Stocks started off strong but entered a choppy trading pattern for most of the day until 2pm EST when some real selling hit the market officially ending the EOQ rally. The selling led to all indexes finishing in the red with the SP 600 suffering the worst of it with a .9% loss. Despite the small losses, the selling seemed a bit worse underneath because all of the momentum stocks seemed to do poorly on Friday with very few pockets of strength to speak of. Still, overall, the losses were not that bad but they do qualify as a bad day with the higher volume due to the .3% loss on the SP 500 and Nassy.
Adding to the weakness of Friday was volume. Volume was higher on both the Nassy and the SP 500. That gave both indexes their first day of distribution since September 12 and in the total count of distro days we can eliminate that September 12 day since the market has moved up so much from that selloff. The move on September 18 officially killed the old distribution days. So, for now, we stand at only one distro day for the indexes.
It was a very great third quarter for stocks as stocks wrapped up a very strong month with some strong gains. The NYSE gained 4.6%, the Nasdaq gained 4.1%, the DJIA rallied 4%, and the SP 500 gained 3.6%. Obviously, it was a great month for stocks and even though Friday went out cold we still have to admire how strong the month was and we can't really blame traders for wanting to take profits and start the fourth quarter off fresh.
The strong gains this quarter and this month came on the back of some heavy bearish sentiment and media. The subprime worries, the Patraeus report to Congress, and your usual bashing of the economy by the heavily slanted left-media was the perfect wall-of-worry for stocks to climb. Combine that with all the calls for the US Dollar to collapse to zero and all the overly-insane calls of gold to go to 1000 or higher and you had the perfect combination for equities to take advantage of the gullible and ever-so-growing ignorant general public. Stupidity and plain hysterical ignorance seems to be the norm nowadays. This is bullish for stocks right now.
To confirm that it is still very bearish out there we only have to look at two key indicators. The put/call ratio has jumped back up to near the 1 are, closing at .96 on Friday. Then the most shocking of the two, the NYSE short-interest ratio finished the week at yet another all-time high at 8.66. This is the highest this ratio has ever been and it is telling you that more stocks are short as total shares floating than at any other time in history. With the market so near old highs, I find this simply stunning and can not see how it can be anything but bullish long-term for equities.
But with the month of September behind us, some are worried that the scary month of October might be a lot worse. While it is true that October is the month where the most fast crashes have occurred, the market in its current condition is in no way ready to crash. If the market is ready to crash, trust me, the classic signs of rapid distribution and big price drops will proceed any crash. As we are setup right now I don't think we have anything to worry about.
However, if you want or need reasons to be bearish, you can find them right now. We are overbought on a ton of different oscillators. The McClellan oscillator is overbought, the ARMS index is overbought, the 10-day MA of adv/dec line is overbought on the Nasdaq and NYSE, the 30-day ma of adv/dec line is overbought, but the SP 500 oscillator is not overbought. So there is at least one oscillator that is not saying we are too far along in this rally.
Besides the overbought condition, there are also a problem with the amount of new highs in the indexes. More importantly, the Nasdaq has seen new highs contract everyday as we went along this week--125 on Wed, 119 on Thur, and 112 on Friday. So momentum does appear to be slowing.
With the momentum slowing there is also a lack of quality new longs the past three days. So I am running out of HOT charts that I was starting to find earlier. And the great stocks that I have been long since the August 16 lows have not been as amazing as I foresaw them becoming. The best looking long that I have found in a long time has already put in a significant enough of a reversal that some has been trimmed. This particular long is still well above the final cut loss area but the fact that this particular stock did not explode right after the long signal of near-perfection was given is a big problem. Most stocks that create the chart pattern that this stock did perform very well in bullish tapes. The fact that this one did not was a red flag, without a doubt, and makes me a little cautious on new longs until we get another very bullish day like September 18.
I guess I have a reason to be cautious here as many stocks that I have been long for a while or leading stocks that I have been following are already up way too much and are well extended from correct buy points from very nice pattern. I see a lot of iffy cup with handles being called out there by IBD but my definition of a cup with handle is a little more hardcore than theirs. I simply will not call anything and everything that looks to be shaping a cup with handle one. They will. On top of that, earnings season is right around the corner and we could be setting ourselves up for some sell the news if earnings end up coming out and clobbering the estimates.
Some things that I do not like about this market is that the VIX has once again come down to very bearish levels hitting below 17 intraday on the VIX before closing at 18. That this index has come down so much from where we were at the August 16 is very bearish, even though we are not near the 10 level that we were at before June. Even though we are still very far from those levels, the fact that we have come down so much shows that a major dose of complacency has set in to this market.
If you don't believe me, just look at the sentiment indicators. As I noted yesterday, the Investors Intelligence shows 55% of newsletter writers are bullish again after they almost crossed bulls/bears a month ago. Also the AAII shows that 50% of market participants are bullish. And this weekend, so far, the realmoney.com poll shows 41% are bulls and 31% are bears--the rest are neutral--which clearly shows that everybody is somewhat bullish everywhere. As a natural contrarian, I have a problem with these high bullish readings with the market up over 10% off the August lows.
So for now I am going to continue to play what the market gives me but will keep new buys small here as I believe we need to do some backing and filling as there are too many gaps on the intraday charts in the indexes that need to be filled. Those gaps have been coming on some tight trading days with some low volatility so I don't expect the trend of the past eight days to continue. Some volatility is bound to return to this market. Unless you have been only playing the Chinese stocks. Then volatility has NEVER left and you can continue to ride the BIDU and LFC train higher. Or hopefully you have jumped off the ZNH, CPSL, and JRJC momentum mamma train and are on the sidelines watching the coming destruction to over-leveraged late bulls.
Things still look good out there overall, despite the overbought market. The wall-of-worry to climb is alive and its slope is as bullish as the slope of the yield curve. And if you haven't checked out the yield curve in a while, you might want to do so. The slope is of one that you see in bullish markets. Things still look very good out there for the long-term. In the short-term, don't be surprised if we get some backing and filling. Aloha and I will see you in the chat room and the new chatroom at BigWaveTrading.
PS WE ARE GOING TO BE MOVING TO A NEW WEBSITE SOON. INVESTORS PARADISE HAS BEEN SOLD BY SETH RICHARDSON AND I AM MOVING TO MY OWN WEBSITE. THE START DATE IS SUPPOSED TO BE OCTOBER 1ST. PLEASE CONTACT JUSTIN DEMERCHANT OR MARKET SPECULATOR (marketspeculator@bigwavetrading.com) IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS. I WILL NOT BE ABLE TO ANSWER QUESTIONS AS I DO NOT PARTICIPATE IN ANY BACK OFFICE WORK. THE NEW WEBSITE IS GOING TO BE MUCH BETTER AND MUCH EASIER TO NAVIGATE AROUND NOW THAT WE WILL HAVE OUR OWN SITE. IT IS LIKE REVSHARK MOVING FROM SUPERTRADERS.COM TO SHARKINVESTING.COM.
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Showing posts with label top stocks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label top stocks. Show all posts
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Sunday, September 09, 2007
Most Of The Major Market Indexes Fail Their 50 DMA’s And Reverse Down Through Their 200 DMA’s And Russell 2000 Fails At Death Cross; Volume Continues
A weak jobs report hit stocks early but after that there wasn’t much more selling. However, Friday was the third day in a row where we saw overall weak intraday or dead intraday price action but, once again, there was very little volume overall to the 50 day volume average which makes it hard to say that the sellers are in complete control at this area even though most major market indexes are making significant reversals and/or failures at key moving averages.
The fact that most indexes failed right at their 50 day moving averages and traded below their 200 day moving average shows that the market is suffering from some weakness and the fact that we had a second distribution day since the August 29 rally does have to throw caution on the rally. However, the leading stocks continue to hold well and stocks like AAPL that have seen three days of selling have really only seen one day of selling and then two days where the stock gapped lower and basically then traded in a tight range the rest of the day on big volume. To me that appears to be support to the selling that is happening in the morning.
Heck, if you just look at the indexes on Friday you can see that almost all of the selling happened before the market open. The fact that that was the case shows that the market makers just dropped the bids to find buyers. There was no real selling or capitulation by big investors as volume continues to constantly come in below the 50 day volume average. It doesn’t matter if it is on the upside or downside, there is still no volume that indicates the big institutions have done ANYTHING after August 16.
What I find odd about the lack of volume is how much people are still trying to figure out about the current action of the market. Well, folks, I hate to tell you, all of the prognosticating and prediction analysis all of you newbies seem to think is so important is clouding your judgement from the truth. Just like watching your biased national news on CBS, ABC, PBS, or NBC, you are only getting half the story. The network anchors and YOU can guess why the market is doing this and why it is doing that but bottom line is that NONE of that makes you money in the market.
WHAT IN THE HELL IS SO HARD TO UNDERSTAND ABOUT THAT? WHY DOES EVERYONE NEED TO KNOW WHY SOMETHING HAPPENED???? PROFESSIONALS NEVER ASK WHY THIS OR THAT HAPPENED; THEY REACT AND POSITION THEMSELVES ACCORDINGLY, ALWAYS HAVING A PLAN FOR ANY OUTCOME.
The truth of the market is that the long term trend since 2003 is up and has been almost nothing but up since then. Until your big-cap growth leading stocks like RIMM AAPL BIDU GOOG GRMN etc…start selling off on huge volume, failing their rallies back to new highs and key moving averages, and then start selling off again, there is no way in hell anyone should be bearish on this market. And trust me I see a LOT of amateurs very bearish.
Listen, if we had a ton of volume on the reversals I would be very bearish too. However, without the increase in volume to very heavy levels over the 50 day volume average, it is impossible for me to either get bullish after the August 16 lows or bearish after we reverse here at the key moving averages. The proper play right now is to remain market neutral in your opinions, recognizing that the market is in a sub-intermediate term uptrend from the August 16 lows with some select CANSLIM quality stocks giving us buy signals and a market in a very short-term downtrend with the market moving lower the past three days. THAT IS IT!! Nothing more and nothing less. There is nothing profound to figure out here.
About the only thing I want to figure out is why in the hell everyone is so focused on a rate cut? The fact that everyone has already begun looking for the rate cut as far back as August 16 has to get me to thinking that this is in fact why the market has rallied since then. If this rally is based on a rate cut speculation, then we know why the big boys are not involved in this rally. They don’t buy rumors. When they make a decision to buy or sell a stock they are making long term moves that take months to play out. So the logical play by them is to probably let the market rise so they could do more selling.
That is, as long as they have more selling to do. There are some psycholgical market indicators that could suggest all the selling is done. Professional investment advisors are becoming more bearish as the 3 week average of bearish advisors has now risen back above the 35% level. Since the mid 1990’s each time the 3 week average of bearish advisors has exceeded 35% this has been followed by an eventual bottom within a few weeks followed by a strong rally. So taking all that bearishness along with the high put/call ratio of 1.05 now and the fact the put/call could not fall lower than .83 after the closing bell during this uptrend shows that many are still nervous.
And that is why many stocks are making gains, holding on to their gains from before the selloff, and/or are setting up in some nice patterns for potential gains. About the only thing that is bothersome so far is that I have found some very nice charts with top fundamentals. The funny thing is the stocks that have flaws have been doing very well and the stocks that are loaded with accumulation and green BOP all over them are not working, going sideways, or are making small gains. In very strong bull markets, this simply does not happen. The best charts always take off further and give me faster and bigger gains. Right now, as has been the case since the late 2006, few of my perfect charts are staying perfect. Recent examples of really really nice charts (not perfect) not working immediately are FALC, ROS, and BLL. All three of these, with the chart patterns they produced, should be running by now. So this is yet another key clue that tells us being bullish or being bearish is not the right play right here and being unbiased and neutral is the right play. If we were to be bearish, we wouldn’t even be getting these setups. If we were to be bullish, these stocks would be blasting higher already.
The point of this is to remember that you do not need to always be bullish or bearish. Sometimes it is the smart play to be just neutral. Dip your toes in on the long side if you find a pretty chart, dip your toes in on the short side if you find an ugly chart (they both must be setting up in perfect patterns, obviously), but continue to keep cash heavier than either your longs or shorts at this point. Without volume, we have absolutely NO clue as to what the true intentions of big funds are. The biggest point of all of this is that you simply do NOT have to trade/invest all the time.
I am still completely unsure as to why people feel they must trade all the time or “make money” all the time, especially when the market is chopping you up piece by piece after every trade you take. Doesn’t common sense take over and tell you to STOP trading? I am sometimes amazed at the lack of common sense newbie traders have and A LOT OF PROFESSIONALS have when it comes to the proper time to trade (uptrend or downtrend markets) and when it is not the proper time to trade (wild, choppy, and irrational markets).
Sentiment is pretty bearish out there, which would seem to be short term bullish. But we do have some overbought conditions on many different oscillators (10 dma of adv/dec line, DTS timing, McClellan, Arms) signaling that we might need to do some work on the downside before returning to the upside. In the middle of all of this is the constant talk amongst the market mouths is the fact that the Fed might need to act. That in itself is causing some paralysis amongst some players. So here you have some bullish, bearish, and neutral factors that are sure to influence this market in its usual choppy and wild manner. It should be fun.
Remember, if those pretty charts fail, cut your losses. Unless, you are in a bull market, pretty charts are going to be hit and miss. Right now, they are definitely hit or miss. Their is no clear uptrend in the major market indexes and now we have some key failures (though it was on low volume) of key moving averages. I just find it hard to believe our beautiful longs are going to continue to rip, unless some real accumulation gets into this market. And hopefully that happens for the bulls, as September is historically the worst month for stocks.
The fact that most indexes failed right at their 50 day moving averages and traded below their 200 day moving average shows that the market is suffering from some weakness and the fact that we had a second distribution day since the August 29 rally does have to throw caution on the rally. However, the leading stocks continue to hold well and stocks like AAPL that have seen three days of selling have really only seen one day of selling and then two days where the stock gapped lower and basically then traded in a tight range the rest of the day on big volume. To me that appears to be support to the selling that is happening in the morning.
Heck, if you just look at the indexes on Friday you can see that almost all of the selling happened before the market open. The fact that that was the case shows that the market makers just dropped the bids to find buyers. There was no real selling or capitulation by big investors as volume continues to constantly come in below the 50 day volume average. It doesn’t matter if it is on the upside or downside, there is still no volume that indicates the big institutions have done ANYTHING after August 16.
What I find odd about the lack of volume is how much people are still trying to figure out about the current action of the market. Well, folks, I hate to tell you, all of the prognosticating and prediction analysis all of you newbies seem to think is so important is clouding your judgement from the truth. Just like watching your biased national news on CBS, ABC, PBS, or NBC, you are only getting half the story. The network anchors and YOU can guess why the market is doing this and why it is doing that but bottom line is that NONE of that makes you money in the market.
