rally than get long. If the rally comes with volume and max green BOP charts and CANSLIM quality stocks setup then BOOM we go long. However, if these charts and stocks do not show up and instead low volume rallies throw stocks right to their key resistance levels I will have no problem going short.
Today was very bullish but volume was not huge enough and leading stocks did not participate. So really it wasn't as wonderful as it seemed. Still it is nice to see the market acting well here. But the fact I have 39 shorts and only 10 longs does not give me confidence a new bull market is around the corner. Either way those shorts have made us a lot of money already and I would have no problem getting rid of them, turning around, and getting more long. At the same time I have no problem going more short, if the market turns down. And what if the market continues to go sideways? Well, I am a very patient man and that is why I did NOT miss 2003 while SO MANY walked away from 2000-2002.
Leaders are made during hard times; not good. Aloha everyone and I will see you in our busier and busier chat room. Aloha!! Make sure you watch the video below to know everything you need to know about the market. My commentaries are going to be shorter because my subscribers believe I give out too much for free. I am going to respect their wishes. You still have enough information here to safely navigate the market to safe profits. Remember, cash is STILL KING with gold being the queen. Aloha!
FREE YOUTUBE VIDEO:
As a natural bull by heart and forced bear due to the ugly market action, I still must admit it has been nice to see the market stabilize the last two days instead of crack wide open like it acted like it was going to do. It seemed like this market was ready to break wide open as less and less stocks looked good. The good news comes via the past two days as some stocks avoided the major selloff three days ago and still have decent charts. I have posted these in the new longs area. Let's hope soon we can go long some of these charts off of nice chart patterns.
However, if they don't setup and instead the market breaks down, I am sure that Gold and Silver stocks and the commodities will continue to do well. We are already long one nice gold stock and have many other on our watchlist but that can only be gained by going on the Silver or Gold areas.
If the market does rally and the volume continues to come below average of the last 50 days I would be more inclined to look to short the rally than get long. If the rally comes with volume and max green BOP charts and CANSLIM quality stocks setup then BOOM we go long. However, if these charts and stocks do not show up and instead low volume rallies throw stocks right to their key resistance levels I will have no problem going short.
Today was very bullish but volume was not huge enough and leading stocks did not participate. So really it wasn't as wonderful as it seemed. Still it is nice to see the market acting well here. But the fact I have 39 shorts and only 10 longs does not give me confidence a new bull market is around the corner. Either way those shorts have made us a lot of money already and I would have no problem getting rid of them, turning around, and getting more long. At the same time I have no problem going more short, if the market turns down. And what if the market continues to go sideways? Well, I am a very patient man and that is why I did NOT miss 2003 while SO MANY walked away from 2000-2002.
Leaders are made during hard times; not good. Aloha everyone and I will see you in our busier and busier chat room. Aloha!! Make sure you watch the video below to know everything you need to know about the market. My commentaries are going to be shorter because my subscribers believe I give out too much for free. I am going to respect their wishes. You still have enough information here to safely navigate the market to safe profits. Remember, cash is STILL KING with gold being the queen. Aloha!
FREE YOUTUBE VIDEO:
Monday, February 09, 2009
Stocks Put In A Very Impressive Bullish Session On Friday, Sadly, With The Leading IBD Indexes Lagging; Leaders Are Leading For The First Time Since A
Stocks ended the week with a little bang as the Nasdaq went out with a 2.9% close, the NYSE had a 2.8% close, the DJIA had a 2.7% close, and the SP 600 led the way with a very impressive 3.6% move. There were two slight "bummers" to today's rally. The first was that volume came in lower than the day before. But, honestly, the volume difference isn't enough to have an argument over it. It was basically the same as the day before just slightly lower. The more important problem was that for the second day in-a-row, even with small-cap stocks doing relatively well, the IBD 85-85 lagged the general market with only a 0.3% gain today. Add that .3% to the SP-600 3.6% and Thursday's IBD 85-85's gain of 1.1% which lagged the Nasdaq's 2.1% gain and the SP-600's 1.4% gain and you have leading stocks not leading this rally.
Why is this bad? It is only bad, for now, because new LASTING stock market rallies need leading stocks to be leading the market higher for the market to sustain a long-lasting rally. Do we have leading stocks leading the way higher? Yes. Gold, Security, Medical, Stem Cells, Software-Medical, Education, Food, Utility, Telecom-Wireless Equipment, and Retail/Wholesale groups and their leading stocks are moving higher. This is the first time since the August to October 2007 small rally where leading stocks actually have gone up with the market. The entire year of 2008 was just a changing of guard at the top constantly from one new leader breaking down to the next. While that has set us up in a better market has that put us in the clear? The answer is not yet.
Why? If we were in the clear, the groups that I mentioned earlier would not be filled with what are considered as "boring" groups during this upturn. Instead, besides stem-cells, we would have many more innovative and technology driven groups. However, facts are facts and groups like Banks, Retail, Transportation, and Homebuilders did better than the new leading groups. This tells me, just like yesterday, that we are still in a rally where vultures are definitely out there trying to pick the dead carcasses off the road of the laggard stocks.
When you look at the simple ETFs of the most beaten up sectors you can see how they are leading. XLF the financial ETF was up 7.6%, XHB the homebuilder ETF was up 7%, and XRT the retail ETF was up 4.3% on Friday. So it is clear to see the two most beaten up sectors, which are banks and homes, are once-again, so far, leading us higher and this tells us that a new bull market is probably not going to start here with these laggards leading.
There is, for the first time, like I mentioned earlier, some great news in that leading stocks in leading sectors are finally moving higher with the market during the pullbacks and rallies. This is the first time this has happened in the market since August 2007 to October 2007 when stocks like APPY DRYS and FSLR put in strong gains for us in short amounts of time. So obviously there is something bullish that could turn out for this rally. Sadly we are missing something that we DID HAVE in 2002 while we were bottoming. Those were hot charts! Even though we have a lot of nice charts the amount of perfect charts shows that this is probably not a bottom. "Bottom" line is that we should have charts like GERN with a lot of max green BOP, heavy volume surges, and a nice flat perfect price action setup like it is currently going through. When max green "hotties" like this start to show up in my scans as we rally higher I will then get more and more bullish. But for now I have to take it easy.
Conditions could be right for those type of stocks to setup soon as most traders and investors are starting to lose their faith in a market rally. I have heard a friend recently say "the next rally I see I am shorting the pants out of it." I think that since people I know that barely know how to invest are now making comments like this, it is safe to say that maybe shorting isn't the safest play RIGHT NOW. A lower volume rally on this rally attempt to the 200 day moving average might make some stocks worth a short play.
But right now the market's movement is clearly mixed with the long-term trend down with the market down over 43%, the intermediate term is down with the market down over 38%, the sub-intermediate term is FLAT FLAT FLAT with the market going nowhere from 10/23/08 to 2/6/09 on the Nasdaq as it has returned a dead -0.76% during that time (zzzzzzzzzzzzzz...), and the NYSE has had the same luck with a +0.88% return from 10/24/08 to now. So obviously over the past few months it has been pretty boring as the market has basically gone nowhere. Short-term the trend is now up for me and not sideways thanks to the last two-days.
I want to remind everyone also that you do not need to buy the exact bottom of this low if you think a new bull market is ready to be unleashed. If you go back and study my best longs from 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, and 2007 I think it becomes OBVIOUSLY CLEAR that you NEVER have to buy the exact bottom of the stock market to come out a huge winner. Just ask everyone that bought TASR in July of 2003 which was nine months past the 2002 lows and then after the July buy made a near 3,000% gain in nine months.
Knowing history and how the greatest stocks work can greatly help you relax and stay calm when everyone is running around like a chicken with its head cut off. There sure are a lot of wild and crazy traders that really think they need to know the future to make big money. The best investors/traders that I have met in my life are NEVER worried about the future. They are only prepared for it. They are prepared for a bull market, a bear market, or a range-bound market. The best are never off with their market calls. Why? They never make calls. They just move with the trend. Just like the best new market students do.
Since I have not gone over the stats for the week I think I should do that now to revisit the fact that we simply do not have leading stocks blasting away higher. While these are necessary, like I said, for long lasting bull markets. Heck, if you are happy with just a few months of a rally right now then things will be fine. But when the week ends out with the Nasdaq up 7.8%!, the SP 600 up 5.9%, the NYSE up 5.4%, the SP 500 up 5.2%. But the DJIA only came in with a weak 3.5%. So if the DJIA was weak you would think small-caps would be strong...and they were up 5.9%. However, in a shocking development, even though nice charts started showing up in my scans, the IBD 85-85 kept lagging only rising 1.2% on Thursday when everyone else was up 1.6% to 2.1% then on Friday it was only up .3% on a day when the indexes were up 2.7% to 3.6% on Friday. These lame returns are just a hint that those nice leading stocks are going to either not lead us up and then fail and help lead us down to new lows or else they are going to have to reverse their lagging status and become leading stocks.
Only when leading stocks like the IBD 100 and IBD 85-85 are leading the overall market higher can you be completely confident that the rally attempt is not just an attempt but is in fact a start of something new. The other KEY important development that must occur is for "hot" charts like SINA, SOHU, NTES, USNA, GRMN, and UNTD show up in those green BOP to max green BOP charts loaded with accumulation. During the 2002 lows they were looking good and were leading industries at the top of the list of IBD's leading industry growth. Now we have leading industries with charts that are lame. Some do look good like Gold and Education stocks. However, a lot of Gold stocks are not yet showing massive accumulation with max green BOP and huge accumulation. However, with them rising to the top of the charts and with a few showing these very nice chart patterns it appears soon Gold will move.
Not only is Gold moving but Education stocks are too. I am long a recent education stock but do not have more do to the fact that the charts are not LOADED with green to max green BOP right now.
Well I have gone very long in my analysis for tonight and would like to continue with this tomorrow. I am sleepy and have loaded this area with information. Great luck this coming week and if you need any extra help that is what the subscriber longs and shorts pages, videos, forums, and chat room are for! Have a wonderful Monday. I will see you here after the Monday stock market session.
Some other key points that I don't have time to go over but want to post before the market opens includes:
--Futures not looking good in the AM. But remember futures don't usually matter because most of the time if futures are green you get a red close and when futures are red you get a green close.
--Shanghai Composite is the only index up with a 2%+ gain at my last look. If you look at the Chinese Hang Seng and Se Composite you can see the market is rounding out and moving higher on strong volume. The leading innovative fundamentally strong stocks in that market are going to make their investors very wealthy.
--I still believe that since the amazing accumulation that I have seen in Gold, Silver, and Platinum since September that there is some amazing long-term accumulation in these metals going on. Therefore, any bounce off the key 50 and 200 DMA (or even the 21 DMA) or even breakout to new recent highs above key resistance levels.
--some leading stocks to watch that were mentioned in IBD that I don't like but we'll see they are acting in a few week to months include SQM RDM SYT TNDM UPS FDX AAWW. I only don't like them because their charts are jacked a little. RGLD would be great to get long soon!
--IBD called this a FTD on 1/28. I called it a "technical" one but it was so ugly I said it would fail. I was right and it did fail. However, on Thursday we had a FTD on the fourth day of the recent rally attempt from the 1/30 short-term lows. The higher lows combined with the big day on Thursday coming on day four of that rally attempt gives me a sign (since CANSLIM stocks are moving up; HOT, pretty, maxed out green, and sexy beautiful stocks are not though) that this rally could have some legs. And we need a rally not only to make money now but to either have it turn into a real bull to make some 200% to 1500% to maybe 2400% gains again or to rally on low volume back to the 200 DMA so we cant get short the past laggard stocks that are now back near their recent 52-week highs. Eiher way a rally here is good. Good for the bulls now and good for the long term bears later.
--There were 3 clearly bullish reversals this week in the stock market. Study 2/2, 2/3, and 2/5 to see how a market should be acting if it has good news possibly coming.
--put/call is .71 signaling the option market players are complacent/bullish
--Investors Intelligence shows 35.2% bulls to 36.3% bears. So it is neither bullish or bearish.
--despite the impressive Friday gains there were still ONLY 10 new 52-week highs compared to 67 52-WEEK LOWS.
--YTD the Nassy is up .93%, the SP 500 is -3.8%, the NYSE is -4.9%, and sadly the IBD 85-85 is -5%. The good news is that I am beating the overall markets with a LAME (this is what happens in dead markets that go nowhere since October) 2% gain thanks to my recent longs and all those profits I took on shorts this year. I don't have a lot of shorts (37 total but 37 SMALL positions) and my 10 longs (10 longs 10 small positions but dollar average is the same as shorts) aren't that huge. So that must mean...
--CASH IS STILL KING!!
--don't fool yourself. This is one of the MOST DIFFICULT markets ever. The beautiful or nice chart setups I saw ALMOST ALL the time from the age of 16 in 1996 to 2006 were like golden tickets. Then in 2007 it got much harder as stocks like AFSI, TESO, APPY worked but stocks like FALC and INXI really fooled us with their SUPER HOT and AMAZING green to max green BOP filled charts. They failed and thus the pattern on those hotties failing more to working started. It seems to be coming back but there are not enough of the charts I like to see with strong enough fundamentals to get me excited here.
--I will need to continue to see volume and hotter charts on the rally or else I will look to be going short the rally with a heavy volume failure at the 200 day moving average. For now, I feel a lot better about the stock markets chance to rally. But still I need better charts to believe it can stay.
ALOHA!!!
Top longs/(shorts) with total returns MAKING ME MONEY on Friday: ANCI 55% (OKE 36% LLL 16%)
FREE YOUTUBE VIDEO:
GOLD AND PLATINUM MEMBERS YOU CAN FIND VIDEO ONE, VIDEO TWO (15 MINS), AND VIDEO THREE (22 MINS) IN THE GOLD FORUMS. MAHALO!
Why is this bad? It is only bad, for now, because new LASTING stock market rallies need leading stocks to be leading the market higher for the market to sustain a long-lasting rally. Do we have leading stocks leading the way higher? Yes. Gold, Security, Medical, Stem Cells, Software-Medical, Education, Food, Utility, Telecom-Wireless Equipment, and Retail/Wholesale groups and their leading stocks are moving higher. This is the first time since the August to October 2007 small rally where leading stocks actually have gone up with the market. The entire year of 2008 was just a changing of guard at the top constantly from one new leader breaking down to the next. While that has set us up in a better market has that put us in the clear? The answer is not yet.
Why? If we were in the clear, the groups that I mentioned earlier would not be filled with what are considered as "boring" groups during this upturn. Instead, besides stem-cells, we would have many more innovative and technology driven groups. However, facts are facts and groups like Banks, Retail, Transportation, and Homebuilders did better than the new leading groups. This tells me, just like yesterday, that we are still in a rally where vultures are definitely out there trying to pick the dead carcasses off the road of the laggard stocks.
When you look at the simple ETFs of the most beaten up sectors you can see how they are leading. XLF the financial ETF was up 7.6%, XHB the homebuilder ETF was up 7%, and XRT the retail ETF was up 4.3% on Friday. So it is clear to see the two most beaten up sectors, which are banks and homes, are once-again, so far, leading us higher and this tells us that a new bull market is probably not going to start here with these laggards leading.
There is, for the first time, like I mentioned earlier, some great news in that leading stocks in leading sectors are finally moving higher with the market during the pullbacks and rallies. This is the first time this has happened in the market since August 2007 to October 2007 when stocks like APPY DRYS and FSLR put in strong gains for us in short amounts of time. So obviously there is something bullish that could turn out for this rally. Sadly we are missing something that we DID HAVE in 2002 while we were bottoming. Those were hot charts! Even though we have a lot of nice charts the amount of perfect charts shows that this is probably not a bottom. "Bottom" line is that we should have charts like GERN with a lot of max green BOP, heavy volume surges, and a nice flat perfect price action setup like it is currently going through. When max green "hotties" like this start to show up in my scans as we rally higher I will then get more and more bullish. But for now I have to take it easy.
Conditions could be right for those type of stocks to setup soon as most traders and investors are starting to lose their faith in a market rally. I have heard a friend recently say "the next rally I see I am shorting the pants out of it." I think that since people I know that barely know how to invest are now making comments like this, it is safe to say that maybe shorting isn't the safest play RIGHT NOW. A lower volume rally on this rally attempt to the 200 day moving average might make some stocks worth a short play.
But right now the market's movement is clearly mixed with the long-term trend down with the market down over 43%, the intermediate term is down with the market down over 38%, the sub-intermediate term is FLAT FLAT FLAT with the market going nowhere from 10/23/08 to 2/6/09 on the Nasdaq as it has returned a dead -0.76% during that time (zzzzzzzzzzzzzz...), and the NYSE has had the same luck with a +0.88% return from 10/24/08 to now. So obviously over the past few months it has been pretty boring as the market has basically gone nowhere. Short-term the trend is now up for me and not sideways thanks to the last two-days.
I want to remind everyone also that you do not need to buy the exact bottom of this low if you think a new bull market is ready to be unleashed. If you go back and study my best longs from 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, and 2007 I think it becomes OBVIOUSLY CLEAR that you NEVER have to buy the exact bottom of the stock market to come out a huge winner. Just ask everyone that bought TASR in July of 2003 which was nine months past the 2002 lows and then after the July buy made a near 3,000% gain in nine months.
Knowing history and how the greatest stocks work can greatly help you relax and stay calm when everyone is running around like a chicken with its head cut off. There sure are a lot of wild and crazy traders that really think they need to know the future to make big money. The best investors/traders that I have met in my life are NEVER worried about the future. They are only prepared for it. They are prepared for a bull market, a bear market, or a range-bound market. The best are never off with their market calls. Why? They never make calls. They just move with the trend. Just like the best new market students do.
Since I have not gone over the stats for the week I think I should do that now to revisit the fact that we simply do not have leading stocks blasting away higher. While these are necessary, like I said, for long lasting bull markets. Heck, if you are happy with just a few months of a rally right now then things will be fine. But when the week ends out with the Nasdaq up 7.8%!, the SP 600 up 5.9%, the NYSE up 5.4%, the SP 500 up 5.2%. But the DJIA only came in with a weak 3.5%. So if the DJIA was weak you would think small-caps would be strong...and they were up 5.9%. However, in a shocking development, even though nice charts started showing up in my scans, the IBD 85-85 kept lagging only rising 1.2% on Thursday when everyone else was up 1.6% to 2.1% then on Friday it was only up .3% on a day when the indexes were up 2.7% to 3.6% on Friday. These lame returns are just a hint that those nice leading stocks are going to either not lead us up and then fail and help lead us down to new lows or else they are going to have to reverse their lagging status and become leading stocks.
Only when leading stocks like the IBD 100 and IBD 85-85 are leading the overall market higher can you be completely confident that the rally attempt is not just an attempt but is in fact a start of something new. The other KEY important development that must occur is for "hot" charts like SINA, SOHU, NTES, USNA, GRMN, and UNTD show up in those green BOP to max green BOP charts loaded with accumulation. During the 2002 lows they were looking good and were leading industries at the top of the list of IBD's leading industry growth. Now we have leading industries with charts that are lame. Some do look good like Gold and Education stocks. However, a lot of Gold stocks are not yet showing massive accumulation with max green BOP and huge accumulation. However, with them rising to the top of the charts and with a few showing these very nice chart patterns it appears soon Gold will move.
Not only is Gold moving but Education stocks are too. I am long a recent education stock but do not have more do to the fact that the charts are not LOADED with green to max green BOP right now.
Well I have gone very long in my analysis for tonight and would like to continue with this tomorrow. I am sleepy and have loaded this area with information. Great luck this coming week and if you need any extra help that is what the subscriber longs and shorts pages, videos, forums, and chat room are for! Have a wonderful Monday. I will see you here after the Monday stock market session.
Some other key points that I don't have time to go over but want to post before the market opens includes:
--Futures not looking good in the AM. But remember futures don't usually matter because most of the time if futures are green you get a red close and when futures are red you get a green close.
--Shanghai Composite is the only index up with a 2%+ gain at my last look. If you look at the Chinese Hang Seng and Se Composite you can see the market is rounding out and moving higher on strong volume. The leading innovative fundamentally strong stocks in that market are going to make their investors very wealthy.
--I still believe that since the amazing accumulation that I have seen in Gold, Silver, and Platinum since September that there is some amazing long-term accumulation in these metals going on. Therefore, any bounce off the key 50 and 200 DMA (or even the 21 DMA) or even breakout to new recent highs above key resistance levels.
--some leading stocks to watch that were mentioned in IBD that I don't like but we'll see they are acting in a few week to months include SQM RDM SYT TNDM UPS FDX AAWW. I only don't like them because their charts are jacked a little. RGLD would be great to get long soon!
--IBD called this a FTD on 1/28. I called it a "technical" one but it was so ugly I said it would fail. I was right and it did fail. However, on Thursday we had a FTD on the fourth day of the recent rally attempt from the 1/30 short-term lows. The higher lows combined with the big day on Thursday coming on day four of that rally attempt gives me a sign (since CANSLIM stocks are moving up; HOT, pretty, maxed out green, and sexy beautiful stocks are not though) that this rally could have some legs. And we need a rally not only to make money now but to either have it turn into a real bull to make some 200% to 1500% to maybe 2400% gains again or to rally on low volume back to the 200 DMA so we cant get short the past laggard stocks that are now back near their recent 52-week highs. Eiher way a rally here is good. Good for the bulls now and good for the long term bears later.
--There were 3 clearly bullish reversals this week in the stock market. Study 2/2, 2/3, and 2/5 to see how a market should be acting if it has good news possibly coming.
--put/call is .71 signaling the option market players are complacent/bullish
--Investors Intelligence shows 35.2% bulls to 36.3% bears. So it is neither bullish or bearish.
--despite the impressive Friday gains there were still ONLY 10 new 52-week highs compared to 67 52-WEEK LOWS.
--YTD the Nassy is up .93%, the SP 500 is -3.8%, the NYSE is -4.9%, and sadly the IBD 85-85 is -5%. The good news is that I am beating the overall markets with a LAME (this is what happens in dead markets that go nowhere since October) 2% gain thanks to my recent longs and all those profits I took on shorts this year. I don't have a lot of shorts (37 total but 37 SMALL positions) and my 10 longs (10 longs 10 small positions but dollar average is the same as shorts) aren't that huge. So that must mean...
--CASH IS STILL KING!!
--don't fool yourself. This is one of the MOST DIFFICULT markets ever. The beautiful or nice chart setups I saw ALMOST ALL the time from the age of 16 in 1996 to 2006 were like golden tickets. Then in 2007 it got much harder as stocks like AFSI, TESO, APPY worked but stocks like FALC and INXI really fooled us with their SUPER HOT and AMAZING green to max green BOP filled charts. They failed and thus the pattern on those hotties failing more to working started. It seems to be coming back but there are not enough of the charts I like to see with strong enough fundamentals to get me excited here.
--I will need to continue to see volume and hotter charts on the rally or else I will look to be going short the rally with a heavy volume failure at the 200 day moving average. For now, I feel a lot better about the stock markets chance to rally. But still I need better charts to believe it can stay.
ALOHA!!!
Top longs/(shorts) with total returns MAKING ME MONEY on Friday: ANCI 55% (OKE 36% LLL 16%)
FREE YOUTUBE VIDEO:
GOLD AND PLATINUM MEMBERS YOU CAN FIND VIDEO ONE, VIDEO TWO (15 MINS), AND VIDEO THREE (22 MINS) IN THE GOLD FORUMS. MAHALO!
Saturday, December 01, 2007
Stocks Hold On To Gains To End A Very Bullish Week On A Positive Note; New Traders Should Understand That The Market Is Not Always Easy.
F***!!! The damn site switched servers now I don't know what i was writing So I am starting over with whatever I have left in my mind. I am very upset!
The market started the week off on a very bearish note which made it look like the market was going to continue to selloff very hard. But proving that it is never a smart idea to short a market that is breaking down below support, rather than short low volume rallies to resistance, the market snapped back producing a very strong bottom in the short term.
Many traders were caught off guard by the quick snap back but the market is never easy and those that do not subscribe to IBD, it is possible they will miss this rally if it continues.
Most traders are waiting for a follow-through day on the NYSE, Nasdaq, SP 500, or the DJIA. However, those that have IBD know that the IBD 100, 85-85, and New America index have confirmed that we are officially in a "confirmed rally."
When the stock market sold off on Monday and sent the major market indexes to new lows, a peculiar thing happened on the IBD indexes. None of them hit lower lows which meant that there attempted rally with the gains on Friday were still alive. After the up day on Tuesday (day three of the rally attempt) we then were looking for a gain of 1.5% on higher volume the next seven sessions. The very next day the IBD New America jumped 3.3% and the IBD 100 and IBD 85-85 both lept over 4% on higher volume, officially ending the "correction."