WHAT IN THE HELL IS SO HARD TO UNDERSTAND ABOUT THAT? WHY DOES EVERYONE NEED TO KNOW WHY SOMETHING HAPPENED???? PROFESSIONALS NEVER ASK WHY THIS OR THAT HAPPENED; THEY REACT AND POSITION THEMSELVES ACCORDINGLY, ALWAYS HAVING A PLAN FOR ANY OUTCOME.
The truth of the market is that the long term trend since 2003 is up and has been almost nothing but up since then. Until your big-cap growth leading stocks like RIMM AAPL BIDU GOOG GRMN etc…start selling off on huge volume, failing their rallies back to new highs and key moving averages, and then start selling off again, there is no way in hell anyone should be bearish on this market. And trust me I see a LOT of amateurs very bearish.
Listen, if we had a ton of volume on the reversals I would be very bearish too. However, without the increase in volume to very heavy levels over the 50 day volume average, it is impossible for me to either get bullish after the August 16 lows or bearish after we reverse here at the key moving averages. The proper play right now is to remain market neutral in your opinions, recognizing that the market is in a sub-intermediate term uptrend from the August 16 lows with some select CANSLIM quality stocks giving us buy signals and a market in a very short-term downtrend with the market moving lower the past three days. THAT IS IT!! Nothing more and nothing less. There is nothing profound to figure out here.
About the only thing I want to figure out is why in the hell everyone is so focused on a rate cut? The fact that everyone has already begun looking for the rate cut as far back as August 16 has to get me to thinking that this is in fact why the market has rallied since then. If this rally is based on a rate cut speculation, then we know why the big boys are not involved in this rally. They don’t buy rumors. When they make a decision to buy or sell a stock they are making long term moves that take months to play out. So the logical play by them is to probably let the market rise so they could do more selling.
That is, as long as they have more selling to do. There are some psycholgical market indicators that could suggest all the selling is done. Professional investment advisors are becoming more bearish as the 3 week average of bearish advisors has now risen back above the 35% level. Since the mid 1990’s each time the 3 week average of bearish advisors has exceeded 35% this has been followed by an eventual bottom within a few weeks followed by a strong rally. So taking all that bearishness along with the high put/call ratio of 1.05 now and the fact the put/call could not fall lower than .83 after the closing bell during this uptrend shows that many are still nervous.
And that is why many stocks are making gains, holding on to their gains from before the selloff, and/or are setting up in some nice patterns for potential gains. About the only thing that is bothersome so far is that I have found some very nice charts with top fundamentals. The funny thing is the stocks that have flaws have been doing very well and the stocks that are loaded with accumulation and green BOP all over them are not working, going sideways, or are making small gains. In very strong bull markets, this simply does not happen. The best charts always take off further and give me faster and bigger gains. Right now, as has been the case since the late 2006, few of my perfect charts are staying perfect. Recent examples of really really nice charts (not perfect) not working immediately are FALC, ROS, and BLL. All three of these, with the chart patterns they produced, should be running by now. So this is yet another key clue that tells us being bullish or being bearish is not the right play right here and being unbiased and neutral is the right play. If we were to be bearish, we wouldn’t even be getting these setups. If we were to be bullish, these stocks would be blasting higher already.
The point of this is to remember that you do not need to always be bullish or bearish. Sometimes it is the smart play to be just neutral. Dip your toes in on the long side if you find a pretty chart, dip your toes in on the short side if you find an ugly chart (they both must be setting up in perfect patterns, obviously), but continue to keep cash heavier than either your longs or shorts at this point. Without volume, we have absolutely NO clue as to what the true intentions of big funds are. The biggest point of all of this is that you simply do NOT have to trade/invest all the time.
I am still completely unsure as to why people feel they must trade all the time or “make money” all the time, especially when the market is chopping you up piece by piece after every trade you take. Doesn’t common sense take over and tell you to STOP trading? I am sometimes amazed at the lack of common sense newbie traders have and A LOT OF PROFESSIONALS have when it comes to the proper time to trade (uptrend or downtrend markets) and when it is not the proper time to trade (wild, choppy, and irrational markets).
Sentiment is pretty bearish out there, which would seem to be short term bullish. But we do have some overbought conditions on many different oscillators (10 dma of adv/dec line, DTS timing, McClellan, Arms) signaling that we might need to do some work on the downside before returning to the upside. In the middle of all of this is the constant talk amongst the market mouths is the fact that the Fed might need to act. That in itself is causing some paralysis amongst some players. So here you have some bullish, bearish, and neutral factors that are sure to influence this market in its usual choppy and wild manner. It should be fun.
Remember, if those pretty charts fail, cut your losses. Unless, you are in a bull market, pretty charts are going to be hit and miss. Right now, they are definitely hit or miss. Their is no clear uptrend in the major market indexes and now we have some key failures (though it was on low volume) of key moving averages. I just find it hard to believe our beautiful longs are going to continue to rip, unless some real accumulation gets into this market. And hopefully that happens for the bulls, as September is historically the worst month for stocks.
Saturday, July 21, 2007
Nasty Selloff Hits Stocks Thanks To Misses By GOOG And CAT; Overall, There Is Not That Much Damage
Some big misses by two heavyweights weighed heavily on the indexes as the stock market suffered its second distribution day in as many days. GOOG and CAT were both nailed with 8% losses before the opening bell, after both issued poor earnings that missed estimates. However, as the day wore on neither of these issues saw much more selling and both found solid support at their 50 day moving averages, giving some comfort to the bulls. But, for the day, the damage was done.
The DJIA fell 1.1%, the SP 500, Nassy, and NYSE fell 1.2%, and the SP 600 led the way down with a 1.7% loss. The great news was that leading stocks, in the form of the IBD 100 only lost 1.3%, outperforming the SP 600. However, the losses were a bit worse during the day, so the fact that the indexes closed off the lows is a slight positive. Combine that with Wednesday’s action where the Nassy actually closed higher than the open and you can see we have two distro days that aren’t very powerful.
The higher volume in the market combined with breadth 3-to-1 negative on the NYSE, 11-to-4 negative on the Nassy, and 27-to-3 negative on the DJIA gave the impression that things were really bad out there. However, despite there being 326 new lows there were also 216 new highs which shows that there were some decent pockets of strength out there. If today was really as bad as the indexes looked, trust me, there would have been a lot less new highs. So that gives some indication that the selling was not that bad.
And to go along with the data, two things occurred that really stick out after Friday’s losses. The put/call ratio jumped and closed over 1 at 1.02. That high reading shows that as stocks fell, traders decided to buy puts betting that prices are going to continue to go lower. That in of itself is not that impressive. But when you combine that the options crowd is bearish with the fact that the NYSE short interest ratio is at ANOTHER all-time high you have some real interesting developments. The NYSE short interest ratio is now at 8.25% which is an all-time high!!! That means 8% of trading on the NYSE is done in shorts. This DESPITE THE MARKET BEING ONLY 1% TO 2% BELOW ALL-TIME AND SIX-AND-A-HALF YEAR HIGHS.
When you take all of this combined with some leading stocks like AAPL and ISRG still making new highs and it becomes clear that Friday produced some panic. Markets do NOT top with panic. They top with euphoria. Even though BIDU and GOOG dropped and some are calling for a top via those two stocks, you have to remember that BIDU is still in a solid uptrend and GOOG had a very bullish intraday reversal off its 50 dma. So you are really grabbing at straws if you are calling a top here. Unless you only look at bank stocks and GOOG, there is no way you can agree with that argument.
The rest of the market seems OK. I had only a handful of complete sells and almost all of those were in very poor issues. The partial sales I had were made based on pure discipline. But when looking at their weekly and long term daily charts it is obvious there is nothing wrong with these stocks. Hell, look at one of the best sectors out there Transport-Shipping. ESEA, TBSI, DRYS, and DSX show NO signs of topping and all are still on fire and look ready for plenty of gains. Then you have the clear leader during this current bull market: Chemicals. CF, TRA, TNH, and the other stocks in this sector show no signs of topping. Until you see those two sectors top, along with stocks like MA RIMM AAPL FWLT CME ICE and CROX, you can be sure the market top is not here. You will need to see ALL of these leaders suffer some major distribution and fail there rallies before we can even THINK of a top forming.
For the week, it seems obvious that it was not that bad, with the Nassy losing only .7% and the DJIA losing only .4%. But the SP 500 lost 1.2%, the NYSE lost 1.4%, and the SP 600 lost 1.6%. However, none of these losses were severe considering the run that they have been on this year. It was a wild week with a good Tuesday, bad Wednesday (but great close), great Thursday, and a terrible Friday. But that is what makes this market fun.
The one topic dejour this week was subprime loans. And if you don’t think it is going to get worse, I would love to bring your attention to the bank stocks. If you are an experienced chartist and you know what stocks look like when they top after multi-year runs then you are certainly taking notice at the banks. SINCE ALL OF THEM HAVE THE EXACT SAME CHART!! They are topping. Rather it is MER, C, BAC, USB, JPM, UBS, BBT, GS, LEG, LEH, BSC, WB, or SBNY it doesn’t matter. These stocks are rolling over on MASSIVE distribution that has been playing itself out ALL YEAR LONG. That is why you see ALL of those big tall red bars where volume is during 2007 in ALL of these stocks. That is why ALL of them are rolling over. Unless these stocks get a HUGE bid right here, these charts are setup for some shorts to make a lot of money. These daily or weekly charts going back to late 2002 is just what ALL classic tops look like. This is some massive distribution in the whole sector.
The best thing about this that confirms my charts is that earnings that are being reported are great. Last quarters and the few banks that have released this quarter are releasing some great fantastic learning earnings. However, as all of us experienced investors know, the fundamentals ALWAYS!!! look the best at the top. The current charts are telling us that the subprime and housing market is about ready to start to show up in the books of the financials. What even makes this better is that all of you who read me and do not subscribe to me can watch me RIGHT NOW either help you not lose money or make you money by shorting the financials.
While this is happening, all of your brilliant MBA analyst and big money traders like Joe Capone and Scott Rothbort are telling you that they are bargains on this selloff and that you must buy. Until the “smart” fundamentalist and analyst start issuing sells in this sector, you can guarantee these stock aren’t going to stop falling. When they start issuing sells, that is when you should cover. These dummies just don’t get it and they never will. Yet, you will probably give them your money since they sound oh so smart and have one of those fancy degrees on their walls. These “higher educated” fundamental morons are going to lose their clients some money on the short term. While this “dumb surfer” either helps mine make money or not lose money. If you are long ANY stock in the bank sector and it is below the 50 and 200 day moving average, get the hell out!!!! While you are losing money, you are missing out on stocks like PRGX which make 7% gains on days where the market is down 1.5%. Which stocks are you in? If you are a subscriber to my service I know which stocks you are in.
Back to the market: Despite the ugliness in the financials, I have to say that my leading stocks continue to look great. Even though the DJIA did the 14k breakout and trap (which I eluded that it was going to do that last week) it still remains a strong market in an uptrend with all indexes still above their 50 day moving averages. Earnings season is always a rough one and many stocks are either punished HARD or rewarded handsomely. But with the trend still up, even bad earnings can turn into good so it is not smart to panic if your stock sells off a little after a miss. However, if the indexes cut their 50 day moving averages, leading stock falter, all your new buys start sucking up the joint, and good earnings are treated like bad earnings, then you will have a reason to get defensive.
The possibility out there is for anything right now as it always is in earnings season. This upcoming week we have AXP KLAC MRK X MMM NFLX T DD PEP AMZN GLW and XOM set to report. As it is now we have a lot more disappointments than we are used to seeing but like I have said now 100 times, unless we start to actually selloff and fail rally attempts there is no reason to worry about anything.
Two more points I want to hit before I am finished: The amount of new lows that kept expanding while stock prices kept hitting new highs did hint that Friday was coming. On Wednesday we had a TON of new lows which clearly showed that their was weakness in the market building up to the losses on Friday. So, honestly, this selling should have caught NO ONE off guard. Especially my subscribers. And the last thing is BX. How about that scam stock. What is it now? Down 30%. Can anyone say Refco. This is why you must ALWAYS wait for a stock to trade long enough to create a base. Buying stocks before a proper breakout put you into things like Refco, BX, and IBKR. I use IBKR as my broker. I LOVE THEIR SOFTWARE!!!!! Did you see me buy the stock because of that? Did I buy it because my emotions told me to since I love the company so much? No. Do you know why? Because I am a professional.
If you buy ANY stock for ANY other reason than due to historical analysis and fundamental and technical actions, you are nothing but a gambler. And my suggestion to you is to get your act together or go find a new hobby. People like me are going to take ALL of your money. Why gamble when their is one book out there that can teach you how to fish for yourself? How To Make Money In Stocks by William J ONeil. I know one thing, I sure would not want to feel like the loser down the street that can only invest off of tips. How powerless are you when you make investment decisions off of tips? I know one thing: I LOVE BEING IN COMPLETE CONTROL. And the first step in becoming completely in control is admitting you control nothing. Especially the market. The stock market does not care about YOU or your opinions. Which is, sadly, about all I hear out there in the free chat rooms and on this island.
Aloha and I will see you in the chat room.
PS: This is the last weekend post for the free blog for two weeks. I will be on vacation. For paid subscribers you will still see plenty of me, don’t worry.
top current holdings up this week - purchase date
TRCR 536% - 1/12
MA 241% - 8/2
OMTR 192% - 9/15
IHS 155% - 12/21/05
CKSW 148% - 10/11
ULTR 147% - 10/27
KHD 140% - 5/30/06
DECK 124% - 9/13
PRGX 123% - 1/12
TTEC 120% - 8/25
HRZ 117% - 9/27
CNH 114% - 11/2
EVEP 114% - 11/16
CPA 105% - 9/15
FTEK 99% - 10/6
HURN 99% - 9/13
VDSI 98% - 1/14
IGLD 93% - 10/26
VSR 87% - 6/15
CXW 86% - 5/19/06
NAVI 79% - 12/18
APLX 77% - 9/28
INNO 74% - 6/4
HURC 73% - 12/18
FSLR 72% - 5/22
TESO 70% - 2/16
LFL 66% - 12/13
AFSI 65% - 4/12
TASR 64% - 6/6
CRNT 63% - 5/21
SNDA 55% - 12/26
NTLS 55% - 1/30
IMA 55% - 8/2
XRA 50% - 5/24
Market Commentary At Big Wave Trading Bronze Level One
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
The DJIA fell 1.1%, the SP 500, Nassy, and NYSE fell 1.2%, and the SP 600 led the way down with a 1.7% loss. The great news was that leading stocks, in the form of the IBD 100 only lost 1.3%, outperforming the SP 600. However, the losses were a bit worse during the day, so the fact that the indexes closed off the lows is a slight positive. Combine that with Wednesday’s action where the Nassy actually closed higher than the open and you can see we have two distro days that aren’t very powerful.