I know some traders that are hard-core about the follow-through happening on the major market indexes and if you are one of those people you are currently on day four of your rally attempt and day five will be tomorrow. The best rallies that have the highest chance of succeeding come with follow-through days between day four and day ten. Anything after ten is riskier and the chances of the rally succeeding are lowered dramaticaly. For those that do not adhere to the IBD indexes, I would reconsider and think about changing your bearish bias on the short term. If you don't you risk missing some good gains in some nice stocks as three out of four stocks follow the general trend of the market.
Speaking of the general trend, a lot of people are confused as to what trend we are in. I do not blame them, if I was not a seasoned professional there is an almost 100% certainty that today's market would be driving me crazy as there are very few chances to hit huge winners with such a low VIX and a lot of stocks are very volatile on the short term making buying right ever more important in this market--something new investors almost never do correctly.
The key to markets like this is to not trade them. The smartest traders of all-time like Jesse Livermore would not be trading markets like this. If they were, they would be trading like I am. That entails keeping longs very small, keeping shorts very small, keeping tight cut losses, and making sure to only enter in the direction of the trend of the market. This is what has many confused because the trend of the market seems so choppy. That is your clear tell to stay out of the market, when you feel like you do not have an edge.
I think the proper way to look at this market right now, except the Russell 2000 and SP 600 which are both very ugly, is that on the short term we are bullish, on the sub-intermediate term we are flat, on the intermediate term we are bearish, and on the long term using the 200 dma as my guide we are bullish. So it is clear we are in a veyr mixed enviro.
When all trends are down, it is easy to short and make money (very rarely happens) and when the trends are all up, it is very easy to go long (not as rare but 1999 and 2003 are the only two periods I can say were easy). Most of the time the market is not in these positions which makes it very important to be very vigilant with cutting your losses.
When you do this, you enable yourself to cut the bleeding in the stocks that are not working--and there will be plenty in choppy markets. This then enables you to continue to keep cash on hand for those perfect or near-perfect setups. It is these setups that must always be taken, even if you take small hits every once in a while.
I know that some think it is very important to be in cash in periods like this. But my argument is what if we have seen the bottom and stocks are not going to pullback again. If that is the case, I sure wouldn't want to be out of all the longs like FSLR, MA, and IHS which act like there is ONLY a bull market and nothing else. This is why it is important to always be trading. You should never stop taking your signals. The day you decide to stop taking your signals, I guarantee, will be the day that your longs or shorts breakout/breakdown and run producing huge gains.
RIght now in this choppy market, I continue to find both longs and shorts. However, it is becoming clear that I am finding more longs and that my current holdings of longs are doing very well. Comparing this to the new shorts I find and their recent performance leads me to believe that it would be foolish, for now, to pass up on stocks like EGN, ELMG, PEG, SHEN, DAR, and some others that are offering such great reward to risk ratios.
If all of these fail, what, I lose 5-7% most on any of them. If they succeed I am expecting minimum 25% moves in this environment. So the odds are well in my favor. Especially with longs working right at this moment. If my shorts were still moving lower and all of my new longs were not moving higher with green BOP with the current trend, then obviously I would be more focused on the short side.
Instead, my last four shorts have all had poor outcomes as two have immediately needed most of it covered as it hit cut loss areas. If this market was really that bad, my new longs would ALL act like SIRT did and all of my shorts would act like XLNX has acted since I went short.
This is why I feel like even though this market has a high chance of failing in the near future, that it is foolish to not play the oversold bounce in case that is all this is. No matter if it is a start of a new bull market or an oversold bounce, it always pays to invest with the trend. Do you think that just because I was FOR SURE that we topped in March 2000 (that is when I moved to Maui, remember, since I knew it was over) that I did not play the long side from April 2000-August 2000 which is when the REAL selling started? Of course I did. One of my better longs during that time that still exist was EXTR. From July 20 to Oct 16 it produced a 66% gain. This long was held despite me knowing that the real top was in for good and that the market was rolling over in September before my final October sell.
If this doesn't prove that it is smart to play the stocks and not the market, I don't know what will. There are stocks like MA hitting all-time highs that have given me a 300% gain. Do you think that if I would have believed everything Doug Kass or Barry Ritholtz would have told I would still be long this stock? Of course not. That is why I can not stress enough to NEVER marry a side of the market and that you should ALWAYS be flexible and even if you were bullish one day there is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING wrong about being bearish the next day if in fact that is what the market is doing. Going with the trend is how every single one of the greatest traders traded. Why would you want to do anything different? Are you smarter than the greatest? I didn't think so.
So while the market continues to act in this choppy fashion, I believe it is smart for all traders to either keep all longs/shorts very small or just not even trade at all. There are simply too many whippy stocks that are breaking down then coming right back or are breaking out then falling right back down. That is a clear sign that traders should not be involved in the market.
I continue to trade because I believe I have an advantage as I clearly understand which stocks look better than the others and then can judge exactly how much I want in this market environment. If you still have trouble distinguishing between a bull market or a bear market, then you definitely should not be trading a heavy amount here. Smart traders know when to keep the trading small and then when to press the margin. Right now is not the time to press the margin. It is simply too risky and there are too many stock not acting right.
Some encouraging technical signs that are showing up now is that the amount of new highs are starting to slowly expand again and on the NYSE are now beating the amount of new lows. This is a big change since the top in November. The other clearly bullish development is that the ACC/DIS rating on all the indexes were D to E's. Now every index has a B, except the Nasdaq which has a C. The point is, however, that the trend of the accumulation is in the right direction. This market could have rallied and the ACC/DIS could have stayed below a B or even C, as long as the rally had no volume. So the fact that the ACC/DIS has changed proves that buyers are back in control for now.
The million dollar question though is for how long? Obviously, no one knows that answer but to answer it we have to look at the market from two different areas. One is that if the August lows was a significant bottom then yes the market will indeed continue to rally. If however the November highs were a significant top then there is no way we will get above those highs and instead we should see the August lows again. Why? Because there is always fear at major market bottoms. There was ABSOLUTELY no fear off the November 28 follow-through.
The VIX never got above the August highs, much less the 30 level, on this trip down. The put/call ratio never touched 1.2 during the entire pullback and the bears never crossed the bulls in the investors intelligence survey. Considering that the VIX almost always gets over 35, the put/call hits 1.2, and the bears beat the bulls in the II on every bottom, it makes sense that we did not see one.
Even if the August lows were a bottom the chances of it being a real one are very low in and of itself considering that the bears NEVER crossed the bulls. This has always led to a market rally and the last time I can remember this happening was in Oct 05 right before the rally to the highs in April 06. Since then we simply have NOT seen the level of fear in this market that is typical of bottoms.
I am not sure how we can rally much more from here, considering this insane goldilocks bull market has lasted since October 2002, but eventually it has to come to an end. So while I continue to operate from both the long side and small on the short side, I believe that eventually this short-term rally will fail too.
We simply have laggard sectors leading and former three year plus bull market leaders selling off. When we look at all of the biggest winners from the 02 lows to the 07 highs, you can see that all of the leaders are showing signs of major distribution. Until a new batch of leading stocks with excellent CANSLIM traits show up, there is no way I can believe that this bull has much less.
For now, I continue to believe we saw a high in November, but if all of these indexes can retake their 50 day moving averages and the RUT and SML can retake the 200 dma, then I will obviously fully embrace the bull side. For now I feel like I am riding a bear market rally to eventual resistance, where most of these new longs will fail but some will succeed. Stocks like EGN and PEG in the utilities sector should continue to rally when this market decides it is done.
If I can think of anything else to add, I will. If you have any comments or questions feel free to leave them below in the comment area (comments only received at bigwavetrading.com). Aloha and I will see you in the chat room!!! ALOHA!!!!!
The market started the week off on a very bearish note which made it look like the market was going to continue to selloff very hard. But proving that it is never a smart idea to short a market that is breaking down below support, rather than short low volume rallies to resistance, the market snapped back producing a very strong bottom in the short term.
Many traders were caught off guard by the quick snap back but the market is never easy and those that do not subscribe to IBD, it is possible they will miss this rally if it continues.
Most traders are waiting for a follow-through day on the NYSE, Nasdaq, SP 500, or the DJIA. However, those that have IBD know that the IBD 100, 85-85, and New America index have confirmed that we are officially in a "confirmed rally."
When the stock market sold off on Monday and sent the major market indexes to new lows, a peculiar thing happened on the IBD indexes. None of them hit lower lows which meant that there attempted rally with the gains on Friday were still alive. After the up day on Tuesday (day three of the rally attempt) we then were looking for a gain of 1.5% on higher volume the next seven sessions. The very next day the IBD New America jumped 3.3% and the IBD 100 and IBD 85-85 both lept over 4% on higher volume, officially ending the "correction."
I know some traders that are hard-core about the follow-through happening on the major market indexes and if you are one of those people you are currently on day four of your rally attempt and day five will be tomorrow. The best rallies that have the highest chance of succeeding come with follow-through days between day four and day ten. Anything after ten is riskier and the chances of the rally succeeding are lowered dramaticaly. For those that do not adhere to the IBD indexes, I would reconsider and think about changing your bearish bias on the short term. If you don't you risk missing some good gains in some nice stocks as three out of four stocks follow the general trend of the market.
Speaking of the general trend, a lot of people are confused as to what trend we are in. I do not blame them, if I was not a seasoned professional there is an almost 100% certainty that today's market would be driving me crazy as there are very few chances to hit huge winners with such a low VIX and a lot of stocks are very volatile on the short term making buying right ever more important in this market--something new investors almost never do correctly.
The key to markets like this is to not trade them. The smartest traders of all-time like Jesse Livermore would not be trading markets like this. If they were, they would be trading like I am. That entails keeping longs very small, keeping shorts very small, keeping tight cut losses, and making sure to only enter in the direction of the trend of the market. This is what has many confused because the trend of the market seems so choppy. That is your clear tell to stay out of the market, when you feel like you do not have an edge.
I think the proper way to look at this market right now, except the Russell 2000 and SP 600 which are both very ugly, is that on the short term we are bullish, on the sub-intermediate term we are flat, on the intermediate term we are bearish, and on the long term using the 200 dma as my guide we are bullish. So it is clear we are in a veyr mixed enviro.
When all trends are down, it is easy to short and make money (very rarely happens) and when the trends are all up, it is very easy to go long (not as rare but 1999 and 2003 are the only two periods I can say were easy). Most of the time the market is not in these positions which makes it very important to be very vigilant with cutting your losses.
When you do this, you enable yourself to cut the bleeding in the stocks that are not working--and there will be plenty in choppy markets. This then enables you to continue to keep cash on hand for those perfect or near-perfect setups. It is these setups that must always be taken, even if you take small hits every once in a while.
I know that some think it is very important to be in cash in periods like this. But my argument is what if we have seen the bottom and stocks are not going to pullback again. If that is the case, I sure wouldn't want to be out of all the longs like FSLR, MA, and IHS which act like there is ONLY a bull market and nothing else. This is why it is important to always be trading. You should never stop taking your signals. The day you decide to stop taking your signals, I guarantee, will be the day that your longs or shorts breakout/breakdown and run producing huge gains.
RIght now in this choppy market, I continue to find both longs and shorts. However, it is becoming clear that I am finding more longs and that my current holdings of longs are doing very well. Comparing this to the new shorts I find and their recent performance leads me to believe that it would be foolish, for now, to pass up on stocks like EGN, ELMG, PEG, SHEN, DAR, and some others that are offering such great reward to risk ratios.
If all of these fail, what, I lose 5-7% most on any of them. If they succeed I am expecting minimum 25% moves in this environment. So the odds are well in my favor. Especially with longs working right at this moment. If my shorts were still moving lower and all of my new longs were not moving higher with green BOP with the current trend, then obviously I would be more focused on the short side.
Instead, my last four shorts have all had poor outcomes as two have immediately needed most of it covered as it hit cut loss areas. If this market was really that bad, my new longs would ALL act like SIRT did and all of my shorts would act like XLNX has acted since I went short.
This is why I feel like even though this market has a high chance of failing in the near future, that it is foolish to not play the oversold bounce in case that is all this is. No matter if it is a start of a new bull market or an oversold bounce, it always pays to invest with the trend. Do you think that just because I was FOR SURE that we topped in March 2000 (that is when I moved to Maui, remember, since I knew it was over) that I did not play the long side from April 2000-August 2000 which is when the REAL selling started? Of course I did. One of my better longs during that time that still exist was EXTR. From July 20 to Oct 16 it produced a 66% gain. This long was held despite me knowing that the real top was in for good and that the market was rolling over in September before my final October sell.