The higher volume in the market combined with breadth 3-to-1 negative on the NYSE, 11-to-4 negative on the Nassy, and 27-to-3 negative on the DJIA gave the impression that things were really bad out there. However, despite there being 326 new lows there were also 216 new highs which shows that there were some decent pockets of strength out there. If today was really as bad as the indexes looked, trust me, there would have been a lot less new highs. So that gives some indication that the selling was not that bad.
And to go along with the data, two things occurred that really stick out after Friday’s losses. The put/call ratio jumped and closed over 1 at 1.02. That high reading shows that as stocks fell, traders decided to buy puts betting that prices are going to continue to go lower. That in of itself is not that impressive. But when you combine that the options crowd is bearish with the fact that the NYSE short interest ratio is at ANOTHER all-time high you have some real interesting developments. The NYSE short interest ratio is now at 8.25% which is an all-time high!!! That means 8% of trading on the NYSE is done in shorts. This DESPITE THE MARKET BEING ONLY 1% TO 2% BELOW ALL-TIME AND SIX-AND-A-HALF YEAR HIGHS.
When you take all of this combined with some leading stocks like AAPL and ISRG still making new highs and it becomes clear that Friday produced some panic. Markets do NOT top with panic. They top with euphoria. Even though BIDU and GOOG dropped and some are calling for a top via those two stocks, you have to remember that BIDU is still in a solid uptrend and GOOG had a very bullish intraday reversal off its 50 dma. So you are really grabbing at straws if you are calling a top here. Unless you only look at bank stocks and GOOG, there is no way you can agree with that argument.
The rest of the market seems OK. I had only a handful of complete sells and almost all of those were in very poor issues. The partial sales I had were made based on pure discipline. But when looking at their weekly and long term daily charts it is obvious there is nothing wrong with these stocks. Hell, look at one of the best sectors out there Transport-Shipping. ESEA, TBSI, DRYS, and DSX show NO signs of topping and all are still on fire and look ready for plenty of gains. Then you have the clear leader during this current bull market: Chemicals. CF, TRA, TNH, and the other stocks in this sector show no signs of topping. Until you see those two sectors top, along with stocks like MA RIMM AAPL FWLT CME ICE and CROX, you can be sure the market top is not here. You will need to see ALL of these leaders suffer some major distribution and fail there rallies before we can even THINK of a top forming.
For the week, it seems obvious that it was not that bad, with the Nassy losing only .7% and the DJIA losing only .4%. But the SP 500 lost 1.2%, the NYSE lost 1.4%, and the SP 600 lost 1.6%. However, none of these losses were severe considering the run that they have been on this year. It was a wild week with a good Tuesday, bad Wednesday (but great close), great Thursday, and a terrible Friday. But that is what makes this market fun.
The one topic dejour this week was subprime loans. And if you don’t think it is going to get worse, I would love to bring your attention to the bank stocks. If you are an experienced chartist and you know what stocks look like when they top after multi-year runs then you are certainly taking notice at the banks. SINCE ALL OF THEM HAVE THE EXACT SAME CHART!! They are topping. Rather it is MER, C, BAC, USB, JPM, UBS, BBT, GS, LEG, LEH, BSC, WB, or SBNY it doesn’t matter. These stocks are rolling over on MASSIVE distribution that has been playing itself out ALL YEAR LONG. That is why you see ALL of those big tall red bars where volume is during 2007 in ALL of these stocks. That is why ALL of them are rolling over. Unless these stocks get a HUGE bid right here, these charts are setup for some shorts to make a lot of money. These daily or weekly charts going back to late 2002 is just what ALL classic tops look like. This is some massive distribution in the whole sector.
The best thing about this that confirms my charts is that earnings that are being reported are great. Last quarters and the few banks that have released this quarter are releasing some great fantastic learning earnings. However, as all of us experienced investors know, the fundamentals ALWAYS!!! look the best at the top. The current charts are telling us that the subprime and housing market is about ready to start to show up in the books of the financials. What even makes this better is that all of you who read me and do not subscribe to me can watch me RIGHT NOW either help you not lose money or make you money by shorting the financials.
While this is happening, all of your brilliant MBA analyst and big money traders like Joe Capone and Scott Rothbort are telling you that they are bargains on this selloff and that you must buy. Until the “smart” fundamentalist and analyst start issuing sells in this sector, you can guarantee these stock aren’t going to stop falling. When they start issuing sells, that is when you should cover. These dummies just don’t get it and they never will. Yet, you will probably give them your money since they sound oh so smart and have one of those fancy degrees on their walls. These “higher educated” fundamental morons are going to lose their clients some money on the short term. While this “dumb surfer” either helps mine make money or not lose money. If you are long ANY stock in the bank sector and it is below the 50 and 200 day moving average, get the hell out!!!! While you are losing money, you are missing out on stocks like PRGX which make 7% gains on days where the market is down 1.5%. Which stocks are you in? If you are a subscriber to my service I know which stocks you are in.
Back to the market: Despite the ugliness in the financials, I have to say that my leading stocks continue to look great. Even though the DJIA did the 14k breakout and trap (which I eluded that it was going to do that last week) it still remains a strong market in an uptrend with all indexes still above their 50 day moving averages. Earnings season is always a rough one and many stocks are either punished HARD or rewarded handsomely. But with the trend still up, even bad earnings can turn into good so it is not smart to panic if your stock sells off a little after a miss. However, if the indexes cut their 50 day moving averages, leading stock falter, all your new buys start sucking up the joint, and good earnings are treated like bad earnings, then you will have a reason to get defensive.
The possibility out there is for anything right now as it always is in earnings season. This upcoming week we have AXP KLAC MRK X MMM NFLX T DD PEP AMZN GLW and XOM set to report. As it is now we have a lot more disappointments than we are used to seeing but like I have said now 100 times, unless we start to actually selloff and fail rally attempts there is no reason to worry about anything.
Two more points I want to hit before I am finished: The amount of new lows that kept expanding while stock prices kept hitting new highs did hint that Friday was coming. On Wednesday we had a TON of new lows which clearly showed that their was weakness in the market building up to the losses on Friday. So, honestly, this selling should have caught NO ONE off guard. Especially my subscribers. And the last thing is BX. How about that scam stock. What is it now? Down 30%. Can anyone say Refco. This is why you must ALWAYS wait for a stock to trade long enough to create a base. Buying stocks before a proper breakout put you into things like Refco, BX, and IBKR. I use IBKR as my broker. I LOVE THEIR SOFTWARE!!!!! Did you see me buy the stock because of that? Did I buy it because my emotions told me to since I love the company so much? No. Do you know why? Because I am a professional.
If you buy ANY stock for ANY other reason than due to historical analysis and fundamental and technical actions, you are nothing but a gambler. And my suggestion to you is to get your act together or go find a new hobby. People like me are going to take ALL of your money. Why gamble when their is one book out there that can teach you how to fish for yourself? How To Make Money In Stocks by William J ONeil. I know one thing, I sure would not want to feel like the loser down the street that can only invest off of tips. How powerless are you when you make investment decisions off of tips? I know one thing: I LOVE BEING IN COMPLETE CONTROL. And the first step in becoming completely in control is admitting you control nothing. Especially the market. The stock market does not care about YOU or your opinions. Which is, sadly, about all I hear out there in the free chat rooms and on this island.
Aloha and I will see you in the chat room.
PS: This is the last weekend post for the free blog for two weeks. I will be on vacation. For paid subscribers you will still see plenty of me, don’t worry.
top current holdings up this week - purchase date
TRCR 536% - 1/12
MA 241% - 8/2
OMTR 192% - 9/15
IHS 155% - 12/21/05
CKSW 148% - 10/11
ULTR 147% - 10/27
KHD 140% - 5/30/06
DECK 124% - 9/13
PRGX 123% - 1/12
TTEC 120% - 8/25
HRZ 117% - 9/27
CNH 114% - 11/2
EVEP 114% - 11/16
CPA 105% - 9/15
FTEK 99% - 10/6
HURN 99% - 9/13
VDSI 98% - 1/14
IGLD 93% - 10/26
VSR 87% - 6/15
CXW 86% - 5/19/06
NAVI 79% - 12/18
APLX 77% - 9/28
INNO 74% - 6/4
HURC 73% - 12/18
FSLR 72% - 5/22
TESO 70% - 2/16
LFL 66% - 12/13
AFSI 65% - 4/12
TASR 64% - 6/6
CRNT 63% - 5/21
SNDA 55% - 12/26
NTLS 55% - 1/30
IMA 55% - 8/2
XRA 50% - 5/24
Market Commentary At Big Wave Trading Bronze Level One
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
Friday, July 13, 2007
Leading Stocks Help Take Indexes To All-Time And Six Year Highs; The Bears Who Continue To Fight This Trend Get What They Deserve
For the second week in a row, stocks put in one impressive week of gains, with today’s gains coming in some small part to the University of Michigan consumer confidence index coming in at 92.4 above estimates of 86. However, that simply was not the reason for today’s gains, as another round after afternoon short squeezing hit the indexes sending them near the highs of the session with the Nasdaq closing just short of its HOD. The gains also came in the face of oil rising $1.43 to $73.93.
At the close, the DJIA, SP 500, and SP 600 all hit new all-time highs rallying .3% and the NYSE and Nasdaq gained .2%. The NYSE hit another all-time high and the Nasdaq hit a new 6 1/2 year high. The best part about today’s gains, of course, comes in the fact that leading stocks led the way, once again. The IBD 100 gained .7%, doing much better than the broad market.
Volume was lower today, compared to yesterday’s volume. But considering that we produced some really big gains (biggest on the DJIA since 2003) and were right before the weekend, today’s action has to be considered very bullish and constructive. We could have sold off on lower volume or even higher volume.
There were some weak points with the internals. Despite the gain in the Nasdaq, decliners beat advancers by a 7-to-6 ratio and advancers barely beat decliners on the NYSE. There were also 150 new 52-week lows, despite the markets hitting new highs. But with 683 new 52-week highs, it is not anything to worry about.
For the week, it really doesn’t get much better than what we saw. The DJIA led the way with a 2.2% gain, the Nasdaq followed with a 1.5% gain, and the NYSE and SP 500 gained 1.4%. The best new, obviously, was that leading stocks, once again, beat the broad market for the week. The IBD 100 produced a 2.5% gain, after last weeks 5.2% gain. The best news, however, comes from my own personal IB portfolio. After having a poor weak last week, I managed to return a 10.3% gain for the week. This is what happens when you are in the right stocks. The outperformance has been there every week, except for one, since the March lows. This is what proper disciplined growth momentum investing is all about. There is no doubt, this is a great short-squeezing July, full of breakout in many leading stocks.
I remember, last year, constantly referring to our market as having a potential to repeat a 1995 scenario. Not long after, I heard Kudlow and IBD also bring this up. Now recently Cramer has brought it up, refreshing my memory on that scenario. The only thing that is different is that rates are not being cut yet. If the market keeps rallying and inflation does come into a more moderate pricing zone that would be great. However, no matter what happens, it looks like the 1995 scenario has and is playing itself out. This continues to be the most amazing market that gets absolutely no credit on major media outlets. And if Cramer and history is right and this is a replay of 1995 we have a lot more room to run, especially with tech just now joining the party.
This, however, creates the perfect wall of worry that the stock market needs to climb higher. If you think there is not any fear out there and that everybody is just giddy and happy with this market, let me remind you that the put/call ratio spiked to .99 on Tuesday after the market “swooned,” according to the media. The fear and blatant top calling is, ONCE AGAIN, something you do NOT see at market tops. EVERYBODY and I mean EVERYBODY is in love with the market and everybody will be talking about these good times.
Now, if you are a subscriber to my gold service, I know it seemed like Christmas this week as a LOT of gains were made in many favorite stocks. We did have one suck it up (MTOX) but one out of every other one is not that bad. However, I am not losing my mind over the gains and understand that this is what is supposed to happen in bull markets. It is when my neighbors start celebrating their gains that I will get nervous.
As of right now, to go along with the put/call still being at .76, the NYSE short-interest ratio is still near all-time highs at 7.52. LOL, this is not the number you will see at a market top. The other thing with this bearishness and start of parabolic runs in the charts is the fact that stocks are not doing crazy splits yet. Well, I take that back. I did see RIMM announce a 3-for-1. PEOPLE THAT IS A WARNING. PARABOLIC RUNS AND EXCESSIVE STOCK SPLITS ALWAYS LEAD TO A TOP. So keep your eyes out, even though I don’t expect one for months and months. It pays to be prudent.
And when we do top I have my list of stocks to short: GOOG, AAPL, RIMM, AMZN, ICE, BIDU, FWLT, FSLR, TNH, MA, and CME. I’ll give them to you for free, knowing that most of traders will NOT be able to short these at the right moment and history shows that most will be squeezed out of their shorts many times before the real fall comes. And by that time traders are so dejected that they miss the right moment. I won’t. :)
To prove my point that most will not be able to short the market when they are supposed to, I am finding out many traders are not very good at going long stocks either. In the free chat rooms I monitor I see a lot of traders selling prematurely all the time. Many have bought stocks to sell them on the smallest uptick and now want back in. By watching this action, I can understand why more gains at this juncture will not need a lot of volume. This retail crowd buying on top of the shorts being forced to cover due to them not being able to take the squeeze anymore ensures we will keep going higher. Even thought the crowd is bullish, yet betting bearishly, it doesn’t take much to take a market up with low supply and high demand.
If you did not notice this week, GE, COP, JNJ, HD, SHLD, and AMGN all announced stock buyback. FOLKS! These are no small-fries. These are real big giant companies. This along with all the M&A’s and leaders going into exponential to parabolic moves is the reason why you have to be long here. ABN is selling its LaSalle bank to BAC, ENR is buying PYX, and RTP outbid AA for AL with a $38 billion bid, and you want to be short stocks and long puts? Yeah right! Not me! You want to be short stocks only in a bear market and this is not a bear market. This market is not yet ready to top.
The reasons I see for a top are weak. They involve us being overbought and it involves the high bullishness in the surveys. The overbought can be attributed to the McClellan, 10-DMA of Adv/Dec line, and Arms index. The McClellan is moving overbought but it is nowhere near the 80s at only 68.6. The 10-dma index is overbought but nowhere near extreme levels, and the Arms index is overbought ALL THE TIME. It is almost useless. As for the surveys: the realmoney.com poll shows 69% bulls, 11% bears, and 20% netural. The Investors Intelligence is at 69.5% bulls and 21.8% bears. The AAII is at 44% bulls and 30% bears. However, relying on these for tops is useless. It is better using the UBS euphoria index and that is NOWHERE near euphoric levels seen in 2000.
Also, with the Gold, Steel, Metal, Mining, and all the old leaders moving along with the SOX index and all the technology stocks moving up the IBD 197 industry list it is very hard for me to be worried about a top. Look at AA. It is moving like a tech stock. That is a bull market if I have ever seen a bull market. Seeing the SOX and electronic stocks help leading the market to new highs is just a beautiful thing to see. Especially, when they are joined by so many other groups.
My suggestion is to continue to stay long and strong. Don’t go out trying to chase performance and do not chase stocks way beyond logical pivot points. If you are long, continue to enjoy the gains, but make sure you take some profits along the way when the stock’s price and/or volume acts odd. When the market tops and leading stocks are rolling over, trust me, I will let you know. You will see me selling off many of my top stocks and cutting my new buys short very quickly by them failing immediately. Also the amount of longs will dry up. As they are starting to do on my scans. Most stocks are well beyond proper buy points. Right now, it is all about holding the stocks you are long and riding the gains. Going long a lot of stock here is just a little too risky.
So let the overseas money with a strong Euro continue to find a safe home in the US equity market. As long as they are buying this market, you have to stay long.
Second quarter earnings really start rolling out this week. Expect a rise in volatility, as always happens during earnings season. Remember, going long a stock before earnings is a dangerous play. But selling a long ahead of earnings is an immature amateur play that only newbie emotional inexperienced traders do. Normally, if the stock is in an uptrend, the earnings don’t matter, as the stock will rise. Vise versa, in a bad market. VSCN is a perfect example. They miss, yet their stock rises. Such is a bull market. And that is what we are in.
Aloha and I will see you in the chat room!
Sidenote: Since May 2, 2003 the IBD 100 is up 216% compared to the SP 500’s 66% gain. The greatest traders are the greatest traders for a reason: history.
top holdings up this week - purchase date
TRCR 531% - 1/12
MA 240% - 8/2
OMTR 192% - 9/15
KHD 150% - 5/30/06
IHS 146% - 12/21/05
ULTR 141% - 10/27
TTEC 129% - 8/25
CPA 128% - 9/15
DECK 117% - 9/13
IGLD 103% - 10/26
CNH 103% - 11/2
CKSW 103% - 10/11
HURN 96% - 9/13
APLX 95% - 9/28
EVEP 94% - 11/16
AFSI 89% - 4/12
CXW 89% - 5/19/06
VDSI 85% - 1/14
CTCH 83% - 1/24
INNO 83% - 6/4
FSLR 76% - 5/23
HURC 71% - 12/18
LFL 66% - 12/13
ATX 65% - 12/12
VSR 63% - 6/15
CRNT 62% - 5/21
TESO 60% - 2/16
NAVI 58% - 12/18
IMA 57% - 8/2
SNDA 55% - 12/26
SMTX 55% - 6/15
NTLS 55% - 1/30
TASR 54% - 6/6
ICOC 52% - 5/18
IMMR 50% - 6/21
Market Commentary At Big Wave Trading Bronze Level One
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
At the close, the DJIA, SP 500, and SP 600 all hit new all-time highs rallying .3% and the NYSE and Nasdaq gained .2%. The NYSE hit another all-time high and the Nasdaq hit a new 6 1/2 year high. The best part about today’s gains, of course, comes in the fact that leading stocks led the way, once again. The IBD 100 gained .7%, doing much better than the broad market.
Volume was lower today, compared to yesterday’s volume. But considering that we produced some really big gains (biggest on the DJIA since 2003) and were right before the weekend, today’s action has to be considered very bullish and constructive. We could have sold off on lower volume or even higher volume.
There were some weak points with the internals. Despite the gain in the Nasdaq, decliners beat advancers by a 7-to-6 ratio and advancers barely beat decliners on the NYSE. There were also 150 new 52-week lows, despite the markets hitting new highs. But with 683 new 52-week highs, it is not anything to worry about.
For the week, it really doesn’t get much better than what we saw. The DJIA led the way with a 2.2% gain, the Nasdaq followed with a 1.5% gain, and the NYSE and SP 500 gained 1.4%. The best new, obviously, was that leading stocks, once again, beat the broad market for the week. The IBD 100 produced a 2.5% gain, after last weeks 5.2% gain. The best news, however, comes from my own personal IB portfolio. After having a poor weak last week, I managed to return a 10.3% gain for the week. This is what happens when you are in the right stocks. The outperformance has been there every week, except for one, since the March lows. This is what proper disciplined growth momentum investing is all about. There is no doubt, this is a great short-squeezing July, full of breakout in many leading stocks.
I remember, last year, constantly referring to our market as having a potential to repeat a 1995 scenario. Not long after, I heard Kudlow and IBD also bring this up. Now recently Cramer has brought it up, refreshing my memory on that scenario. The only thing that is different is that rates are not being cut yet. If the market keeps rallying and inflation does come into a more moderate pricing zone that would be great. However, no matter what happens, it looks like the 1995 scenario has and is playing itself out. This continues to be the most amazing market that gets absolutely no credit on major media outlets. And if Cramer and history is right and this is a replay of 1995 we have a lot more room to run, especially with tech just now joining the party.
This, however, creates the perfect wall of worry that the stock market needs to climb higher. If you think there is not any fear out there and that everybody is just giddy and happy with this market, let me remind you that the put/call ratio spiked to .99 on Tuesday after the market “swooned,” according to the media. The fear and blatant top calling is, ONCE AGAIN, something you do NOT see at market tops. EVERYBODY and I mean EVERYBODY is in love with the market and everybody will be talking about these good times.
Now, if you are a subscriber to my gold service, I know it seemed like Christmas this week as a LOT of gains were made in many favorite stocks. We did have one suck it up (MTOX) but one out of every other one is not that bad. However, I am not losing my mind over the gains and understand that this is what is supposed to happen in bull markets. It is when my neighbors start celebrating their gains that I will get nervous.
As of right now, to go along with the put/call still being at .76, the NYSE short-interest ratio is still near all-time highs at 7.52. LOL, this is not the number you will see at a market top. The other thing with this bearishness and start of parabolic runs in the charts is the fact that stocks are not doing crazy splits yet. Well, I take that back. I did see RIMM announce a 3-for-1. PEOPLE THAT IS A WARNING. PARABOLIC RUNS AND EXCESSIVE STOCK SPLITS ALWAYS LEAD TO A TOP. So keep your eyes out, even though I don’t expect one for months and months. It pays to be prudent.
And when we do top I have my list of stocks to short: GOOG, AAPL, RIMM, AMZN, ICE, BIDU, FWLT, FSLR, TNH, MA, and CME. I’ll give them to you for free, knowing that most of traders will NOT be able to short these at the right moment and history shows that most will be squeezed out of their shorts many times before the real fall comes. And by that time traders are so dejected that they miss the right moment. I won’t. :)
To prove my point that most will not be able to short the market when they are supposed to, I am finding out many traders are not very good at going long stocks either. In the free chat rooms I monitor I see a lot of traders selling prematurely all the time. Many have bought stocks to sell them on the smallest uptick and now want back in. By watching this action, I can understand why more gains at this juncture will not need a lot of volume. This retail crowd buying on top of the shorts being forced to cover due to them not being able to take the squeeze anymore ensures we will keep going higher. Even thought the crowd is bullish, yet betting bearishly, it doesn’t take much to take a market up with low supply and high demand.
If you did not notice this week, GE, COP, JNJ, HD, SHLD, and AMGN all announced stock buyback. FOLKS! These are no small-fries. These are real big giant companies. This along with all the M&A’s and leaders going into exponential to parabolic moves is the reason why you have to be long here. ABN is selling its LaSalle bank to BAC, ENR is buying PYX, and RTP outbid AA for AL with a $38 billion bid, and you want to be short stocks and long puts? Yeah right! Not me! You want to be short stocks only in a bear market and this is not a bear market. This market is not yet ready to top.
The reasons I see for a top are weak. They involve us being overbought and it involves the high bullishness in the surveys. The overbought can be attributed to the McClellan, 10-DMA of Adv/Dec line, and Arms index. The McClellan is moving overbought but it is nowhere near the 80s at only 68.6. The 10-dma index is overbought but nowhere near extreme levels, and the Arms index is overbought ALL THE TIME. It is almost useless. As for the surveys: the realmoney.com poll shows 69% bulls, 11% bears, and 20% netural. The Investors Intelligence is at 69.5% bulls and 21.8% bears. The AAII is at 44% bulls and 30% bears. However, relying on these for tops is useless. It is better using the UBS euphoria index and that is NOWHERE near euphoric levels seen in 2000.
Also, with the Gold, Steel, Metal, Mining, and all the old leaders moving along with the SOX index and all the technology stocks moving up the IBD 197 industry list it is very hard for me to be worried about a top. Look at AA. It is moving like a tech stock. That is a bull market if I have ever seen a bull market. Seeing the SOX and electronic stocks help leading the market to new highs is just a beautiful thing to see. Especially, when they are joined by so many other groups.
My suggestion is to continue to stay long and strong. Don’t go out trying to chase performance and do not chase stocks way beyond logical pivot points. If you are long, continue to enjoy the gains, but make sure you take some profits along the way when the stock’s price and/or volume acts odd. When the market tops and leading stocks are rolling over, trust me, I will let you know. You will see me selling off many of my top stocks and cutting my new buys short very quickly by them failing immediately. Also the amount of longs will dry up. As they are starting to do on my scans. Most stocks are well beyond proper buy points. Right now, it is all about holding the stocks you are long and riding the gains. Going long a lot of stock here is just a little too risky.
So let the overseas money with a strong Euro continue to find a safe home in the US equity market. As long as they are buying this market, you have to stay long.
Second quarter earnings really start rolling out this week. Expect a rise in volatility, as always happens during earnings season. Remember, going long a stock before earnings is a dangerous play. But selling a long ahead of earnings is an immature amateur play that only newbie emotional inexperienced traders do. Normally, if the stock is in an uptrend, the earnings don’t matter, as the stock will rise. Vise versa, in a bad market. VSCN is a perfect example. They miss, yet their stock rises. Such is a bull market. And that is what we are in.
Aloha and I will see you in the chat room!
Sidenote: Since May 2, 2003 the IBD 100 is up 216% compared to the SP 500’s 66% gain. The greatest traders are the greatest traders for a reason: history.
top holdings up this week - purchase date
TRCR 531% - 1/12
MA 240% - 8/2
OMTR 192% - 9/15
KHD 150% - 5/30/06
IHS 146% - 12/21/05
ULTR 141% - 10/27
TTEC 129% - 8/25
CPA 128% - 9/15
DECK 117% - 9/13
IGLD 103% - 10/26
CNH 103% - 11/2
CKSW 103% - 10/11
HURN 96% - 9/13
APLX 95% - 9/28
EVEP 94% - 11/16
AFSI 89% - 4/12
CXW 89% - 5/19/06
VDSI 85% - 1/14
CTCH 83% - 1/24
INNO 83% - 6/4
FSLR 76% - 5/23
HURC 71% - 12/18
LFL 66% - 12/13
ATX 65% - 12/12
VSR 63% - 6/15
CRNT 62% - 5/21
TESO 60% - 2/16
NAVI 58% - 12/18
IMA 57% - 8/2
SNDA 55% - 12/26
SMTX 55% - 6/15
NTLS 55% - 1/30
TASR 54% - 6/6
ICOC 52% - 5/18
IMMR 50% - 6/21
Market Commentary At Big Wave Trading Bronze Level One
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
Saturday, July 07, 2007
Fourth Of July Holiday-Shortened Week Goes Out With A Bang; Shorts Continue To Feel The Squeezing Pain Of The Bulls
A positive employment report, positive revisions to past reports along with the unemployment rate holding steady at 4.5%, and acquisition news that EYE raised the offer from a previous company to buy BOL for $75 a share helped stock indexes rise steadily higher all day long in a nice stair step fashion. By the closing bell, all indexes ended in the green, with big-cap tech leading. All of this came despite another increase in oil to $72.81 a barrel-highest close since September. This market continues to move higher despite the highs in oil, confirming that this is the greatest market story never told. (this refers to the severely biased media that REFUSES to acknowledge how INCREDIBLE this rally from October 2002 is).
The NYSE led the way, closing at an all-time high, with a .5% gain and the Nasdaq and Nasdaq 100 gained .4%, hitting 6 1/2 year highs. The DJIA and SP 500 closed slightly higher with a .3% gain and the SP 600 gain was even smaller with a .1% gain. The great news, once again, was that leading stocks trumped the general market indexes, with a 1.2% gain. This is the picture perfect action that you want to see in a bull market. When leading stocks are leading the general indexes, there are much larger gains being made in top growth stocks than value stocks.
Volume was lower than the day before, as it appeared traders started the weekend and/or their vacations early. The lower volume does help alleviate fears that if volume on the downside shows up soon that it will not be that heavy. As it stands now, the NYSE has five distribution days (many weak distro days) and the Nasdaq only has one, signaling that the market is still very healthy up here hitting new highs despite the lower volume.
With the lower volume, however, we did get good breadth confirming the gains today. The other positive is that the breadth improved as the rally continued throughout the day. Advancers beat decliners by a 5-to-3 margin on the NYSE and by a 3-to-2 margin on the Nasdaq. New 52-week highs beat new 52-week lows by 527 to 83, clearly showing the strength of this market after four days of strong price action.
For the week, the Nasdaq led the way with a 2.4% gain, the NYSE followed with an impressive 2%, the SP 500 and SP 600 rallied 1.8%, and the DJIA gained a solid 1.5%. The clear obvious winner this week was the IBD 100 index and my account. The IBD 100 rallied 5.2% and my account rallied 7.3%. This week reversed my poor showing from last week and continued the trend of my account well outperforming the market for the past sixteen weeks (the length of this rally from the March lows).
It has been a powerful four days of low volume gains for the market but I would not be surprised if we get a pullback here as it seems we have worked off the oversold condition and turned some bears into bulls the past week. Some of the key numbers comes from the realmoney.com poll this weekend. It shows that those surveyed lean bullish with 70% expecting price gains for the upcoming week. There are only 13% registering as bears. This also comes with the McClellan and other overbought/oversold indicators get overbought after the past week of price gains. The VIX has also worked off its bullish higher volatility from late June, signaling that the easy money has been made.
However, despite this, the NYSE short interest ratio rose again to near all-time highs closing at 7.66 on Friday. That and the put/call ratio is still around the level it was at the beginning of the week with it closing at .76. This clearly states that despite what people say, traders did not make bullish bets and in fact continued to take the opposite side of the clear trend. The other slightly bullish sentiment news is that bullishness from the Investors Intelligence survey fell to 49.4%. But, bearishness fell also to very low levels of 18%.
The other sentiment index that I noticed giving a signal that the market might be tired here is the ISEE Options put/call index. This index hit 186% on Thursday which is a level where the market normally does not do very well in the short-term following this reading. Combine this with some of the events above, the fact that new buys are starting to get a little difficult to find in top stocks, and the new buys that do show up are in low-float small cap stocks with mixed/poor fundamentals and we just shouldn’t be surprised if we get a pullback. Now a severe pullback–that is something I just don’t see in the cards with this much negativity pouring out of our nightly news.