If this doesn't prove that it is smart to play the stocks and not the market, I don't know what will. There are stocks like MA hitting all-time highs that have given me a 300% gain. Do you think that if I would have believed everything Doug Kass or Barry Ritholtz would have told I would still be long this stock? Of course not. That is why I can not stress enough to NEVER marry a side of the market and that you should ALWAYS be flexible and even if you were bullish one day there is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING wrong about being bearish the next day if in fact that is what the market is doing. Going with the trend is how every single one of the greatest traders traded. Why would you want to do anything different? Are you smarter than the greatest? I didn't think so.
So while the market continues to act in this choppy fashion, I believe it is smart for all traders to either keep all longs/shorts very small or just not even trade at all. There are simply too many whippy stocks that are breaking down then coming right back or are breaking out then falling right back down. That is a clear sign that traders should not be involved in the market.
I continue to trade because I believe I have an advantage as I clearly understand which stocks look better than the others and then can judge exactly how much I want in this market environment. If you still have trouble distinguishing between a bull market or a bear market, then you definitely should not be trading a heavy amount here. Smart traders know when to keep the trading small and then when to press the margin. Right now is not the time to press the margin. It is simply too risky and there are too many stock not acting right.
Some encouraging technical signs that are showing up now is that the amount of new highs are starting to slowly expand again and on the NYSE are now beating the amount of new lows. This is a big change since the top in November. The other clearly bullish development is that the ACC/DIS rating on all the indexes were D to E's. Now every index has a B, except the Nasdaq which has a C. The point is, however, that the trend of the accumulation is in the right direction. This market could have rallied and the ACC/DIS could have stayed below a B or even C, as long as the rally had no volume. So the fact that the ACC/DIS has changed proves that buyers are back in control for now.
The million dollar question though is for how long? Obviously, no one knows that answer but to answer it we have to look at the market from two different areas. One is that if the August lows was a significant bottom then yes the market will indeed continue to rally. If however the November highs were a significant top then there is no way we will get above those highs and instead we should see the August lows again. Why? Because there is always fear at major market bottoms. There was ABSOLUTELY no fear off the November 28 follow-through.
The VIX never got above the August highs, much less the 30 level, on this trip down. The put/call ratio never touched 1.2 during the entire pullback and the bears never crossed the bulls in the investors intelligence survey. Considering that the VIX almost always gets over 35, the put/call hits 1.2, and the bears beat the bulls in the II on every bottom, it makes sense that we did not see one.
Even if the August lows were a bottom the chances of it being a real one are very low in and of itself considering that the bears NEVER crossed the bulls. This has always led to a market rally and the last time I can remember this happening was in Oct 05 right before the rally to the highs in April 06. Since then we simply have NOT seen the level of fear in this market that is typical of bottoms.
I am not sure how we can rally much more from here, considering this insane goldilocks bull market has lasted since October 2002, but eventually it has to come to an end. So while I continue to operate from both the long side and small on the short side, I believe that eventually this short-term rally will fail too.
We simply have laggard sectors leading and former three year plus bull market leaders selling off. When we look at all of the biggest winners from the 02 lows to the 07 highs, you can see that all of the leaders are showing signs of major distribution. Until a new batch of leading stocks with excellent CANSLIM traits show up, there is no way I can believe that this bull has much less.
For now, I continue to believe we saw a high in November, but if all of these indexes can retake their 50 day moving averages and the RUT and SML can retake the 200 dma, then I will obviously fully embrace the bull side. For now I feel like I am riding a bear market rally to eventual resistance, where most of these new longs will fail but some will succeed. Stocks like EGN and PEG in the utilities sector should continue to rally when this market decides it is done.
If I can think of anything else to add, I will. If you have any comments or questions feel free to leave them below in the comment area (comments only received at bigwavetrading.com). Aloha and I will see you in the chat room!!! ALOHA!!!!!
Saturday, November 17, 2007
On Thursday I Warned Of An Oversold Rally And We Got It; Stock Indexes Put In A Bullish Intraday Reversal To Close Higher On Higher Volume (No Follow-
I expected an oversold rally starting on Friday and we got it. Intraday I said that the market could close at its HOD and it darn near did. Since the market is doing exactly what TA says it should be doing at this point, I will listen to the market and keep my shorts small from here on out until another new downtrend starts or a clear top is put in with a lot of distribution days after the Thanksgiving rally (it isn't certain but it almost always happens and the conditions are setup for it). Don't cover your shorts, if the market rallies a few hundred points here on the DJIA, and your shorts continue to move lower or do not move up. Those are the weak stocks you want to continue to hold on to. But if you have an IEX in your short port, you should be selling it all.
Today's gains came on a pickup in volume but it is always possible that the increase in volume was options related. However, it really does not matter as today's gains were under 1% so it is impossible for today to count as a follow-through day. Instead we will be entering day five of a rally attempt on Monday. I want everyone to remember that you usually do NOT get a strong market follow-through so soon after such strong selling. The best bottoms are NOT put in one month after the selling starts. So if we do get a follow-through day sometime next week make sure you see a ton of nice stocks setting up in bases or breaking out of sound bases in top industry groups.
If you do not see that, the chances that the rally will fail will be substantially higher. Even if we do continue to get a rally here, due to the oversold conditions, traders must realize that it is more than likely that rallies will be sold here as we have had a lot of selling in the indexes with very little accumulation. That is why these indexes all carry a D- to E rating in IBD. There is nothing out there doing well, except for the Defense index and Medical related stocks. This is a sign of a weak market. These industries have been doing well all year and it is probably in anticipation of a further weakening market.
As this market moves along it appears to me that we may be a little to oversold to be shorting stocks right now. However, there are few longs that are working out right now. Some of the better quality stocks recently have been IMA, VMSI, and XNPT the past three days. If you notice they are all related to the medical field. These stocks are starting to show up all over my long scans. That combined with a lot of low volume stocks is something my scans only see during rough periods of the market. Even during pullbacks the past few years there have not been a lot of these stocks on the scans. When they did show up in 2005 and 2006 they also were accompanied by a lot of stocks in shipping, oil, tech, and other leading sectors. Now it seems like medical stocks are the only stocks that once they breakout now they work.
Three out of four stocks follow the general trend of the market, so it is not smart going long here anyways. Unless your three losses are each under 5% and your one winners is always 20% or more. Since this is very doable in a bear market this is how I operate. I keep losses much tighter and risk less money. However, when stocks like IMA show up, I would rather be proven wrong than sit back and miss it. If you have seen stocks like QSC recently you know the hot money is moving into this are of the market. Breakouts will work here. However, great stocks like FNDT, EXLS, and other longs that I have taken in other industries have done very poorly. That correlates perfectly with the market.
So if you go long, make sure you go long a medical stock. Unless that chart is loaded with accumulation and max green BOP I recommend staying far away. Going short low volume rallies seems to be the right play now. When you see all these bank stocks dropping like rocks, old leading stocks top out, new lows trump new highs, and everyone on CNBC is telling you to buy the dips, I believe it is best to be cautious and raise a lot of cash.
If anything else, I don't care who you are, I would like you to have at least 25% cash. Having this cash on hand is a lot better than being long an FDX or a SBUX while you wait for the market to hit a bottom, follow-through, and then have leading stocks break out. It is never good for former leading stocks to break down all over the place in every industry. Don't get fooled into buying this rally with you going on full margin. Always wait for a follow-through and make sure real great quality stocks from tight quiet bases are breaking out.
Something makes me a bit uneasy about the market right now. I am sitting with a lot of longs that have nice patterns and look like they are going to move a lot higher. At the same time I have a lot of shorts that have been working very well and have been producing some nice gains. However, since I was so long (which allowed me to make some great gains) it has been hard to get to a point where the gains in the shorts kill the losses in the longs. However, maybe a testament to my stock picking ability recently I have had a series of days where when the market is higher my longs do great and my shorts are quiet and when the market is down my shorts do great and my longs are quiet. Since the first week, where I lost 15%, I have been able to recollect 5% of it. This in a market where most people are losing money. And I watch a lot of CNBC (like I always do when I feel we are near a top) and know that a lot of people are losing money because I hear about it constantly.
Thanks to my stock picking ability and me keeping new longs very small right now, I am no longer in the money losing camp. Even though I still have a lot of longs they are all down over 50% from where they were originally bought and my shorts have recently gotten larger. You have to realize that if 1 out of 4 stocks go up in a bear market and I pick all of the 1 out of 4 that go up and I hit a ton of the 3 out of 4 that go down, even with 25% plus cash, you are going to kill 95% of all traders and kill 99% of all mutual funds who must remain long while the market goes lower.
I know a lot of you might think that my bias to the downside is a bit too much. And I have to admit I have been wrestling with that feeling too. However, I know history, and I know that when I see defensive, medical, and low volume stocks moving higher that the market is in trouble. The SP 600 and Russell 200 always lead the market higher and lower and this time it looks no different as both small cap indexes RS lines are putting in very bearish divergences and the stocks are well below the 50 and 200 day moving averages.
The fact that all the leaders have been taken out, though, is the biggest one. It is still possible due to all the fanfare that GOOG, RIMM, AAPL, and BIDU could hit new highs. However, I believe that would bring the last of the suckers in and would be a gift to short sellers. I really hope I am wrong and I wouldn't mind being wrong so I could go long pretty charts again and make money. But I find it hard to happen when they get everything. The very last speculative group they hit was the solar stocks. When they did that I thought it was going to get bad. But FSLR has shaped up and looks good again but if you look at JASO and SPWR on an arithmetic chart you can clearly see that after a huge runup they made a VERY HUGE VOLUME blowoff. FSLR may have more to go but the other leaders are saying it is over. I could be wrong, yes. But don't forget, I HAVE BEEN A BULL SINCE OCTOBER 2002 WITH STOCKS LIKE SSYS GRMN SOHU SINA NTES AND WAS VERY LONG AFTER THE MARCH 2003 FOLLOW-THROUGH AND WAS LONG TASR AND REAPED THE HUGE NEAR 2000% GAIN IN IT.
The fact that I believe we could be topping now can not be ignored. You can go back to mauitrader.blogspot.com and read my 2004, 2005, and 2006 postings. In 2004 and 2005 I wasn't worried about any pullback at all because I ALWAYS had very green charts all over the place during the pullbacks. When I was offered a job to manage the money of a Chicago, IL based firm in 2005, the current manager believed the market was over; he was certain of it-so much so he was depressed. I told him not to worry that there were a ton of great looking bases and that the market had more to go. Eventually we parted ways. He sold his stocks...I found a 550% surprise in ERS! Not so bad!
In 2006, I believed it was very possible for us to be topping. But after the first few days of selling off, it became clear leading stocks were under no pressure. As the market started to bottom a lot of charts showed up and while some of the smartest guys on wall street and almost 100% of the commentators who work with TA on realmoney.com were boo-hooing the August move higher, I was not enjoying it but not denying that we had a lot of nice charts. Next thing you know we have HRZ (my biggest winner from that year to this year), AFSI, and TESO giving us huge high reward/low risk major gains. Those three stocks on full margin were blessings. And when this nasty bear is over, we will have more HRZ stocks one day.
In February of 2007, I believed we were topping because of China and all the weakness I started seeing in our market's internals. However, like I said earlier, AFSI and TESO came out of that so it wasn't that bad at all. This time though, we have had FNDT fail, EXLS fail, SNDA fail, ESEA fail, INXI fail, BLL fail, and many others. While all of that is going on, check out charts like IAR, ETFC, and YRCW. The play on this market right now, to make the big money, is shorting stocks.
There are a lot of technical aspects of this market that indicate that we should continue to get an oversold rally on the short-term. I did let everyone know that I expected one after Thursday's close. Some of the things that came to my attention the past few days that lead me to believe that the rally will continue were listed yesterday:
The put/call ratio did spike to 1.12 at the close today. And even though I do not see any fear in this market with the VIX being at 28, the fact that the put/call ratio did spike to 1.12 indicates that there is a little bit of fear creeping into this market. However, it is not the bottom kind of fear. That fear is a spike to 1.5.
The new highs to new lows is also another item that has recently caught my interest. When we began to selloff we consistently saw new lows over 300 on the way down with new highs staying under 100. Now we continue to have new highs around the 40-60 area but the new lows have fallen to 200 or lower the past three days. So the fact that there are not as many stocks hitting new lows despite the continuation of selling indicates that we are a bit oversold.