Another clear reason why I don’t see a top happening anytime soon is that leading stocks with top fundamentals are simply not topping. And history shows that the leaders top BEFORE the market tops. So as long as AAPL, RIMM, BIDU, GOOG, and Chemical stocks are making new highs and are not churning, putting in heavy volume selloffs, or cutting their 50 day moving averages, there is absolutely NO reason to even think of trying to call a top. Once you see these four horseman top and reverse and then can look at the major indexes and see a clear downtrend, on heavy distribution, with lower highs and closes below the 50 day moving average then, and only then, will I listen to the bears.
Until then, the bears are just filled with nothing but pure crap and lies. And their opinions are worth the equivalent of the returns you have received as a bear this year: NOTHING! Pure worthless opinions that do NOT agree with the facts on the ground. This is why trend followers will ALWAYS outperform the top and bottom callers. They will NEVER return what the greatest traders of all-time returned by simply following and listening to top stocks and the general direction of the market.
Now, like I have said before, and like I keep listing on my forums, there are a lot of charts starting parabolic runs. But that is just it: they are starting them or in the middle of them. Very few appear to be in the late stages of runs seen in other parabolic runs in stocks like ERS in 2006 and tech stocks in the 2000 market. Even RevShark sees this, confirming what I have been seeing for weeks and weeks now. Still, until they top, there is no reason to predict when the run will end.
There is even evidence, in the Semiconductor index, that many large big-cap tech stocks are ready to run there. Many are at new 52-week highs and a lot of the sub-components of the Semiconductor/Electronics group have made big moves in the IBD 197 industry group list. It is very good to see the Semi’s join the market as this appears to be very bullish and should help turn some of those bears into the bulls camp, since they always say that it isn’t a real bull market unless the Semi’s are moving. Maybe I am stuck in years gone by, with this statement, but I still have heard plenty of people tell me that this rally (FOR THE PAST FOUR YEARS MIND YOU) is not that great of a rally because Semi stocks never led. Uhm, who said they had to lead? It is much better just seeing stocks like INTC, NVEC, NVDA, ADM, etc. making solid consistent gains. And that is what they are doing. The whole sector looks great. Of course, the best looking one recently has been SMTX. Those who subscribe at the gold level are well familiar with that very very pretty chart.
With a lot of the bullish leanings you are reading in this weekends post, you must also realize that I am no idiot. I have been partial selling many stocks that are in climax/parabolic type runs. Many, not all, of the stocks you see listed below have recently had 10-25% sold via the basic trading necessity of locking in profits. Holding your whole load as the stock continues to race up the charts in an exponential matter is not smart as sudden reversals become more and more likely. Small and smart selling based on either new highs with low volume, new highs with little price change and huge volume, or major reversals where the stock is up a lot on the day but then reverses to close lower are clear places to selloff 10%-20% of your big winners. Locking in some gains and then holding on for a possible climax run is just what the smart traders of yesteryear did and the smart traders of today do. One thing we definitely don’t do (not saying I am great, btw. Trust me I am FAR from it) is call tops. And that is one thing you will not see me do as long as we are moving higher and hitting new all-time and six-and-a-half year highs.
We have earnings season officially kicking off on Monday, with AA releasing earnings after the close. During the week we have numbers from stocks like INFY, PBG, DNA, MAR, YUM, and CTAS, and to close the week off we have GE. After that the fireworks really get going when the earnings really start pounding the table. Isn’t it funny how fast this time of the year can sneak up on you? Besides that there are, like always, economic numbers to digest. But nothing this week should impact the market like earnings will.
Aloha and I will see you in the chat room where you can guarantee we are ALWAYS on the right side of the market.
top holdings up this week - purchase date
TRCR 463% - 1/12
MA 223% - 8/2
OMTR 185% - 9/15
IHS 146% - 12/21/05
CPA 133% - 9/15
KHD 130% - 5/30/06
TTEC 128% - 8/25
ULTR 125% - 10/27
DECK 120% - 9/13
CXW 96% - 5/19/06
HURN 95% - 9/13
CNH 94% - 11/2
CRY 90% - 1/10
VDSI 89% - 1/14
EVEP 89% - 11/16
ZNH 84% - 12/26
APLX 84% - 9/28
AFSI 83% - 4/12
CKSW 69% - 10/11
LFL 68% - 12/13
HURC 66% - 12/18
VSNT 64% - 2/5
ATX 62% - 12/12
IMA 61% - 8/2
NAVI 59% - 12/19
TESO 58% - 2/16
XRA 58% - 5/24
KMGB 57% - 6/1
CRNT 54% - 5/21
TTG 54% - 11/30
CCC 53% - 3/26
FSLR 50% - 5/22
NTLS 50% - 1/30
Market Commentary At Big Wave Trading Bronze Level One
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
The NYSE led the way, closing at an all-time high, with a .5% gain and the Nasdaq and Nasdaq 100 gained .4%, hitting 6 1/2 year highs. The DJIA and SP 500 closed slightly higher with a .3% gain and the SP 600 gain was even smaller with a .1% gain. The great news, once again, was that leading stocks trumped the general market indexes, with a 1.2% gain. This is the picture perfect action that you want to see in a bull market. When leading stocks are leading the general indexes, there are much larger gains being made in top growth stocks than value stocks.
Volume was lower than the day before, as it appeared traders started the weekend and/or their vacations early. The lower volume does help alleviate fears that if volume on the downside shows up soon that it will not be that heavy. As it stands now, the NYSE has five distribution days (many weak distro days) and the Nasdaq only has one, signaling that the market is still very healthy up here hitting new highs despite the lower volume.
With the lower volume, however, we did get good breadth confirming the gains today. The other positive is that the breadth improved as the rally continued throughout the day. Advancers beat decliners by a 5-to-3 margin on the NYSE and by a 3-to-2 margin on the Nasdaq. New 52-week highs beat new 52-week lows by 527 to 83, clearly showing the strength of this market after four days of strong price action.
For the week, the Nasdaq led the way with a 2.4% gain, the NYSE followed with an impressive 2%, the SP 500 and SP 600 rallied 1.8%, and the DJIA gained a solid 1.5%. The clear obvious winner this week was the IBD 100 index and my account. The IBD 100 rallied 5.2% and my account rallied 7.3%. This week reversed my poor showing from last week and continued the trend of my account well outperforming the market for the past sixteen weeks (the length of this rally from the March lows).
It has been a powerful four days of low volume gains for the market but I would not be surprised if we get a pullback here as it seems we have worked off the oversold condition and turned some bears into bulls the past week. Some of the key numbers comes from the realmoney.com poll this weekend. It shows that those surveyed lean bullish with 70% expecting price gains for the upcoming week. There are only 13% registering as bears. This also comes with the McClellan and other overbought/oversold indicators get overbought after the past week of price gains. The VIX has also worked off its bullish higher volatility from late June, signaling that the easy money has been made.
However, despite this, the NYSE short interest ratio rose again to near all-time highs closing at 7.66 on Friday. That and the put/call ratio is still around the level it was at the beginning of the week with it closing at .76. This clearly states that despite what people say, traders did not make bullish bets and in fact continued to take the opposite side of the clear trend. The other slightly bullish sentiment news is that bullishness from the Investors Intelligence survey fell to 49.4%. But, bearishness fell also to very low levels of 18%.
The other sentiment index that I noticed giving a signal that the market might be tired here is the ISEE Options put/call index. This index hit 186% on Thursday which is a level where the market normally does not do very well in the short-term following this reading. Combine this with some of the events above, the fact that new buys are starting to get a little difficult to find in top stocks, and the new buys that do show up are in low-float small cap stocks with mixed/poor fundamentals and we just shouldn’t be surprised if we get a pullback. Now a severe pullback–that is something I just don’t see in the cards with this much negativity pouring out of our nightly news.
Another clear reason why I don’t see a top happening anytime soon is that leading stocks with top fundamentals are simply not topping. And history shows that the leaders top BEFORE the market tops. So as long as AAPL, RIMM, BIDU, GOOG, and Chemical stocks are making new highs and are not churning, putting in heavy volume selloffs, or cutting their 50 day moving averages, there is absolutely NO reason to even think of trying to call a top. Once you see these four horseman top and reverse and then can look at the major indexes and see a clear downtrend, on heavy distribution, with lower highs and closes below the 50 day moving average then, and only then, will I listen to the bears.
Until then, the bears are just filled with nothing but pure crap and lies. And their opinions are worth the equivalent of the returns you have received as a bear this year: NOTHING! Pure worthless opinions that do NOT agree with the facts on the ground. This is why trend followers will ALWAYS outperform the top and bottom callers. They will NEVER return what the greatest traders of all-time returned by simply following and listening to top stocks and the general direction of the market.
Now, like I have said before, and like I keep listing on my forums, there are a lot of charts starting parabolic runs. But that is just it: they are starting them or in the middle of them. Very few appear to be in the late stages of runs seen in other parabolic runs in stocks like ERS in 2006 and tech stocks in the 2000 market. Even RevShark sees this, confirming what I have been seeing for weeks and weeks now. Still, until they top, there is no reason to predict when the run will end.
There is even evidence, in the Semiconductor index, that many large big-cap tech stocks are ready to run there. Many are at new 52-week highs and a lot of the sub-components of the Semiconductor/Electronics group have made big moves in the IBD 197 industry group list. It is very good to see the Semi’s join the market as this appears to be very bullish and should help turn some of those bears into the bulls camp, since they always say that it isn’t a real bull market unless the Semi’s are moving. Maybe I am stuck in years gone by, with this statement, but I still have heard plenty of people tell me that this rally (FOR THE PAST FOUR YEARS MIND YOU) is not that great of a rally because Semi stocks never led. Uhm, who said they had to lead? It is much better just seeing stocks like INTC, NVEC, NVDA, ADM, etc. making solid consistent gains. And that is what they are doing. The whole sector looks great. Of course, the best looking one recently has been SMTX. Those who subscribe at the gold level are well familiar with that very very pretty chart.
With a lot of the bullish leanings you are reading in this weekends post, you must also realize that I am no idiot. I have been partial selling many stocks that are in climax/parabolic type runs. Many, not all, of the stocks you see listed below have recently had 10-25% sold via the basic trading necessity of locking in profits. Holding your whole load as the stock continues to race up the charts in an exponential matter is not smart as sudden reversals become more and more likely. Small and smart selling based on either new highs with low volume, new highs with little price change and huge volume, or major reversals where the stock is up a lot on the day but then reverses to close lower are clear places to selloff 10%-20% of your big winners. Locking in some gains and then holding on for a possible climax run is just what the smart traders of yesteryear did and the smart traders of today do. One thing we definitely don’t do (not saying I am great, btw. Trust me I am FAR from it) is call tops. And that is one thing you will not see me do as long as we are moving higher and hitting new all-time and six-and-a-half year highs.
We have earnings season officially kicking off on Monday, with AA releasing earnings after the close. During the week we have numbers from stocks like INFY, PBG, DNA, MAR, YUM, and CTAS, and to close the week off we have GE. After that the fireworks really get going when the earnings really start pounding the table. Isn’t it funny how fast this time of the year can sneak up on you? Besides that there are, like always, economic numbers to digest. But nothing this week should impact the market like earnings will.
Aloha and I will see you in the chat room where you can guarantee we are ALWAYS on the right side of the market.
top holdings up this week - purchase date
TRCR 463% - 1/12
MA 223% - 8/2
OMTR 185% - 9/15
IHS 146% - 12/21/05
CPA 133% - 9/15
KHD 130% - 5/30/06
TTEC 128% - 8/25
ULTR 125% - 10/27
DECK 120% - 9/13
CXW 96% - 5/19/06
HURN 95% - 9/13
CNH 94% - 11/2
CRY 90% - 1/10
VDSI 89% - 1/14
EVEP 89% - 11/16
ZNH 84% - 12/26
APLX 84% - 9/28
AFSI 83% - 4/12
CKSW 69% - 10/11
LFL 68% - 12/13
HURC 66% - 12/18
VSNT 64% - 2/5
ATX 62% - 12/12
IMA 61% - 8/2
NAVI 59% - 12/19
TESO 58% - 2/16
XRA 58% - 5/24
KMGB 57% - 6/1
CRNT 54% - 5/21
TTG 54% - 11/30
CCC 53% - 3/26
FSLR 50% - 5/22
NTLS 50% - 1/30
Market Commentary At Big Wave Trading Bronze Level One
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
Saturday, June 16, 2007
Tame Core CPI Data Traps The Bears As Stocks Rally On Heavier Volume; The Incompetent Short Sellers Just Don't Get It
Stocks started Friday off just right as stocks gapped higher thanks to a tame core CPI. The CPI moved up .7% in May–the biggest since September 2005–but the core CPI was up only .1%. That was less than the .2% expected by economist. That also lowered the YOY core CPI to 2.2% which was the smallest in 14 months. The CPI data clearly gave investors the hope that the Fed will scrap its bias to raise rates as the recent economic numbers suggest steady economic growth with mild inflation. A sign that rates and economic growth are starting to come in-line can be seen in the yield curve. It has corrected itself and now has a very positive bullish slope to it compared to where it was just three months ago when the curve was inverted.
Other solid news from the economy came from the Labor Department’s production numbers. Industrial production was flat in May, better than the prior two readings of negative growth. Manufacturing production was up .1%, besting the recent levels. And capacity utilization was down showing a lot of capacity which has inflation easing pressure.
These reports were strong enough to get buyers hungry for stocks. And when you combine that with options expiration you had the perfect mix for big stock gains on big volume. When all was said-and-done, stocks climbed across the board, with the SP 600 up 1.2%, the Nasdaq rose 1.1% to six-year highs, the NYSE higher by .9%, the SP 500 was up .7%, and the DJIA rose .6%. This sent all stock indexes near all-time highs and gave the indexes their fifteenth straight positive Friday close. For the third day in-a-row the IBD 100 led the market, with a 1.5% gain. That can only be described as perfect action in a market making strong gains despite all the bearishness.
Volume was higher on both exchanges. On the NYSE volume was 41% higher and 27% higher on the Nasdaq. Despite the higher volume coming on the back of quadruple witching, the fact that volume was so much higher on the NYSE is a clear confirmation of the rally after last weeks and Tuesday’s selling.
As for the internals, they were rather strong, with advancers beating decliners on the NYSE by a 13-to-3 ratio and on the Nasdaq by a 2-to-1 ratio. The really strong reversal to the bullish side was the new highs and new lows. The amount of 52-week highs exploded to 609 and new 52-week lows were only 70, finally sending an end to the mixed message of this statistic.
A rough start to the week was quickly corrected as we came up to the positive retail sales report on Wednesday. For the week, the Nasdaq led the way higher with a 2.1% gain, the NYSE rose 1.9%, the SP 600, the SP 500 gained 1.7%, and the DJIA rose 1.6%. However, when comparing those gains to leading stocks, you can tell that the action was where it is supposed to be in strong markets. The IBD 100 rallied 4% for the week. When you have leading stocks leading a rally, there is NO reason to be looking for a top. I could understand the bearishness before when this index was not keeping up. But being bearish now shows just a complete lack of respect for history.