The two final things that make me think we are oversold is that if the S&P 500 closes down for the week this will be the first time since early 2004 that the S&P 500 has fallen for five consecutive weeks. At the same time, the percentage of stocks below their 40-day moving average is hovering right around 20% and the stocks below their 200-day moving average is around 30%. Though this is far from a “real bottom” extreme reading (10% for the 40-dma and 20% for the 200 dma), it is still very oversold. The bottom line: we should expect a bounce.
These are all the reasons that make me believe we will continue to see higher prices next week. Hopefully, the higher prices, will help my current long holdings blastoff to huge gains on huge volume so I can take some more in and at the same time keep my shorts quiet where if they do rally they do it on low volume and on a little price gain. So even with this possible oversold bounce I am not going to take in all my shorts. I have taken profits on the ones down a lot to preserve some of the gains and have eliminated the weak shorts that did not move lower. So even if we do rally I pray that most hold below the 50 and 200 day moving average. The put/call ratio did spike again to 1.19 so there is enough fear in the market where it is possible I might lose some shorts. However, if the stocks are really broken they will not bounce with the market.
If we do not get a short-covering oversold rally and we instead continue to selloff, then it will be all that much smarter to not be in longs and to be short and cash heavy. I do not think moving lower here would be bullish for the market in the long run as a bottom here would only delay the inevitable that we have been delaying since February of this year. This market has continued to weaken all year long with the market getting more and more narrow as we go along. Now it is only a few handful of leading stocks taking care of the other thousands that are falling. A bounce here will relieve the oversold pressure so that eventually the natural course of selling resumes.
I am sorry I don't have better news. I have been a bull since 2002. Where have you been? I was a bear and made a lot of money in 2000-2002. So just because we might be done with the 1000% gains in AAPL (which there still might be more to come) doesn't mean that there aren't going to be a lot of stocks to short. These old leaders have to come down eventually and if you think pure IPO crap like OZM isn't going to see the single digits you are seriously fooling yourself. They don't pump out this crap at the start of incredible bull markets. This crap comes to market when you have to get it out before it is too late and can't be brought to market cause it would crash straight down in a straight line. The crap IPOs are now being brought to market. The quality has passed in the IPO market and the stock market.
Cash is king. Aloha and I will see you in the chat room.
P.S.: If any of you reading this blog remember the Gary B. Smith TA articles from realmoney/thestreet.com back in the late 90s to about 2004 or 2005 (I can't remember) you might remember how simple and great they were. It led to GBS getting a job on FoxNews and ended up with him leaving to run money at a hedge fund. If you don't remember those articles, I recommend going back to the archives on thestreet/realmoney.com and go over them. I would love to bring them back and have been trying my best to get those articles back. I would love to write them and it would done very similar with the markets analyzed every day and 6 stocks a night. Price, volume, moving averages, and support/resistance would be the theme. If you think that you would like to see that again on realmoney.com send an email to Kristin Bentz and tell her you want to see the GBS articles again and that you want me to write them. I would love to bring those articles back. I have missed them and believe the site's TA is turning to crap. It is time to bring in someone who maybe is a little different but at least can offer stock picks that make their readers money.
Today's gains came on a pickup in volume but it is always possible that the increase in volume was options related. However, it really does not matter as today's gains were under 1% so it is impossible for today to count as a follow-through day. Instead we will be entering day five of a rally attempt on Monday. I want everyone to remember that you usually do NOT get a strong market follow-through so soon after such strong selling. The best bottoms are NOT put in one month after the selling starts. So if we do get a follow-through day sometime next week make sure you see a ton of nice stocks setting up in bases or breaking out of sound bases in top industry groups.
If you do not see that, the chances that the rally will fail will be substantially higher. Even if we do continue to get a rally here, due to the oversold conditions, traders must realize that it is more than likely that rallies will be sold here as we have had a lot of selling in the indexes with very little accumulation. That is why these indexes all carry a D- to E rating in IBD. There is nothing out there doing well, except for the Defense index and Medical related stocks. This is a sign of a weak market. These industries have been doing well all year and it is probably in anticipation of a further weakening market.
As this market moves along it appears to me that we may be a little to oversold to be shorting stocks right now. However, there are few longs that are working out right now. Some of the better quality stocks recently have been IMA, VMSI, and XNPT the past three days. If you notice they are all related to the medical field. These stocks are starting to show up all over my long scans. That combined with a lot of low volume stocks is something my scans only see during rough periods of the market. Even during pullbacks the past few years there have not been a lot of these stocks on the scans. When they did show up in 2005 and 2006 they also were accompanied by a lot of stocks in shipping, oil, tech, and other leading sectors. Now it seems like medical stocks are the only stocks that once they breakout now they work.
Three out of four stocks follow the general trend of the market, so it is not smart going long here anyways. Unless your three losses are each under 5% and your one winners is always 20% or more. Since this is very doable in a bear market this is how I operate. I keep losses much tighter and risk less money. However, when stocks like IMA show up, I would rather be proven wrong than sit back and miss it. If you have seen stocks like QSC recently you know the hot money is moving into this are of the market. Breakouts will work here. However, great stocks like FNDT, EXLS, and other longs that I have taken in other industries have done very poorly. That correlates perfectly with the market.
So if you go long, make sure you go long a medical stock. Unless that chart is loaded with accumulation and max green BOP I recommend staying far away. Going short low volume rallies seems to be the right play now. When you see all these bank stocks dropping like rocks, old leading stocks top out, new lows trump new highs, and everyone on CNBC is telling you to buy the dips, I believe it is best to be cautious and raise a lot of cash.
If anything else, I don't care who you are, I would like you to have at least 25% cash. Having this cash on hand is a lot better than being long an FDX or a SBUX while you wait for the market to hit a bottom, follow-through, and then have leading stocks break out. It is never good for former leading stocks to break down all over the place in every industry. Don't get fooled into buying this rally with you going on full margin. Always wait for a follow-through and make sure real great quality stocks from tight quiet bases are breaking out.
Something makes me a bit uneasy about the market right now. I am sitting with a lot of longs that have nice patterns and look like they are going to move a lot higher. At the same time I have a lot of shorts that have been working very well and have been producing some nice gains. However, since I was so long (which allowed me to make some great gains) it has been hard to get to a point where the gains in the shorts kill the losses in the longs. However, maybe a testament to my stock picking ability recently I have had a series of days where when the market is higher my longs do great and my shorts are quiet and when the market is down my shorts do great and my longs are quiet. Since the first week, where I lost 15%, I have been able to recollect 5% of it. This in a market where most people are losing money. And I watch a lot of CNBC (like I always do when I feel we are near a top) and know that a lot of people are losing money because I hear about it constantly.
Thanks to my stock picking ability and me keeping new longs very small right now, I am no longer in the money losing camp. Even though I still have a lot of longs they are all down over 50% from where they were originally bought and my shorts have recently gotten larger. You have to realize that if 1 out of 4 stocks go up in a bear market and I pick all of the 1 out of 4 that go up and I hit a ton of the 3 out of 4 that go down, even with 25% plus cash, you are going to kill 95% of all traders and kill 99% of all mutual funds who must remain long while the market goes lower.
I know a lot of you might think that my bias to the downside is a bit too much. And I have to admit I have been wrestling with that feeling too. However, I know history, and I know that when I see defensive, medical, and low volume stocks moving higher that the market is in trouble. The SP 600 and Russell 200 always lead the market higher and lower and this time it looks no different as both small cap indexes RS lines are putting in very bearish divergences and the stocks are well below the 50 and 200 day moving averages.
The fact that all the leaders have been taken out, though, is the biggest one. It is still possible due to all the fanfare that GOOG, RIMM, AAPL, and BIDU could hit new highs. However, I believe that would bring the last of the suckers in and would be a gift to short sellers. I really hope I am wrong and I wouldn't mind being wrong so I could go long pretty charts again and make money. But I find it hard to happen when they get everything. The very last speculative group they hit was the solar stocks. When they did that I thought it was going to get bad. But FSLR has shaped up and looks good again but if you look at JASO and SPWR on an arithmetic chart you can clearly see that after a huge runup they made a VERY HUGE VOLUME blowoff. FSLR may have more to go but the other leaders are saying it is over. I could be wrong, yes. But don't forget, I HAVE BEEN A BULL SINCE OCTOBER 2002 WITH STOCKS LIKE SSYS GRMN SOHU SINA NTES AND WAS VERY LONG AFTER THE MARCH 2003 FOLLOW-THROUGH AND WAS LONG TASR AND REAPED THE HUGE NEAR 2000% GAIN IN IT.
The fact that I believe we could be topping now can not be ignored. You can go back to mauitrader.blogspot.com and read my 2004, 2005, and 2006 postings. In 2004 and 2005 I wasn't worried about any pullback at all because I ALWAYS had very green charts all over the place during the pullbacks. When I was offered a job to manage the money of a Chicago, IL based firm in 2005, the current manager believed the market was over; he was certain of it-so much so he was depressed. I told him not to worry that there were a ton of great looking bases and that the market had more to go. Eventually we parted ways. He sold his stocks...I found a 550% surprise in ERS! Not so bad!
In 2006, I believed it was very possible for us to be topping. But after the first few days of selling off, it became clear leading stocks were under no pressure. As the market started to bottom a lot of charts showed up and while some of the smartest guys on wall street and almost 100% of the commentators who work with TA on realmoney.com were boo-hooing the August move higher, I was not enjoying it but not denying that we had a lot of nice charts. Next thing you know we have HRZ (my biggest winner from that year to this year), AFSI, and TESO giving us huge high reward/low risk major gains. Those three stocks on full margin were blessings. And when this nasty bear is over, we will have more HRZ stocks one day.
In February of 2007, I believed we were topping because of China and all the weakness I started seeing in our market's internals. However, like I said earlier, AFSI and TESO came out of that so it wasn't that bad at all. This time though, we have had FNDT fail, EXLS fail, SNDA fail, ESEA fail, INXI fail, BLL fail, and many others. While all of that is going on, check out charts like IAR, ETFC, and YRCW. The play on this market right now, to make the big money, is shorting stocks.
There are a lot of technical aspects of this market that indicate that we should continue to get an oversold rally on the short-term. I did let everyone know that I expected one after Thursday's close. Some of the things that came to my attention the past few days that lead me to believe that the rally will continue were listed yesterday:
The put/call ratio did spike to 1.12 at the close today. And even though I do not see any fear in this market with the VIX being at 28, the fact that the put/call ratio did spike to 1.12 indicates that there is a little bit of fear creeping into this market. However, it is not the bottom kind of fear. That fear is a spike to 1.5.
The new highs to new lows is also another item that has recently caught my interest. When we began to selloff we consistently saw new lows over 300 on the way down with new highs staying under 100. Now we continue to have new highs around the 40-60 area but the new lows have fallen to 200 or lower the past three days. So the fact that there are not as many stocks hitting new lows despite the continuation of selling indicates that we are a bit oversold.
The two final things that make me think we are oversold is that if the S&P 500 closes down for the week this will be the first time since early 2004 that the S&P 500 has fallen for five consecutive weeks. At the same time, the percentage of stocks below their 40-day moving average is hovering right around 20% and the stocks below their 200-day moving average is around 30%. Though this is far from a “real bottom” extreme reading (10% for the 40-dma and 20% for the 200 dma), it is still very oversold. The bottom line: we should expect a bounce.
These are all the reasons that make me believe we will continue to see higher prices next week. Hopefully, the higher prices, will help my current long holdings blastoff to huge gains on huge volume so I can take some more in and at the same time keep my shorts quiet where if they do rally they do it on low volume and on a little price gain. So even with this possible oversold bounce I am not going to take in all my shorts. I have taken profits on the ones down a lot to preserve some of the gains and have eliminated the weak shorts that did not move lower. So even if we do rally I pray that most hold below the 50 and 200 day moving average. The put/call ratio did spike again to 1.19 so there is enough fear in the market where it is possible I might lose some shorts. However, if the stocks are really broken they will not bounce with the market.
If we do not get a short-covering oversold rally and we instead continue to selloff, then it will be all that much smarter to not be in longs and to be short and cash heavy. I do not think moving lower here would be bullish for the market in the long run as a bottom here would only delay the inevitable that we have been delaying since February of this year. This market has continued to weaken all year long with the market getting more and more narrow as we go along. Now it is only a few handful of leading stocks taking care of the other thousands that are falling. A bounce here will relieve the oversold pressure so that eventually the natural course of selling resumes.
I am sorry I don't have better news. I have been a bull since 2002. Where have you been? I was a bear and made a lot of money in 2000-2002. So just because we might be done with the 1000% gains in AAPL (which there still might be more to come) doesn't mean that there aren't going to be a lot of stocks to short. These old leaders have to come down eventually and if you think pure IPO crap like OZM isn't going to see the single digits you are seriously fooling yourself. They don't pump out this crap at the start of incredible bull markets. This crap comes to market when you have to get it out before it is too late and can't be brought to market cause it would crash straight down in a straight line. The crap IPOs are now being brought to market. The quality has passed in the IPO market and the stock market.
Cash is king. Aloha and I will see you in the chat room.
P.S.: If any of you reading this blog remember the Gary B. Smith TA articles from realmoney/thestreet.com back in the late 90s to about 2004 or 2005 (I can't remember) you might remember how simple and great they were. It led to GBS getting a job on FoxNews and ended up with him leaving to run money at a hedge fund. If you don't remember those articles, I recommend going back to the archives on thestreet/realmoney.com and go over them. I would love to bring them back and have been trying my best to get those articles back. I would love to write them and it would done very similar with the markets analyzed every day and 6 stocks a night. Price, volume, moving averages, and support/resistance would be the theme. If you think that you would like to see that again on realmoney.com send an email to Kristin Bentz and tell her you want to see the GBS articles again and that you want me to write them. I would love to bring those articles back. I have missed them and believe the site's TA is turning to crap. It is time to bring in someone who maybe is a little different but at least can offer stock picks that make their readers money.
Sunday, August 12, 2007
Why Are People Trading/Investing In This Market Environment?; Stocks Suffer Worse Week Of Volatility On The Heaviest Volume I Have Ever Seen
As this week went on and on, I started to wonder why I even returned from my vacation. I could have easily have dealt with all this volatility, small longs and shorts, and loss cuts while away from my main screens. However, I am very glad to be back and to finally be posting long post. Now with me back at home I can clearly get all my analysis done. And what I have found after going over everything this week is that most professionals that thousands of investors listen to have overanalyzed this market to death and would be much better off if they advised what they should be advising. Going to cash and letting the market play out.
These guys do not get paid to do that and that is why they are always recommending some stock here or there. However, as a professional that completely understands that there are only a few times every ten years to make HUGE money, I also know when it is best to keep your cash heavy. Times like now is definitely one of them. I hear a lot of investors and commentators advising traders to pick up their favorites at these discounted levels. What bothers me more than anything about this crap advise is that these stocks can stick around these discounted levels for a long time. Go back and see how some of the favorites of 1998-2000 are doing today. They have not come back and some never will. This is what is going to happen to many of the stocks that have come well off their highs during this pullback. Some stocks are broken bad enough that there is no hope for them any time soon.
However, there are a lot of stocks holding up during this downtrend which hints to me that things may not get too much worse from here. Too bad that is the last words of so many traders that do not cut losses, in case they are wrong. I have to admit that I will never be one of those traders. I literally feel that I am in the zone and even watching my gains of 64% fall to 47% the past two weeks did nothing to shake my confidence. Had I not cut losses and instead would have “hoped” (dangerous in the stock market) that some would have returned I believe I would be under 35% by now.
Some traders, including some subscribers, are just so upset that they have lost money and that great patterns like JDAS AFSI and ESEA failed so miserably. I hate to tell everyone this, but 3 out of 4 stocks follow the general trend of the market and no matter how nice they are the chances of them following the market are 75% in favor of them to do so. If patterns like JDAS AFSI ESEA and HUB.A would have showed up right after the March 2003 follow-through you can guarantee they would have done as well as those stocks did too. And how about two very pretty charts that are both now ugly as can be: VSR and SMTX. If those stocks would have shown up with those patterns at the start of a bull market we would have made at least 3x as much as we did. You have to understand that you can NOT just make a lot of money any time and any where. Some people can that use options. But trust me this is not easy. In case you do not remember and/or do not care to do some real work, I will tell you that over 18% of the stock market made 100% or more moves from March 2003 to January 2004. Since the July/August lows we have only 4% of all stocks up 100% or more.
If you scan through my free blog and look at all of my top stocks, you can safely say that at the start of a bull market these gains would have been much higher. So why am I talking about all of this performance in a bull market to performance in a bear market? Because, so many people are not doing well right now and some traders are losing a LOT more than they should be. They are overtrading. I know some people that are buying dips in this market like they were two months ago. The market has changed and most of these traders are going to wash out. My job, imo, is to make sure you do not get discouraged and wash out. The smartest and most prudent thing you must do right now is preserve cash. You must sell your laggards, raise cash, keep new buys or shorts small until there is a clear trend, but continue to hold your longs that show absolutely no signs of problems like HUB.A.
If you do not get discouraged and do cut your losses you are going to have more money to invest when the market does give you that “perfect moment.” Remember, you only get those 3 to 4 times every 10 years. Trust me, you can make good consistent money during the rest of the time (USUALLY NOT TIMES LIKE THE PAST TWO WEEKS). However, you can ONLY get rich with a very high reward to low risk ratio after the end of a bear market, following a follow-through day. This market has only been pulling back for three weeks and we have not even lost 10% so I find it really hard to believe that if we put in a bottom here that it will lead to a “moment.” However, if we can get more pain in this market by moving lower from here, one thing will be clearly certain: the volatility will be high enough to make those that find the next TASR very rich.
The VIX has risen to 28.30 after hitting 29.84 intraday. There is a direct correlation between market bottoms and a high VIX reading leading to some huge gains. And you can be sure of many things, when this moment happens, people will be too worried about A) a recession B) AHM and BSC or C) that you will lose more money because the market has been so bad. I seriously do not think we are at this point. There are still too many people who believe that the market is going to rise that the fear is not thick enough for a real strong bottom to occur. A tradeable bottom? Sure, that definitely can setup here. However, I sure am void of very pretty and very green charts. I just simply do not have may HUB.A type stocks out there. If we get a follow-through day and hold the recent lows, as the weeks go on, we should have more charts setting up with heavy accumulation, max green BOP, and sound chart patterns. If we don’t get these setups, you can be sure that the market probably has much longer to work on its downtrend.
I am seriously hoping that this is a start of a downtrend. I would love to see the market bottom with the VIX around 40. The stocks that setup in proper-green-accumulation-filled charts will be making us a lot of money. And we are going to need that money to get these stocks, so it is best to keep cash heavy when there is no edge. And this weeks volatility clearly shows that there is no edge for the bulls or the bears.
All of my recent short recommendations have been doing very well for the bears. But right when I decide that the uptrend is pretty much in trouble and start my small testing of the shorts the market starts getting whippy. This signals to me that it is not the best time to short then, despite the extreme weakness in the finance and bank stocks (which I got by the way, if you study my “new shorts” section on the gold site at investorsparadise.com/mauitrader/). When I start to see my favorite high priced leading stocks like RIMM AAPL CROX GOOG FWLT BIDU TNH (starting to crack; now needs to fail its upcoming rallY) and MA start to top, you can guarantee the market will be extremely weak and I will have my opportunity to short. I plan on not only shorting those eventual former-leaders when they top but I will be buying some long-term in-the-money puts. But almost NONE of these stocks, except TNH, have the appearance of them definitely topping. So right now it is PERFECTLY CLEAR to me that neither bulls (longs) or bears (shorts) have a clear smooth edge. The downtrend and uptrend will be both sloppy and choppy for a while. The extreme uptick in VIX is your proof that things have changed. The slow but steady uptrend has given way to a choppy and irrational market. These are the kind of markets professionals know to keep trades either small or none at all.
Now to go back and focus solely on the market, on Friday, there is no doubt that the fact that the Fed is injecting $38 billion after injecting $24 billion is not a bullish scenario. It makes me wonder if we are just waiting for the inevitable. But if that is the case, EVERYONE who actually listens to me should be making money by not losing money. Even if this market bottoms here, you will have PLENTY of time to get long the best stocks. The best stocks do not all show up the day of the follow-through. Some may show up that day but the next three weeks is key. That is when the best of the best should show up and breakout. However, I am not sure how you get that happening when the Fed is so nervous about the possible fallout that it injects money into the system. Something seems a bit fishy.
Another thing that happened on Friday was that the rally attempt in the DJIA failed veyr quickly and when the market flashes a distribution day within three days of a follow-through, its rally almost always fails. That happened on Thursday. When that happened IBD's Big Picture noted that when the market does in fact flash a distro day that fast, 13 out of 14 times since 1982 the rally has failed. Well you can make that 14 out of 15. And with the lack of pretty green charts I doubt that if we get another follow-through this week that that one would even work.
In this environment you must remember to keep all new longs and shorts small until a trend becomes clear. It is still not clear if this is the start of a correction or a dip before another leg of this bull starts. Even if it is another dip, there should be some good money to be made with the VIX around 30. But remember if the market can move lower, we could get the VIX to 40 and that is right around where it likes to be for a market to make a low.
Bottom line: it is up to my charts right now. All my pretty green charts are gone except for a gem like HUB.A and OMTR. I will get plenty of beautiful charts before a real rally starts. Before the March 2003 bottom, GRMN, SOHU, SINA, and SNDA all were making max green-heavy accumulation filled charts breaking out to new highs well before the March 2003 bottom occurred. And then remember, TASR then showed up four months AFTER the market bottomed. Just like market tops, the best stocks show up four to seven months AFTER a top or bottom. This works much better with tops as leading stocks breakout faster in bull markets. But many great stocks do show up three to four months after a bottom.
Remember to stay positive and even if this pullback last months and months (THIS WOULD BE A VERY VERY BULLISH DEVELOPMENT), there is always some areas to make moneys in a rough market. If you are a silver or gold member, watch and learn.
Aloha from Maui!! It is good to be home but YES I do miss Texas.
These guys do not get paid to do that and that is why they are always recommending some stock here or there. However, as a professional that completely understands that there are only a few times every ten years to make HUGE money, I also know when it is best to keep your cash heavy. Times like now is definitely one of them. I hear a lot of investors and commentators advising traders to pick up their favorites at these discounted levels. What bothers me more than anything about this crap advise is that these stocks can stick around these discounted levels for a long time. Go back and see how some of the favorites of 1998-2000 are doing today. They have not come back and some never will. This is what is going to happen to many of the stocks that have come well off their highs during this pullback. Some stocks are broken bad enough that there is no hope for them any time soon.
However, there are a lot of stocks holding up during this downtrend which hints to me that things may not get too much worse from here. Too bad that is the last words of so many traders that do not cut losses, in case they are wrong. I have to admit that I will never be one of those traders. I literally feel that I am in the zone and even watching my gains of 64% fall to 47% the past two weeks did nothing to shake my confidence. Had I not cut losses and instead would have “hoped” (dangerous in the stock market) that some would have returned I believe I would be under 35% by now.
Some traders, including some subscribers, are just so upset that they have lost money and that great patterns like JDAS AFSI and ESEA failed so miserably. I hate to tell everyone this, but 3 out of 4 stocks follow the general trend of the market and no matter how nice they are the chances of them following the market are 75% in favor of them to do so. If patterns like JDAS AFSI ESEA and HUB.A would have showed up right after the March 2003 follow-through you can guarantee they would have done as well as those stocks did too. And how about two very pretty charts that are both now ugly as can be: VSR and SMTX. If those stocks would have shown up with those patterns at the start of a bull market we would have made at least 3x as much as we did. You have to understand that you can NOT just make a lot of money any time and any where. Some people can that use options. But trust me this is not easy. In case you do not remember and/or do not care to do some real work, I will tell you that over 18% of the stock market made 100% or more moves from March 2003 to January 2004. Since the July/August lows we have only 4% of all stocks up 100% or more.
If you scan through my free blog and look at all of my top stocks, you can safely say that at the start of a bull market these gains would have been much higher. So why am I talking about all of this performance in a bull market to performance in a bear market? Because, so many people are not doing well right now and some traders are losing a LOT more than they should be. They are overtrading. I know some people that are buying dips in this market like they were two months ago. The market has changed and most of these traders are going to wash out. My job, imo, is to make sure you do not get discouraged and wash out. The smartest and most prudent thing you must do right now is preserve cash. You must sell your laggards, raise cash, keep new buys or shorts small until there is a clear trend, but continue to hold your longs that show absolutely no signs of problems like HUB.A.