Leading stocks never really got whacked (unlike the Sopranos finally–what a load of crap) when the market pulled back. The action in those leading stocks was a clear signal that there were not real problems with this market. Granted, it could have gotten a lot worse, but those stocks normally break down well before a stock market is about to top. The fact that those current leading stocks held was proof enough to me that this was not the right time to be calling a top. AAPL and GOOG, besides the current leading stocks, are your tell. As long as these stocks are holding their 50 dma’s, there is NO reason to get bearish just because everyone else is. Crowd mentality is a disease and last time I checked you are supposed to stay away from diseases. Remember: going with the crowd (after you get out of HS) is what morons do. People that can not think for themselves go with the crowd. Those people do NOT make money in the stock market year in and year out. Stay away from this thinking.
The other clear obvious reason that nobody should have gotten full-on-bearish was that all the indexes rested right at their 50 day moving averages. After touching those averages, the indexes have done nothing but rally higher. This is exactly how you want to see strong markets act. They, seriously, don’t get much better than this.
The Nasdaq’s accumulation/distribution rating has risen to a C+ from a D- on Thursday. This is an amazing jump and also should confirm the rallies strength off the 50 dma. And when you take that with the NYSE short interest ratio being near an all-time high at 7.58, you have a clear scenario where you can see the smart money buying stocks (acc/dist rating) and the dumb money (hedge funds/retail) shorting stocks. The shorts are the ones who are wrong here. The price gains prove that. The one group of traders that have been right about this rally since it started–which happens to be where the bulls and bears crossed in the investors intelligence survey–has been the newsletter writers according to the investors intelligence survey. These guys have been bullish and continue to be bullish since they crossed in June. The current reading shows 56.7% are bulls; the five-year high is 62.9%.
What could be better? Volatility. The constant gains since March 2003 without a 10% decline on the DJIA is the reason why my top stocks only have so many up 100%. In normal bull markets, that start after a downtrend, where the VIX rises to above 25, I will be able to produce at least 5 stocks up over 300% and over 20 stocks up over 100% within six months. That clearly has not been the case with this rally as the VIX has not been over 20 since early 2004 and has not seen 30 since March 2003. This is why, in 2003, everything you touched went up 100% within months using the style I have. Right now, as you can see, 50% gains are like the 100% gains and the 100% gains are like the old 200% gains. Until this market sells off there is not going to be a “sh*t-load” of money to be made, unless you are quick with trading the China or solar stocks.
However, if you just stayed with leading stocks and have been long stocks in the Chemical-Fertilizer sector you would be sitting on a HUGE gain. These stocks have been leaders for the past six months and YTD they are up 91% blowing away another other sector when it comes to performance. This goes to show, once again, that leading stocks lead the market by a LONG shot. This compares to 10% gains in the NYSE and SP 600 or the 14% gain in the IBD 100 YTD. However, either way you look at it, investing in leading stocks is where the money is.
Where the money is not is in shorting this market. With that high NYSE short interest ratio and the market near all-time highs a further short-squeeze has to be expected at this point. The perma-bear traders like TraderTim, whom if you study about will find out is a depressed near-sadistic individual, are the perfect fuel this fire needs to keep burning. The hardest thing for most it seems is to actually believe the FACTS that are appearing right in front of your face with the indexes up near these all-time highs. Most people seem to want to believe the rants of delusional egotistical arrogant self-absorbed liars. If that is the game you want to play, be my guest. I will deal with the facts of the current market and continue to play the trend to the upside and make money.
Before I end this, there is one more thing that should be known that most traders don’t seem to understand. This market is a bit oversold with the 10-day moving average of the advance/decline line well under the zero level where this oscillator judges overbought and oversold. With that in mind, the amount of stocks above the 200-dma is only at 68% compared with 86% back in February and 84% back in April. Yet, here we are with the NYSE .5% away from an all time high and the Nasdaq already at a new 52-week high, yet the market has 20% less stocks above the 200-dma. That clearly shows that we have a lot of stocks that can join the rally, that can send the indexes even higher than they are now. Some may say that this is a sign of weakness. To that I only have to say really? Then why is the Nasdaq at a new 52-week high and why are the indexes only less than 1% away from an all-time high?
Facts are facts, folks. We have a stock market hitting new 52-week highs, on near all-time short interest, with a record setting economy, and a lot of bearish headlines on your late night biased-news networks. This can only mean one thing: stocks are going to move higher.
top holdings up this week - purchase date
TRCR 466% - 1/12
PTT 341% - 11/16
MA 218% - 8/2
OMTR 155% - 9/15
CCOI 135% - 9/27
KHDH 131% - 5/30/06
TTEC 131% - 8/25
AOI 127% - 11/9
ULTR 126% - 10/27
IHS 121% - 12/21/05
MFW 116% - 1/29
MOS 116% - 10/12
SVNT 112% - 8/24
MEH 112% - 8/30
CPA 108% - 9/15
HRZ 105% - 9/27
DECK 98% - 9/13
CRY 95% - 1/10
PRGX 92% - 1/12
CXW 92% - 5/19/06
EVEP 90% - 11/16
CNH 88% - 11/2
APLX 80% - 9/28
IGLD 80% - 10/26
HURN 78% - 9/13
VDSI 73% - 1/4
NTL 71% - 4/13
LTS 67% - 1/11
XRA 66% - 5/24
ZNH 65% - 12/26
MCZ 64% - 3/27
LFL 63% - 12/13
VSNT 61% - 2/5
NSH 58% - 12/19
TESO 56% - 2/16
AFSI 55% - 4/12
BMA 52% - 10/24
TSYS 50% - 1/26
TTG 50% - 11/30
Market Commentary At Big Wave Trading Bronze Level One
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
Other solid news from the economy came from the Labor Department’s production numbers. Industrial production was flat in May, better than the prior two readings of negative growth. Manufacturing production was up .1%, besting the recent levels. And capacity utilization was down showing a lot of capacity which has inflation easing pressure.
These reports were strong enough to get buyers hungry for stocks. And when you combine that with options expiration you had the perfect mix for big stock gains on big volume. When all was said-and-done, stocks climbed across the board, with the SP 600 up 1.2%, the Nasdaq rose 1.1% to six-year highs, the NYSE higher by .9%, the SP 500 was up .7%, and the DJIA rose .6%. This sent all stock indexes near all-time highs and gave the indexes their fifteenth straight positive Friday close. For the third day in-a-row the IBD 100 led the market, with a 1.5% gain. That can only be described as perfect action in a market making strong gains despite all the bearishness.
Volume was higher on both exchanges. On the NYSE volume was 41% higher and 27% higher on the Nasdaq. Despite the higher volume coming on the back of quadruple witching, the fact that volume was so much higher on the NYSE is a clear confirmation of the rally after last weeks and Tuesday’s selling.
As for the internals, they were rather strong, with advancers beating decliners on the NYSE by a 13-to-3 ratio and on the Nasdaq by a 2-to-1 ratio. The really strong reversal to the bullish side was the new highs and new lows. The amount of 52-week highs exploded to 609 and new 52-week lows were only 70, finally sending an end to the mixed message of this statistic.
A rough start to the week was quickly corrected as we came up to the positive retail sales report on Wednesday. For the week, the Nasdaq led the way higher with a 2.1% gain, the NYSE rose 1.9%, the SP 600, the SP 500 gained 1.7%, and the DJIA rose 1.6%. However, when comparing those gains to leading stocks, you can tell that the action was where it is supposed to be in strong markets. The IBD 100 rallied 4% for the week. When you have leading stocks leading a rally, there is NO reason to be looking for a top. I could understand the bearishness before when this index was not keeping up. But being bearish now shows just a complete lack of respect for history.
Leading stocks never really got whacked (unlike the Sopranos finally–what a load of crap) when the market pulled back. The action in those leading stocks was a clear signal that there were not real problems with this market. Granted, it could have gotten a lot worse, but those stocks normally break down well before a stock market is about to top. The fact that those current leading stocks held was proof enough to me that this was not the right time to be calling a top. AAPL and GOOG, besides the current leading stocks, are your tell. As long as these stocks are holding their 50 dma’s, there is NO reason to get bearish just because everyone else is. Crowd mentality is a disease and last time I checked you are supposed to stay away from diseases. Remember: going with the crowd (after you get out of HS) is what morons do. People that can not think for themselves go with the crowd. Those people do NOT make money in the stock market year in and year out. Stay away from this thinking.
The other clear obvious reason that nobody should have gotten full-on-bearish was that all the indexes rested right at their 50 day moving averages. After touching those averages, the indexes have done nothing but rally higher. This is exactly how you want to see strong markets act. They, seriously, don’t get much better than this.
The Nasdaq’s accumulation/distribution rating has risen to a C+ from a D- on Thursday. This is an amazing jump and also should confirm the rallies strength off the 50 dma. And when you take that with the NYSE short interest ratio being near an all-time high at 7.58, you have a clear scenario where you can see the smart money buying stocks (acc/dist rating) and the dumb money (hedge funds/retail) shorting stocks. The shorts are the ones who are wrong here. The price gains prove that. The one group of traders that have been right about this rally since it started–which happens to be where the bulls and bears crossed in the investors intelligence survey–has been the newsletter writers according to the investors intelligence survey. These guys have been bullish and continue to be bullish since they crossed in June. The current reading shows 56.7% are bulls; the five-year high is 62.9%.
What could be better? Volatility. The constant gains since March 2003 without a 10% decline on the DJIA is the reason why my top stocks only have so many up 100%. In normal bull markets, that start after a downtrend, where the VIX rises to above 25, I will be able to produce at least 5 stocks up over 300% and over 20 stocks up over 100% within six months. That clearly has not been the case with this rally as the VIX has not been over 20 since early 2004 and has not seen 30 since March 2003. This is why, in 2003, everything you touched went up 100% within months using the style I have. Right now, as you can see, 50% gains are like the 100% gains and the 100% gains are like the old 200% gains. Until this market sells off there is not going to be a “sh*t-load” of money to be made, unless you are quick with trading the China or solar stocks.
However, if you just stayed with leading stocks and have been long stocks in the Chemical-Fertilizer sector you would be sitting on a HUGE gain. These stocks have been leaders for the past six months and YTD they are up 91% blowing away another other sector when it comes to performance. This goes to show, once again, that leading stocks lead the market by a LONG shot. This compares to 10% gains in the NYSE and SP 600 or the 14% gain in the IBD 100 YTD. However, either way you look at it, investing in leading stocks is where the money is.
Where the money is not is in shorting this market. With that high NYSE short interest ratio and the market near all-time highs a further short-squeeze has to be expected at this point. The perma-bear traders like TraderTim, whom if you study about will find out is a depressed near-sadistic individual, are the perfect fuel this fire needs to keep burning. The hardest thing for most it seems is to actually believe the FACTS that are appearing right in front of your face with the indexes up near these all-time highs. Most people seem to want to believe the rants of delusional egotistical arrogant self-absorbed liars. If that is the game you want to play, be my guest. I will deal with the facts of the current market and continue to play the trend to the upside and make money.
Before I end this, there is one more thing that should be known that most traders don’t seem to understand. This market is a bit oversold with the 10-day moving average of the advance/decline line well under the zero level where this oscillator judges overbought and oversold. With that in mind, the amount of stocks above the 200-dma is only at 68% compared with 86% back in February and 84% back in April. Yet, here we are with the NYSE .5% away from an all time high and the Nasdaq already at a new 52-week high, yet the market has 20% less stocks above the 200-dma. That clearly shows that we have a lot of stocks that can join the rally, that can send the indexes even higher than they are now. Some may say that this is a sign of weakness. To that I only have to say really? Then why is the Nasdaq at a new 52-week high and why are the indexes only less than 1% away from an all-time high?
Facts are facts, folks. We have a stock market hitting new 52-week highs, on near all-time short interest, with a record setting economy, and a lot of bearish headlines on your late night biased-news networks. This can only mean one thing: stocks are going to move higher.
top holdings up this week - purchase date
TRCR 466% - 1/12
PTT 341% - 11/16
MA 218% - 8/2
OMTR 155% - 9/15
CCOI 135% - 9/27
KHDH 131% - 5/30/06
TTEC 131% - 8/25
AOI 127% - 11/9
ULTR 126% - 10/27
IHS 121% - 12/21/05
MFW 116% - 1/29
MOS 116% - 10/12
SVNT 112% - 8/24
MEH 112% - 8/30
CPA 108% - 9/15
HRZ 105% - 9/27
DECK 98% - 9/13
CRY 95% - 1/10
PRGX 92% - 1/12
CXW 92% - 5/19/06
EVEP 90% - 11/16
CNH 88% - 11/2
APLX 80% - 9/28
IGLD 80% - 10/26
HURN 78% - 9/13
VDSI 73% - 1/4
NTL 71% - 4/13
LTS 67% - 1/11
XRA 66% - 5/24
ZNH 65% - 12/26
MCZ 64% - 3/27
LFL 63% - 12/13
VSNT 61% - 2/5
NSH 58% - 12/19
TESO 56% - 2/16
AFSI 55% - 4/12
BMA 52% - 10/24
TSYS 50% - 1/26
TTG 50% - 11/30
Market Commentary At Big Wave Trading Bronze Level One
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
Saturday, June 09, 2007
Stocks Bounce Back From Thursday's Selloff On Lower Volume; Indexes Still Holding Their 50 Day Moving Average
THIS WAS THE COMMENTARY FROM THURSDAY'S SESSION THAT WAS POSTED BEFORE THE OPENING BELL ON FRIDAY FOR PAID SUBSCRIBERS:
Inflation Worries Send Stocks Lower, Closing At Their LOD, On Heavy Volume; Caution Is Best Advised Here
By MauiTrader
Dip buyers were severely punished today as stocks sold off hard after bonds fell and yields rose. During the trading day, bond yields on the 10 and 30 year note crossed 5% for the first time in eleven months to close at 5.12% and 5.22%. This led Bill Gross to go bearish on bonds for the first time twenty-five years. And if that wasn’t bad enough for inflation angst, crude oil rose to near $67 a barrel on a bad refinery report from the EIA. This was enough to spooks traders, all day long, and convince some traders that Ben might have to hike rates this year. That is a quick turnabout off the hopes of a rate cut later this year.
There was some good news out there, with the jobless claims coming in at its lowest level in three weeks, lower by 1,000 to 309,000. Also retailers reported a strong month of sales for May and April merchandise wholesale sells rose faster than inventories. However, obviously, this did not matter with the fears of higher inflation.
At the close, stocks fell across the board and almost all of the indexes closed at their LOD. The SP 400 led the way lower collapsing 2.1%, the SP 600 followed with a 1.9% whack, the NYSE, Nasdaq, and SP 500 fell 1.8%, and the DJIA fell 1.5%. There were two clear rough spots today: transports and leading stocks. The DJ Transportation Average, which started lagging the DJIA well before today’s fall, swooned 2.4%. The IBD 100 faired even worse, as leading stocks fell off a cliff with a 2.8% loss.
Volume was higher on the Nasdaq and much higher on the NYSE, giving these indexes another distribution day. This was the third one in-a-row for the NYSE. During the past four weeks the SP 500 and DJIA have four distribution days, the NYSE has five, and the Nasdaq has an extremely high seven. It is amazing with that many distribution days that the Nasdaq is actually still above the 50 dma.
The way the indexes look right now, it appears that they are rolling over. However, the breadth of this selling seemed climatic and panicky today. So we could find support here at the 50 dma. There were only four out of 197 industry groups that were up today–and 150 of those fell 1% or more. A similar number was put in yesterday for total breadth amongst the industry groups. Also, breadth today was extremely extreme today on the NYSE with decliners beating advancers by a 10-to-1 margin. That seems almost impossible. Breadth was better on the Nasdaq but still a tad extreme with decliners beating advancers by a 4-to-1 margin. On the DJIA decliners beat advancers by a 30-to-0 ratio. It has been a long time since I have seen every DJIA stock fall on the same day.
Another indication that the selling might have been a bit panicky was the put/call ratio rising to 1.12. If this wasn’t panic selling and people were buying the dips, this ratio would be lower. At the same time, to show you how key this point of the market is, the amount of new 52-week lows is now higher than the 52-week highs. This, to me, is near shocking. We are around 3% to 4% off the all-time highs, yet we had 143 new 52-week lows!!! and only 90 new 52-week highs. This reading here tells me that this market, when it does turn, is going to be rough for a while. That put/call might be good on the short-term but longer-term this kind of internal reading is bearish. I just wish I could remember the last time the market was doing so well but the new lows were higher than the new highs.
I think it is safe to say that this rally is under pressure now, as the rest of the world also looks to be weakening, following the lead of China. Even though the indexes are not below the 50 dma yet it is still time to get cautious with all the distribution days mounting up on top of today’s selloff.
I have been advising to keep new buys small since Friday, after maxing out my personal account after Wednesday’s market. The markets have a history of topping out after I get all of my money completely invested. The bulk of my gains are made in the beginning but near the end after selling weak stocks to strong stocks you eventually max out. And that is normally when the markets slow down. That with the poor quality of the longs since Friday (not the charts, but the fundamentals and liquidity of the stocks) and the distribution days were our tell that something was about to happen.
However, do NOT panic sell. If you have nothing wrong with your stock and your holdings or some of them are acting like everything is OK with the market, you want to hold them. This could be the end of the selling or just the start. If it is the start, you should be sitting on some nice gains that a confirmation of a pullback will not kill you. If it is not the start of a pullback you can hold your longs for more gains. Remember, you NEVER want to be scared out of a position. Sell the weak stocks that are moving lower or not acting right and keep the winners that are either still moving up or are pulling back in a normal low volume fashion. There were only 20 complete sells and out of those only two were high quality stocks. Another 40 stocks got a haircut. I have been very busy today. But it will pay off in the long-run. It always does.
After being up eight of nine weeks, the market was getting overbought and needed this pullback. I hope this isn’t a top because I would hate to sell off some of my bigger beautiful longs but anything can happen tomorrow that could change all those nice charts in one fell swoop and that is why I have to prepare myself mentally for anything and everything. I want higher prices and most of my charts are holding up very well but at the same time the market would be a lot more healthy and more rewarding for me if I could get a pullback, go to cash, and then wait for the next time to go all-in on margin to the long side (hopefully with VIX around 30 or so). Markets that rally AFTER a big pullback will always produce stocks that will move 100%-500% in short periods of time. If we bounce here, trust me, we still will not be having any of that.
Here, also, may be another key tell for a market top: the leaders of this bull as far back as 2003 are still running. GOOG, AAPL, RIMM, CROX, etc… As long as these stocks keep hitting new highs it is hard to think the market could actually top. Also none of these stocks are in climax runs which means they could have a lot of room to keep running. In fact I can’t find any climax looking charts.
There is absolutely one thing you must NOT do. Do NOT buy the dips. Do not buy stocks when the market is falling. You are only supposed to be going long stocks in top sectors in markets that are trending up. I obviously can maneuver a bit differently. But most traders should stay very disciplined and play by the rules until they are making consistent money the right way by buying top stocks moving higher in top sectors in markets moving up. I heard some subscribers and other participants in other rooms talk of buying the dip. I would wait for breakouts, if I were you. Look for charts like TTG CRNT and KHDH. Not charts like IMR.
We have the Commerce Department report on the April trade deficit and we have weakness in most Pacific/Asia markets so that will be on the minds of traders. That and of course the worry of what the market is going to do after yesterday’s selloff. But I don’t need that in my life. I have enough things to worry about. And the stock market will never be one of those things I will ever have to worry about. When you have rules, discipline, and sound strategy that you have tested and used to make a good living off of, you don’t have to.
Aloha and I will see you in the chat room!! It’s Aloha Friday, No Work Till Monday……dee dee de de de…..
top holdings up this week - purchase date
TRCR 430% - 1/12
PTT 303% - 11/16
MA 187% - 8/2
CCOI 144% - 9/27
OMTR 134% -
TTEC 130% - 8/25
ULTR 116% - 10/27
MEH 113% - 8/30
MOS 109% - 10/12
MFW 108% - 1/29
KHDH 107% - 5/30/06
DECK 97% - 9/13
CPA 97% - 9/15
CXW 91% - 5/19/06
IGLD 87% - 10/26
EVEP 86% - 11/16
MVIS 86% - 12/21
APLX 83% - 9/28
VDSI 79% - 1/4
HURN 77% - 9/13
MCZ 74% - 3/27
CLRT 73% - 11/30
CNH 72% - 11/2
TTG 63% - 11/30
TESO 60% - 2/16
LFL 57% - 12/13
NSH 57% - 12/19
AFSI 56% - 4/12
VSNT 54% - 2/5
APFC 52% - 3/5
XOMA 51% - 1/12
HURC 50% - 12/18
Market Commentary At Big Wave Trading Bronze Level One
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
Inflation Worries Send Stocks Lower, Closing At Their LOD, On Heavy Volume; Caution Is Best Advised Here
By MauiTrader
Dip buyers were severely punished today as stocks sold off hard after bonds fell and yields rose. During the trading day, bond yields on the 10 and 30 year note crossed 5% for the first time in eleven months to close at 5.12% and 5.22%. This led Bill Gross to go bearish on bonds for the first time twenty-five years. And if that wasn’t bad enough for inflation angst, crude oil rose to near $67 a barrel on a bad refinery report from the EIA. This was enough to spooks traders, all day long, and convince some traders that Ben might have to hike rates this year. That is a quick turnabout off the hopes of a rate cut later this year.
There was some good news out there, with the jobless claims coming in at its lowest level in three weeks, lower by 1,000 to 309,000. Also retailers reported a strong month of sales for May and April merchandise wholesale sells rose faster than inventories. However, obviously, this did not matter with the fears of higher inflation.
At the close, stocks fell across the board and almost all of the indexes closed at their LOD. The SP 400 led the way lower collapsing 2.1%, the SP 600 followed with a 1.9% whack, the NYSE, Nasdaq, and SP 500 fell 1.8%, and the DJIA fell 1.5%. There were two clear rough spots today: transports and leading stocks. The DJ Transportation Average, which started lagging the DJIA well before today’s fall, swooned 2.4%. The IBD 100 faired even worse, as leading stocks fell off a cliff with a 2.8% loss.
Volume was higher on the Nasdaq and much higher on the NYSE, giving these indexes another distribution day. This was the third one in-a-row for the NYSE. During the past four weeks the SP 500 and DJIA have four distribution days, the NYSE has five, and the Nasdaq has an extremely high seven. It is amazing with that many distribution days that the Nasdaq is actually still above the 50 dma.
The way the indexes look right now, it appears that they are rolling over. However, the breadth of this selling seemed climatic and panicky today. So we could find support here at the 50 dma. There were only four out of 197 industry groups that were up today–and 150 of those fell 1% or more. A similar number was put in yesterday for total breadth amongst the industry groups. Also, breadth today was extremely extreme today on the NYSE with decliners beating advancers by a 10-to-1 margin. That seems almost impossible. Breadth was better on the Nasdaq but still a tad extreme with decliners beating advancers by a 4-to-1 margin. On the DJIA decliners beat advancers by a 30-to-0 ratio. It has been a long time since I have seen every DJIA stock fall on the same day.
Another indication that the selling might have been a bit panicky was the put/call ratio rising to 1.12. If this wasn’t panic selling and people were buying the dips, this ratio would be lower. At the same time, to show you how key this point of the market is, the amount of new 52-week lows is now higher than the 52-week highs. This, to me, is near shocking. We are around 3% to 4% off the all-time highs, yet we had 143 new 52-week lows!!! and only 90 new 52-week highs. This reading here tells me that this market, when it does turn, is going to be rough for a while. That put/call might be good on the short-term but longer-term this kind of internal reading is bearish. I just wish I could remember the last time the market was doing so well but the new lows were higher than the new highs.
I think it is safe to say that this rally is under pressure now, as the rest of the world also looks to be weakening, following the lead of China. Even though the indexes are not below the 50 dma yet it is still time to get cautious with all the distribution days mounting up on top of today’s selloff.
I have been advising to keep new buys small since Friday, after maxing out my personal account after Wednesday’s market. The markets have a history of topping out after I get all of my money completely invested. The bulk of my gains are made in the beginning but near the end after selling weak stocks to strong stocks you eventually max out. And that is normally when the markets slow down. That with the poor quality of the longs since Friday (not the charts, but the fundamentals and liquidity of the stocks) and the distribution days were our tell that something was about to happen.
However, do NOT panic sell. If you have nothing wrong with your stock and your holdings or some of them are acting like everything is OK with the market, you want to hold them. This could be the end of the selling or just the start. If it is the start, you should be sitting on some nice gains that a confirmation of a pullback will not kill you. If it is not the start of a pullback you can hold your longs for more gains. Remember, you NEVER want to be scared out of a position. Sell the weak stocks that are moving lower or not acting right and keep the winners that are either still moving up or are pulling back in a normal low volume fashion. There were only 20 complete sells and out of those only two were high quality stocks. Another 40 stocks got a haircut. I have been very busy today. But it will pay off in the long-run. It always does.
After being up eight of nine weeks, the market was getting overbought and needed this pullback. I hope this isn’t a top because I would hate to sell off some of my bigger beautiful longs but anything can happen tomorrow that could change all those nice charts in one fell swoop and that is why I have to prepare myself mentally for anything and everything. I want higher prices and most of my charts are holding up very well but at the same time the market would be a lot more healthy and more rewarding for me if I could get a pullback, go to cash, and then wait for the next time to go all-in on margin to the long side (hopefully with VIX around 30 or so). Markets that rally AFTER a big pullback will always produce stocks that will move 100%-500% in short periods of time. If we bounce here, trust me, we still will not be having any of that.
Here, also, may be another key tell for a market top: the leaders of this bull as far back as 2003 are still running. GOOG, AAPL, RIMM, CROX, etc… As long as these stocks keep hitting new highs it is hard to think the market could actually top. Also none of these stocks are in climax runs which means they could have a lot of room to keep running. In fact I can’t find any climax looking charts.
There is absolutely one thing you must NOT do. Do NOT buy the dips. Do not buy stocks when the market is falling. You are only supposed to be going long stocks in top sectors in markets that are trending up. I obviously can maneuver a bit differently. But most traders should stay very disciplined and play by the rules until they are making consistent money the right way by buying top stocks moving higher in top sectors in markets moving up. I heard some subscribers and other participants in other rooms talk of buying the dip. I would wait for breakouts, if I were you. Look for charts like TTG CRNT and KHDH. Not charts like IMR.
We have the Commerce Department report on the April trade deficit and we have weakness in most Pacific/Asia markets so that will be on the minds of traders. That and of course the worry of what the market is going to do after yesterday’s selloff. But I don’t need that in my life. I have enough things to worry about. And the stock market will never be one of those things I will ever have to worry about. When you have rules, discipline, and sound strategy that you have tested and used to make a good living off of, you don’t have to.
Aloha and I will see you in the chat room!! It’s Aloha Friday, No Work Till Monday……dee dee de de de…..
top holdings up this week - purchase date
TRCR 430% - 1/12
PTT 303% - 11/16
MA 187% - 8/2
CCOI 144% - 9/27
OMTR 134% -
TTEC 130% - 8/25
ULTR 116% - 10/27
MEH 113% - 8/30
MOS 109% - 10/12
MFW 108% - 1/29
KHDH 107% - 5/30/06
DECK 97% - 9/13
CPA 97% - 9/15
CXW 91% - 5/19/06
IGLD 87% - 10/26
EVEP 86% - 11/16
MVIS 86% - 12/21
APLX 83% - 9/28
VDSI 79% - 1/4
HURN 77% - 9/13
MCZ 74% - 3/27
CLRT 73% - 11/30
CNH 72% - 11/2
TTG 63% - 11/30
TESO 60% - 2/16
LFL 57% - 12/13
NSH 57% - 12/19
AFSI 56% - 4/12
VSNT 54% - 2/5
APFC 52% - 3/5
XOMA 51% - 1/12
HURC 50% - 12/18
Market Commentary At Big Wave Trading Bronze Level One
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
Sunday, May 27, 2007
Happy Memorial Day!!! Thank You and GOD Bless Our Troops Alive And Fallen!!!
Stocks ended the week on a light-volume positive note, after a pretty wild and semi-rough week that saw the Nasdaq come under two more days of distribution. However, the constant takeovers, M&A's, and LBO, continues to keep a floor on this market and give short sellers the pain they deserve when they short a rising market (a play only amateurs and ego-driven traders make).
Despite the NAR existing-home sales reporting a drop of 2.6% in April to a four-year low, below estimates, stocks still managed a pre-holiday really. At the close, the Nasdaq, Nasdaq 100, and SP 600 led the way with .8% gains, the NYSE followed with a .7% rise, the SP 500 finished with a .6% gain, and the DJIA ended the day with a .5% gain. Leading stocks, via the IBD 85-85, did even better, gaining 1.5%. For the week, the SP 600 finished .7% higher, as the only index that made gains on the week. The rest of the indexes finished lower, with the Nassy 100 losing .8%, the SP 600 losing .7%, the SP 500 losing .5%, the DJIA losing .4%, the NYSE lost .2%, and the Nasdaq finished lower by .05%. So it wasn't a great week, but by the losses it wasn't a horrible week either. It just was what it was, which looks like a little bit of consolidation of all those recent gains. There really is nothing to takeaway from this week's action.