If you do not get discouraged and do cut your losses you are going to have more money to invest when the market does give you that “perfect moment.” Remember, you only get those 3 to 4 times every 10 years. Trust me, you can make good consistent money during the rest of the time (USUALLY NOT TIMES LIKE THE PAST TWO WEEKS). However, you can ONLY get rich with a very high reward to low risk ratio after the end of a bear market, following a follow-through day. This market has only been pulling back for three weeks and we have not even lost 10% so I find it really hard to believe that if we put in a bottom here that it will lead to a “moment.” However, if we can get more pain in this market by moving lower from here, one thing will be clearly certain: the volatility will be high enough to make those that find the next TASR very rich.
The VIX has risen to 28.30 after hitting 29.84 intraday. There is a direct correlation between market bottoms and a high VIX reading leading to some huge gains. And you can be sure of many things, when this moment happens, people will be too worried about A) a recession B) AHM and BSC or C) that you will lose more money because the market has been so bad. I seriously do not think we are at this point. There are still too many people who believe that the market is going to rise that the fear is not thick enough for a real strong bottom to occur. A tradeable bottom? Sure, that definitely can setup here. However, I sure am void of very pretty and very green charts. I just simply do not have may HUB.A type stocks out there. If we get a follow-through day and hold the recent lows, as the weeks go on, we should have more charts setting up with heavy accumulation, max green BOP, and sound chart patterns. If we don’t get these setups, you can be sure that the market probably has much longer to work on its downtrend.
I am seriously hoping that this is a start of a downtrend. I would love to see the market bottom with the VIX around 40. The stocks that setup in proper-green-accumulation-filled charts will be making us a lot of money. And we are going to need that money to get these stocks, so it is best to keep cash heavy when there is no edge. And this weeks volatility clearly shows that there is no edge for the bulls or the bears.
All of my recent short recommendations have been doing very well for the bears. But right when I decide that the uptrend is pretty much in trouble and start my small testing of the shorts the market starts getting whippy. This signals to me that it is not the best time to short then, despite the extreme weakness in the finance and bank stocks (which I got by the way, if you study my “new shorts” section on the gold site at investorsparadise.com/mauitrader/). When I start to see my favorite high priced leading stocks like RIMM AAPL CROX GOOG FWLT BIDU TNH (starting to crack; now needs to fail its upcoming rallY) and MA start to top, you can guarantee the market will be extremely weak and I will have my opportunity to short. I plan on not only shorting those eventual former-leaders when they top but I will be buying some long-term in-the-money puts. But almost NONE of these stocks, except TNH, have the appearance of them definitely topping. So right now it is PERFECTLY CLEAR to me that neither bulls (longs) or bears (shorts) have a clear smooth edge. The downtrend and uptrend will be both sloppy and choppy for a while. The extreme uptick in VIX is your proof that things have changed. The slow but steady uptrend has given way to a choppy and irrational market. These are the kind of markets professionals know to keep trades either small or none at all.
Now to go back and focus solely on the market, on Friday, there is no doubt that the fact that the Fed is injecting $38 billion after injecting $24 billion is not a bullish scenario. It makes me wonder if we are just waiting for the inevitable. But if that is the case, EVERYONE who actually listens to me should be making money by not losing money. Even if this market bottoms here, you will have PLENTY of time to get long the best stocks. The best stocks do not all show up the day of the follow-through. Some may show up that day but the next three weeks is key. That is when the best of the best should show up and breakout. However, I am not sure how you get that happening when the Fed is so nervous about the possible fallout that it injects money into the system. Something seems a bit fishy.
Another thing that happened on Friday was that the rally attempt in the DJIA failed veyr quickly and when the market flashes a distribution day within three days of a follow-through, its rally almost always fails. That happened on Thursday. When that happened IBD's Big Picture noted that when the market does in fact flash a distro day that fast, 13 out of 14 times since 1982 the rally has failed. Well you can make that 14 out of 15. And with the lack of pretty green charts I doubt that if we get another follow-through this week that that one would even work.
In this environment you must remember to keep all new longs and shorts small until a trend becomes clear. It is still not clear if this is the start of a correction or a dip before another leg of this bull starts. Even if it is another dip, there should be some good money to be made with the VIX around 30. But remember if the market can move lower, we could get the VIX to 40 and that is right around where it likes to be for a market to make a low.
Bottom line: it is up to my charts right now. All my pretty green charts are gone except for a gem like HUB.A and OMTR. I will get plenty of beautiful charts before a real rally starts. Before the March 2003 bottom, GRMN, SOHU, SINA, and SNDA all were making max green-heavy accumulation filled charts breaking out to new highs well before the March 2003 bottom occurred. And then remember, TASR then showed up four months AFTER the market bottomed. Just like market tops, the best stocks show up four to seven months AFTER a top or bottom. This works much better with tops as leading stocks breakout faster in bull markets. But many great stocks do show up three to four months after a bottom.
Remember to stay positive and even if this pullback last months and months (THIS WOULD BE A VERY VERY BULLISH DEVELOPMENT), there is always some areas to make moneys in a rough market. If you are a silver or gold member, watch and learn.
Aloha from Maui!! It is good to be home but YES I do miss Texas.
Saturday, March 31, 2007
Stressed Out And Tired; Stocks End The Week With A Boring Session, Leaving The Indexes Mixed And Flat
Stressed Out And Tired; Stocks End The Week With A Boring Session, Leaving The Indexes Mixed And Flat
By MauiTrader
Another wild-yet-boring intraday session came to an end, with stocks going nowhere. The lack of action today is a bit of a surprise, considering all the news items we had to digest. First, we got off to a positive start and continued higher early on, on the back of a bunch of macro news. The core personal consumption index rose .3% in Feb (biggest jump since August) and personal income and spending rose .6%, contributing to the fact that core inflation is now at 2.4% which is outside the Fed comfort zone of 1%-2%. This data should make it clear that the Fed will not be cutting interest rates anytime soon.
There were two more headlines of interest: The University of Michigan consumer confidence survey was revised down to 88.4 from 88.8 and the Chicago Purchasing Managers index rose to 61.7 in March from 47.9 in February. Anything over 50 on the CPMI indicates expansion.
However, news that the Bush administration via the Commerce Department are going to put economic sanctions/tariffs on China to protect the US paper producers from unfair subsidies. That sent stocks and the dollar lower. I hate ANY kind of economic sanction but we will see how this turns out.
It turned out, for the day, stocks weren’t that worried over it and they managed to recoup almost all of the losses that were sustained from the intraday highs. This was the second day in a row stocks have reversed after selling off hard in early hours of trading.
When the closing bell rang, stocks ended up mixed all over the board. The Nasdaq led the way with a .2% gain, the SP 400 gained .1%, and the DJIA ticked higher by .05%. On the downside, the NYSE led the way with a .2% loss, the SP 500 followed with a .1% loss, and the SP 600 ticked slightly lower by .03% basically closing flat. Leading stocks, via the IBD 100, closed flat with a 0.0% move. Like I said, boring. If you fell asleep before the market opened and woke up after the bell, you might question if it really opened.
The Nasdaq, SP 500, and DJIA are all below their 50 day moving averages and the NYSE, SP 400, and SP 600 are above their 50 day moving averages, showing you exactly how mixed this market really is, not only today but the past week.
Volume ticked higher today on both the NYSE and the Nasdaq. However, volume does not really matter today. What does matter is knowing this was not churning because volume was below the 50 day volume average; signaling the big boys were not interested in pushing the market around today.
Advancers beat decliners by a 6-to-5 margin on the NYSE and by an 8-to-7 margin on the Nasdaq. The fact that the NYSE was down today but breadth was up is very positive and shows you which index is leading. Speaking of leading, just look at the 52-week new highs. There were 132 NH on the NYSE and only 11 NL. On the Nasdaq it was 85 NH to 45 NL. Obviously, the strength, is clearly in the NYSE. Metals, Steel, Oil, and Food stocks; the NYSE is their home.
If you still don’t believe me that this market is boring and trendless, check out these numbers. For the week, the Nasdaq and the SP 500 lost 1.1%, the DJIA and SP 600 lost 1%, and the NYSE lost .8%. For the quarter (A FULL THREE MONTHS), the SP 600 showed some action with a 3% gain (that is very impressive). But the rest of the indexes spent the last three months going nowhere. The NYSE gained 1.3%, the DJIA rose .9%, the Nasdaq gained .3%, and the SP 500 gained .2%. You have to give the SP-600 some credit, because a 12% annual gain is very nice, but the rest of the indexes show you why Jesse Livermore and many of the greatest traders only traded when the indexes were in clear trends. I hope you made money but if you did not make any money…how much did you trade this year? Was it worth it? Or was “sitting” the right play?
There was one pocket of action, on Friday. The Homebuilder-Residential/Commercial group tanked another 3% today. This sector continues to show you why you should NEVER buy stocks that are a “bargain,” are “cheap,” are “values,” and that you think have “bottomed.” How many dip buyers keep getting killed here? I know quite a few people buying these stocks thinking they are picking up bargains. Good luck fighting through all that resistance.
Oh my, so after a week and a half, since the follow-through day, here we are still waiting for another day of substantial gains on a surge in volume that will help produce many stocks breaking out of sound bases. Well, you may be waiting, but I really don’t care anymore. LOL. Bu the fact that we have not had an accumulation day since the follow-through is troublesome. Remember just because we are holding above the lows and have had only one distribution day–that, yes, can be taken as bullish–we still need more gains on higher volume if this is going to hold.
This market has some real problems. If we are going to be going higher, trust me, I will play it. Hell, I am already playing it with 200 stocks. But the fact that the CANSLIM select group of stocks is still only 58% invested a week and a half since the follow-through day is very very very troublesome. You want another troublesome fact? The Nasdaq is below the close of the follow-through day and since then has seen no accumulation days and one distribution day.
I am 100% sure that by now, if this market was really ready to blast-off, we would have the CANSLIM select at 100% invested, I would not be long 200 stocks with 130 of them being pure speculative to half-way-speculative issues (stocks not of CANSLIM quality), I would not continue to find only speculative stocks to go long, there would be more CANSLIM quality stocks breaking out of bases, and there would be more CANSLIM quality stocks setting up in bases. We do NOT have this happening. This is not a market for growth/momentum investors. If you are looking to hit a home run, you probably need to adjust your stance and swing. Because this market has a powerful pitching rotation that is on fire right now. Single, double, and MAYBE a triple, if you are lucky is all that growth investors can expect, with the VIX still below 20.
I guess with so many people expecting the worse and the put/call still over 1 at 1.05 shows that there is a lot of bearishness out there. However the AAII poll this week showed bears come way down and bulls go over 50%. Also, this weekend, the realmoney.com poll shows 54% bulls, only 19% bearish, and 26% neutral (or confused, whatever you want to call it). So to me it seems the crowd is now bullish. How confusing can it get????? But really the smart trader knows not to really care or give a damn. Until you get pretty green charts in stocks with excellent fundamentals we know it is just noise.
The dip buyers can continue to step in here and believe nothing is wrong and can continue to buy stocks thinking they will go to the moon. But the fact that we have the government stepping in with sanctions, poor economic numbers, lower GDP growth, inflation, and a new Congress that is about to raise taxes by not extending the Bush tax cuts and you have a disaster waiting to happen. What is wrong here? You retail money that is NOW just buying stocks (I can see this data via mutual fund inflows–January and February inflows were HUGE) are buying at the top AGAIN. These inflows always happen right at the end or near the end of a trend. What is wrong? You are four years too late! Where were you in October 2002? Where were you in March 2003? If you are just now buying stocks, you should look in the mirror and ask yourself who is really buying your stocks; you or the media that convinced you the evil George W. Bush’s economy was doomed to fail? Since the tax cuts the Nasdaq is up 90% and the SP 600 is up 137%. Yeah, tax cuts don’t work, do they?
Next week is a short week, with Good Friday occurring on…Friday. And we are also coming upon earnings season. We start to get numbers this week but the real action officially kicks off on the 10th when AA reports. There might be one minor problem this time, which you can add to the list of problems I have already mentioned, as wall street is looking for earnings to come in 4% to 6% higher YOY. Not bad you say? Yes, you are right. But the problem lies in the fact that earnings have come in over double digits for the past 14 quarters.
If earnings do not come in at double digits, this will be the first time since 2003 that we have not seen this. If you don’t think that is potential bearish, you really don’t understand the stock market. GDP growth and EPS growth is the two clear leading indicators for stock markets. Not just the US stock market, ALL MARKETS ALL OVER THE WORLD GOING BACK YEARS AND YEARS AND YEARS. Find a country check out the GDP growth and then watch the stock market follow. How is the USA GDP growth looking? I am a question asking fool tonight!!!
Expect more choppy and meaningless trading this week. I am only predicting this so that we actually get a follow-through to the downside or upside here. Normally, whatever I think will happen does not happen. So I predict the market will flatline and be choppy intraday every day next week.
This market is still in a very weak bullish phase. But it is still in a bullish trend so there is no reason to bet against it. I am sure the safe time to short will be soon; but with all these beautiful green charts in these tiny small cheap crap stocks I have to take them. They are working (80% of them) and some are producing some nice gains and have chart patterns for potential big gains. However, if the market weakens expect them to go with it. But that is why I am only 56% invested. Which is AMAZINGLY (not really, just showing you how discipline works) similar to the CANSLIM select only being 58% invested. CASH IS STILL KING!!! KING, I TELL YOU!!
Aloha and I will see you in the chat room. I am tired and stressed out (not from the market; from socialized medicine…the only medicine on Maui).
Market Commentary At Big Wave Trading Bronze Level One.
Top Holdings Up This Week - Signal Date
KNOL 295% - 1/12/06
AKAM 230% - 9/30/05
TRCR 161% - 1/12
TTEC 157% - 8/25
OMTR 131% - 9/15
JSDA 108% - 12/20
TNH 107% - 10/26
CCOI 107% - 9/27
HRZ 103% - 9/27
PRGX 97% - 1/12
BONT 87% - 10/3
MEH 83% - 8/30
EVEP 80% - 11/16
AOI 76% - 11/19
CLRT 75% - 11/30
CHINA 74% - 8/16
IMKTA 72% - 8/28
CPA 66% - 9/15
EPHC 66% - 12/20
DA 65% - 1/25/06
IIVI 61% - 8/30
PERY 59% - 10/4
ULTR 58% - 10/27
CXW 57% - 5/19
HURN 57% - 9/13
XIDE 56% - 1/29
APLX 54% - 9/28
BMTI 52% - 10/25
MFW 50% - 1/29
DECK 50% - 9/13
KHDH 49% - 5/30
OEH 48% - 11/20
New Swing Longs: Silver Level Two
New Swing Shorts: Silver Level Two
Stocks On My Watchlist: Gold Level Three
Complete Profits/Losses: Gold Level Three
Partial Profits/Losses: Gold Level Three
MauiTrader Forums: Gold Level Three
MauiTrader Chat Room: Gold Level Three
Longs Up On The Day: Gold Level Three
Shorts Up On The Day: Gold Level Three
By MauiTrader
Another wild-yet-boring intraday session came to an end, with stocks going nowhere. The lack of action today is a bit of a surprise, considering all the news items we had to digest. First, we got off to a positive start and continued higher early on, on the back of a bunch of macro news. The core personal consumption index rose .3% in Feb (biggest jump since August) and personal income and spending rose .6%, contributing to the fact that core inflation is now at 2.4% which is outside the Fed comfort zone of 1%-2%. This data should make it clear that the Fed will not be cutting interest rates anytime soon.
There were two more headlines of interest: The University of Michigan consumer confidence survey was revised down to 88.4 from 88.8 and the Chicago Purchasing Managers index rose to 61.7 in March from 47.9 in February. Anything over 50 on the CPMI indicates expansion.
However, news that the Bush administration via the Commerce Department are going to put economic sanctions/tariffs on China to protect the US paper producers from unfair subsidies. That sent stocks and the dollar lower. I hate ANY kind of economic sanction but we will see how this turns out.
It turned out, for the day, stocks weren’t that worried over it and they managed to recoup almost all of the losses that were sustained from the intraday highs. This was the second day in a row stocks have reversed after selling off hard in early hours of trading.
When the closing bell rang, stocks ended up mixed all over the board. The Nasdaq led the way with a .2% gain, the SP 400 gained .1%, and the DJIA ticked higher by .05%. On the downside, the NYSE led the way with a .2% loss, the SP 500 followed with a .1% loss, and the SP 600 ticked slightly lower by .03% basically closing flat. Leading stocks, via the IBD 100, closed flat with a 0.0% move. Like I said, boring. If you fell asleep before the market opened and woke up after the bell, you might question if it really opened.
The Nasdaq, SP 500, and DJIA are all below their 50 day moving averages and the NYSE, SP 400, and SP 600 are above their 50 day moving averages, showing you exactly how mixed this market really is, not only today but the past week.
Volume ticked higher today on both the NYSE and the Nasdaq. However, volume does not really matter today. What does matter is knowing this was not churning because volume was below the 50 day volume average; signaling the big boys were not interested in pushing the market around today.
Advancers beat decliners by a 6-to-5 margin on the NYSE and by an 8-to-7 margin on the Nasdaq. The fact that the NYSE was down today but breadth was up is very positive and shows you which index is leading. Speaking of leading, just look at the 52-week new highs. There were 132 NH on the NYSE and only 11 NL. On the Nasdaq it was 85 NH to 45 NL. Obviously, the strength, is clearly in the NYSE. Metals, Steel, Oil, and Food stocks; the NYSE is their home.
If you still don’t believe me that this market is boring and trendless, check out these numbers. For the week, the Nasdaq and the SP 500 lost 1.1%, the DJIA and SP 600 lost 1%, and the NYSE lost .8%. For the quarter (A FULL THREE MONTHS), the SP 600 showed some action with a 3% gain (that is very impressive). But the rest of the indexes spent the last three months going nowhere. The NYSE gained 1.3%, the DJIA rose .9%, the Nasdaq gained .3%, and the SP 500 gained .2%. You have to give the SP-600 some credit, because a 12% annual gain is very nice, but the rest of the indexes show you why Jesse Livermore and many of the greatest traders only traded when the indexes were in clear trends. I hope you made money but if you did not make any money…how much did you trade this year? Was it worth it? Or was “sitting” the right play?
There was one pocket of action, on Friday. The Homebuilder-Residential/Commercial group tanked another 3% today. This sector continues to show you why you should NEVER buy stocks that are a “bargain,” are “cheap,” are “values,” and that you think have “bottomed.” How many dip buyers keep getting killed here? I know quite a few people buying these stocks thinking they are picking up bargains. Good luck fighting through all that resistance.
Oh my, so after a week and a half, since the follow-through day, here we are still waiting for another day of substantial gains on a surge in volume that will help produce many stocks breaking out of sound bases. Well, you may be waiting, but I really don’t care anymore. LOL. Bu the fact that we have not had an accumulation day since the follow-through is troublesome. Remember just because we are holding above the lows and have had only one distribution day–that, yes, can be taken as bullish–we still need more gains on higher volume if this is going to hold.
This market has some real problems. If we are going to be going higher, trust me, I will play it. Hell, I am already playing it with 200 stocks. But the fact that the CANSLIM select group of stocks is still only 58% invested a week and a half since the follow-through day is very very very troublesome. You want another troublesome fact? The Nasdaq is below the close of the follow-through day and since then has seen no accumulation days and one distribution day.
I am 100% sure that by now, if this market was really ready to blast-off, we would have the CANSLIM select at 100% invested, I would not be long 200 stocks with 130 of them being pure speculative to half-way-speculative issues (stocks not of CANSLIM quality), I would not continue to find only speculative stocks to go long, there would be more CANSLIM quality stocks breaking out of bases, and there would be more CANSLIM quality stocks setting up in bases. We do NOT have this happening. This is not a market for growth/momentum investors. If you are looking to hit a home run, you probably need to adjust your stance and swing. Because this market has a powerful pitching rotation that is on fire right now. Single, double, and MAYBE a triple, if you are lucky is all that growth investors can expect, with the VIX still below 20.
I guess with so many people expecting the worse and the put/call still over 1 at 1.05 shows that there is a lot of bearishness out there. However the AAII poll this week showed bears come way down and bulls go over 50%. Also, this weekend, the realmoney.com poll shows 54% bulls, only 19% bearish, and 26% neutral (or confused, whatever you want to call it). So to me it seems the crowd is now bullish. How confusing can it get????? But really the smart trader knows not to really care or give a damn. Until you get pretty green charts in stocks with excellent fundamentals we know it is just noise.
The dip buyers can continue to step in here and believe nothing is wrong and can continue to buy stocks thinking they will go to the moon. But the fact that we have the government stepping in with sanctions, poor economic numbers, lower GDP growth, inflation, and a new Congress that is about to raise taxes by not extending the Bush tax cuts and you have a disaster waiting to happen. What is wrong here? You retail money that is NOW just buying stocks (I can see this data via mutual fund inflows–January and February inflows were HUGE) are buying at the top AGAIN. These inflows always happen right at the end or near the end of a trend. What is wrong? You are four years too late! Where were you in October 2002? Where were you in March 2003? If you are just now buying stocks, you should look in the mirror and ask yourself who is really buying your stocks; you or the media that convinced you the evil George W. Bush’s economy was doomed to fail? Since the tax cuts the Nasdaq is up 90% and the SP 600 is up 137%. Yeah, tax cuts don’t work, do they?
Next week is a short week, with Good Friday occurring on…Friday. And we are also coming upon earnings season. We start to get numbers this week but the real action officially kicks off on the 10th when AA reports. There might be one minor problem this time, which you can add to the list of problems I have already mentioned, as wall street is looking for earnings to come in 4% to 6% higher YOY. Not bad you say? Yes, you are right. But the problem lies in the fact that earnings have come in over double digits for the past 14 quarters.
If earnings do not come in at double digits, this will be the first time since 2003 that we have not seen this. If you don’t think that is potential bearish, you really don’t understand the stock market. GDP growth and EPS growth is the two clear leading indicators for stock markets. Not just the US stock market, ALL MARKETS ALL OVER THE WORLD GOING BACK YEARS AND YEARS AND YEARS. Find a country check out the GDP growth and then watch the stock market follow. How is the USA GDP growth looking? I am a question asking fool tonight!!!
Expect more choppy and meaningless trading this week. I am only predicting this so that we actually get a follow-through to the downside or upside here. Normally, whatever I think will happen does not happen. So I predict the market will flatline and be choppy intraday every day next week.
This market is still in a very weak bullish phase. But it is still in a bullish trend so there is no reason to bet against it. I am sure the safe time to short will be soon; but with all these beautiful green charts in these tiny small cheap crap stocks I have to take them. They are working (80% of them) and some are producing some nice gains and have chart patterns for potential big gains. However, if the market weakens expect them to go with it. But that is why I am only 56% invested. Which is AMAZINGLY (not really, just showing you how discipline works) similar to the CANSLIM select only being 58% invested. CASH IS STILL KING!!! KING, I TELL YOU!!
Aloha and I will see you in the chat room. I am tired and stressed out (not from the market; from socialized medicine…the only medicine on Maui).
Market Commentary At Big Wave Trading Bronze Level One.
Top Holdings Up This Week - Signal Date
KNOL 295% - 1/12/06
AKAM 230% - 9/30/05
TRCR 161% - 1/12
TTEC 157% - 8/25
OMTR 131% - 9/15
JSDA 108% - 12/20
TNH 107% - 10/26
CCOI 107% - 9/27
HRZ 103% - 9/27
PRGX 97% - 1/12
BONT 87% - 10/3
MEH 83% - 8/30
EVEP 80% - 11/16
AOI 76% - 11/19
CLRT 75% - 11/30
CHINA 74% - 8/16
IMKTA 72% - 8/28
CPA 66% - 9/15
EPHC 66% - 12/20
DA 65% - 1/25/06
IIVI 61% - 8/30
PERY 59% - 10/4
ULTR 58% - 10/27
CXW 57% - 5/19
HURN 57% - 9/13
XIDE 56% - 1/29
APLX 54% - 9/28
BMTI 52% - 10/25
MFW 50% - 1/29
DECK 50% - 9/13
KHDH 49% - 5/30
OEH 48% - 11/20
New Swing Longs: Silver Level Two
New Swing Shorts: Silver Level Two
Stocks On My Watchlist: Gold Level Three
Complete Profits/Losses: Gold Level Three
Partial Profits/Losses: Gold Level Three
MauiTrader Forums: Gold Level Three
MauiTrader Chat Room: Gold Level Three
Longs Up On The Day: Gold Level Three
Shorts Up On The Day: Gold Level Three
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