The only one real obvious week spot Friday and for the week was in the Utilities sector. The top stocks that I was long in that sector (NU EE ETR AYE ITC) took some big hits, causing me to sell some down or out completely, and the DJUA fell 3.9%. The cause of this was due to the rising rates in the bond market. Many of these stocks look toppy, like PNW. The rising rates also put a kibosh on the possibility of a Fed Fund rate cut as the odds fell to less than 50% that rates would be cut this year.
Volume was lower by about 33%, on both the NYSE and the Nasdaq, advancers beat decliners by a 9 to 5 margin on the Nasdaq and by a 12 to 5 margin on the NYSE, new highs came in with only 134 new 52-week highs. This is yet another disturbing trend of new highs coming much lower despite the indexes being near another all-time high. This divergence has been happening since November. However, the put/call ratio is still very high at .93. The high put/call shows people are still shorting stocks and buying puts on the rally. The most interesting internal data I saw on Friday was that the NYSE short interest is at a near five-year high of 7.46%. That along with the put/call ratio indicates a lot of people are making bets this market goes lower. The crowd is normally always wrong.
The lack of losses by the major market indexes can be thanked to all the activity in the buyout markets. The leveraged buyout of AL by AA has been rejected, Kerkorian made a bid for MGM assets, BOL and TOPP received buyout offers, NDAQ buys Nordic exchange OMX, ASN announces it is in buyout talks, and KO bought Glaceau's Energy Brands for its vitamin water. This kind of action is indicative of a market that is in a very bullish stage still. Markets do not bottom with this type of action, but they do top on this action. However, we will have to see a lot more outrageous deals like the one we saw with MSFT buying AQNT for an unbelievable price over the actual revenue.
There have been some distribution days that have made this rally a bit nervous recently but a lot of leading stocks continue to hold well or make good price gains with these indexes near their recent highs. With the indexes still over the 50 dma, it is just too early to jump the gun and call a market top. It didn't serve me well on Feb. 27th and it hasn't done anyone any good since then. It is very hard to me to be a "hater" on this market, even with seven year resistance lining up on the SP 500. That seven year resistance, even though a lot of commentators are talking about it, just is not important for me at all. If there are bagholders in the SPY from 2000, trust me, they are not going to sell and breakeven when the SPY finally hits that mark. This is simply a number I have NO interest in. However, CNBC will, so you can enjoy that if you waste your time on that non-sense.
The only thing I wish I could see change is the financials. It would be nice if the banking indexes were rallying along with the market indexes. Actually, what I have noticed also is that the DJTA is also not making a new high with the index. So now the index is rallying without the DJTA DJUA and the BKX hitting new highs. Just something to be aware of. Until the market's trend changes, it is still just semantics.
It is clearly obvious to me that the wall-of-worry is still alive and well, despite what the II, AAII, and realmoney.com polls suggest. The Investors Intelligence survey came in with bulls rising to 54.3% which is a 2007 high and bears falling to 20.7% a 2007 low. The AAII bulls have increased to 37% and the bears have fallen to 38.5%. The realmoney.com poll shows 47% are bullish and 25% are bearish. However, their money is NOT where their mouth is.
The put/call, as I mentioned, is at .93, NYSE short interest is near 5-yr highs, mutual fund inflows keep slowing to a trickle, and margin debt (normally used for bearish bets) is at an all-time high at $319 billion. That is a YOY gain of 67%. So obviously the bets are being made against the bulls, despite the crowd insisting they are bullish. Very odd indeed, if that is what you were thinking. So basically what I am seeing is that people would rather be long than short but are still shorting the market. Seems to me only the smart money is buying stocks here. The dumb money is selling/shorting.
Another possible scenario for the shorting is that a lot of market particants are making a big deal over gas prices and how it is going to wreck the economy. I have been hearing this damn argument for years now. I am still waiting for it to come to fruition. It is true that gas prices are getting a bit crazy but our net wealth is higher than ever and if our SPOILED BRAT American consumer ways are any indication--we can afford it. So no matter how much they say the gas prices are going to hurt the economy, the fact of the matter is this just creates another wall-of-worry for the markets to climb as traders short the market waiting for this magical correction caused by the consumers pockets drying up. Until it actually dries up, why short the market and lose money?
This uptrend is still not to be messed with. Next week will show us if the distribution days in the Nasdaq are anything that is going to turn into some real selling. If the action in leading stocks is any indication, we are not going to get too much selling off of those distro days. The indexes and leading stocks continue to hold that key 50 day moving average and have good to great accumulation/distribution ratings. Right now the right play seems to be to buy the dips. That is not a method I endorse, unless the dip is on low volume and followed by a heavy volume bounce around a key moving average or support.
The market is getting a little bit oversold according to the 10-week moving average of the advance/decline line oscillator and the index put/call 21-day moving avg. is getting near the 2.00 level where the markets like to try to top out. But there is still room left with it at 1.80. So that along with the former oscillator mentioned tells us that there is more room to rally before we become overbought or have the extreme index put buying that signals a real top. A high put/call is bullish until it stays high for too long and gets to extreme levels. When that happens it actually confirms the market, if a selloff happens.
As it stands, right now, however, there is no selloff, so the only right thing to do now is to follow that trend, until that trend changes. Next week we have non-farm payroll numbers, the second reading of Q1 GDP, consumer confidence numbers, and the FOMC minutes. Along with the economic numbers, we have earnings from DELL COST HNZ HOV SHLD DBRN RL PSS JAS JCG that should create some minor excitement as earnings season comes to a close.
Enjoy your Memorial Day!!! Never forget the sacrifices that our troops make to allow you to read this blog. This blog and all the money making ideas would not be possible without the brave men and women who sacrifice their lives defending this country and making this world a better place to live in for EVERYONE. Not just Americans. EVERYONE deserves freedom. If you lived under a dictatorship, only then could you appreciate how well off we have it. I have a feeling there are many that read this blog that take YOUR freedom for granted. If that is the case, you should really take a minute and think about how the world would be if the USA did not exist. Do you really think you would be trading stocks? Do you really think you would be free?
Aloha and I will see you in the chat room!!!!
top holdings up this week - purchase date
TRCR 306% - 1/12
MA 181% - 8/2
TTEC 140% - 8/25
OMTR 137% - 9/15
SVNT 131% - 8/24
MEH 119% - 8/30
CPA 118% - 9/15
KHDH 108% - 5/30
JSDA 106% - 12/20
HRZ 104% - 9/27
MFW 104% - 1/29
ULTR 101% - 10/27
CRY 94% - 1/10
EVEP 90% - 11/16
CXW 87% - 5/19
IGLD 79% - 10/26
DECK 76% - 9/13
MCZ 74% - 3/27
HURN 70% - 9/13
CNH 65% - 11/2
BMA 64% - 10/24
APLX 62% - 9/28
VDSI 61% - 1/4
ZNH 59% - 12/26
NXST 59% - 3/28
LFL 57% - 12/13
TESO 56% - 2/16
VCLK 55% - 11/14
APFC 55% - 3/5
TTG 52% - 11/30
NSH 52% - 12/19
Market Commentary At Big Wave Trading Bronze Level One
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
Despite the NAR existing-home sales reporting a drop of 2.6% in April to a four-year low, below estimates, stocks still managed a pre-holiday really. At the close, the Nasdaq, Nasdaq 100, and SP 600 led the way with .8% gains, the NYSE followed with a .7% rise, the SP 500 finished with a .6% gain, and the DJIA ended the day with a .5% gain. Leading stocks, via the IBD 85-85, did even better, gaining 1.5%. For the week, the SP 600 finished .7% higher, as the only index that made gains on the week. The rest of the indexes finished lower, with the Nassy 100 losing .8%, the SP 600 losing .7%, the SP 500 losing .5%, the DJIA losing .4%, the NYSE lost .2%, and the Nasdaq finished lower by .05%. So it wasn't a great week, but by the losses it wasn't a horrible week either. It just was what it was, which looks like a little bit of consolidation of all those recent gains. There really is nothing to takeaway from this week's action.
The only one real obvious week spot Friday and for the week was in the Utilities sector. The top stocks that I was long in that sector (NU EE ETR AYE ITC) took some big hits, causing me to sell some down or out completely, and the DJUA fell 3.9%. The cause of this was due to the rising rates in the bond market. Many of these stocks look toppy, like PNW. The rising rates also put a kibosh on the possibility of a Fed Fund rate cut as the odds fell to less than 50% that rates would be cut this year.
Volume was lower by about 33%, on both the NYSE and the Nasdaq, advancers beat decliners by a 9 to 5 margin on the Nasdaq and by a 12 to 5 margin on the NYSE, new highs came in with only 134 new 52-week highs. This is yet another disturbing trend of new highs coming much lower despite the indexes being near another all-time high. This divergence has been happening since November. However, the put/call ratio is still very high at .93. The high put/call shows people are still shorting stocks and buying puts on the rally. The most interesting internal data I saw on Friday was that the NYSE short interest is at a near five-year high of 7.46%. That along with the put/call ratio indicates a lot of people are making bets this market goes lower. The crowd is normally always wrong.
The lack of losses by the major market indexes can be thanked to all the activity in the buyout markets. The leveraged buyout of AL by AA has been rejected, Kerkorian made a bid for MGM assets, BOL and TOPP received buyout offers, NDAQ buys Nordic exchange OMX, ASN announces it is in buyout talks, and KO bought Glaceau's Energy Brands for its vitamin water. This kind of action is indicative of a market that is in a very bullish stage still. Markets do not bottom with this type of action, but they do top on this action. However, we will have to see a lot more outrageous deals like the one we saw with MSFT buying AQNT for an unbelievable price over the actual revenue.
There have been some distribution days that have made this rally a bit nervous recently but a lot of leading stocks continue to hold well or make good price gains with these indexes near their recent highs. With the indexes still over the 50 dma, it is just too early to jump the gun and call a market top. It didn't serve me well on Feb. 27th and it hasn't done anyone any good since then. It is very hard to me to be a "hater" on this market, even with seven year resistance lining up on the SP 500. That seven year resistance, even though a lot of commentators are talking about it, just is not important for me at all. If there are bagholders in the SPY from 2000, trust me, they are not going to sell and breakeven when the SPY finally hits that mark. This is simply a number I have NO interest in. However, CNBC will, so you can enjoy that if you waste your time on that non-sense.
The only thing I wish I could see change is the financials. It would be nice if the banking indexes were rallying along with the market indexes. Actually, what I have noticed also is that the DJTA is also not making a new high with the index. So now the index is rallying without the DJTA DJUA and the BKX hitting new highs. Just something to be aware of. Until the market's trend changes, it is still just semantics.
It is clearly obvious to me that the wall-of-worry is still alive and well, despite what the II, AAII, and realmoney.com polls suggest. The Investors Intelligence survey came in with bulls rising to 54.3% which is a 2007 high and bears falling to 20.7% a 2007 low. The AAII bulls have increased to 37% and the bears have fallen to 38.5%. The realmoney.com poll shows 47% are bullish and 25% are bearish. However, their money is NOT where their mouth is.
The put/call, as I mentioned, is at .93, NYSE short interest is near 5-yr highs, mutual fund inflows keep slowing to a trickle, and margin debt (normally used for bearish bets) is at an all-time high at $319 billion. That is a YOY gain of 67%. So obviously the bets are being made against the bulls, despite the crowd insisting they are bullish. Very odd indeed, if that is what you were thinking. So basically what I am seeing is that people would rather be long than short but are still shorting the market. Seems to me only the smart money is buying stocks here. The dumb money is selling/shorting.
Another possible scenario for the shorting is that a lot of market particants are making a big deal over gas prices and how it is going to wreck the economy. I have been hearing this damn argument for years now. I am still waiting for it to come to fruition. It is true that gas prices are getting a bit crazy but our net wealth is higher than ever and if our SPOILED BRAT American consumer ways are any indication--we can afford it. So no matter how much they say the gas prices are going to hurt the economy, the fact of the matter is this just creates another wall-of-worry for the markets to climb as traders short the market waiting for this magical correction caused by the consumers pockets drying up. Until it actually dries up, why short the market and lose money?
This uptrend is still not to be messed with. Next week will show us if the distribution days in the Nasdaq are anything that is going to turn into some real selling. If the action in leading stocks is any indication, we are not going to get too much selling off of those distro days. The indexes and leading stocks continue to hold that key 50 day moving average and have good to great accumulation/distribution ratings. Right now the right play seems to be to buy the dips. That is not a method I endorse, unless the dip is on low volume and followed by a heavy volume bounce around a key moving average or support.
The market is getting a little bit oversold according to the 10-week moving average of the advance/decline line oscillator and the index put/call 21-day moving avg. is getting near the 2.00 level where the markets like to try to top out. But there is still room left with it at 1.80. So that along with the former oscillator mentioned tells us that there is more room to rally before we become overbought or have the extreme index put buying that signals a real top. A high put/call is bullish until it stays high for too long and gets to extreme levels. When that happens it actually confirms the market, if a selloff happens.
As it stands, right now, however, there is no selloff, so the only right thing to do now is to follow that trend, until that trend changes. Next week we have non-farm payroll numbers, the second reading of Q1 GDP, consumer confidence numbers, and the FOMC minutes. Along with the economic numbers, we have earnings from DELL COST HNZ HOV SHLD DBRN RL PSS JAS JCG that should create some minor excitement as earnings season comes to a close.
Enjoy your Memorial Day!!! Never forget the sacrifices that our troops make to allow you to read this blog. This blog and all the money making ideas would not be possible without the brave men and women who sacrifice their lives defending this country and making this world a better place to live in for EVERYONE. Not just Americans. EVERYONE deserves freedom. If you lived under a dictatorship, only then could you appreciate how well off we have it. I have a feeling there are many that read this blog that take YOUR freedom for granted. If that is the case, you should really take a minute and think about how the world would be if the USA did not exist. Do you really think you would be trading stocks? Do you really think you would be free?
Aloha and I will see you in the chat room!!!!
top holdings up this week - purchase date
TRCR 306% - 1/12
MA 181% - 8/2
TTEC 140% - 8/25
OMTR 137% - 9/15
SVNT 131% - 8/24
MEH 119% - 8/30
CPA 118% - 9/15
KHDH 108% - 5/30
JSDA 106% - 12/20
HRZ 104% - 9/27
MFW 104% - 1/29
ULTR 101% - 10/27
CRY 94% - 1/10
EVEP 90% - 11/16
CXW 87% - 5/19
IGLD 79% - 10/26
DECK 76% - 9/13
MCZ 74% - 3/27
HURN 70% - 9/13
CNH 65% - 11/2
BMA 64% - 10/24
APLX 62% - 9/28
VDSI 61% - 1/4
ZNH 59% - 12/26
NXST 59% - 3/28
LFL 57% - 12/13
TESO 56% - 2/16
VCLK 55% - 11/14
APFC 55% - 3/5
TTG 52% - 11/30
NSH 52% - 12/19
Market Commentary At Big Wave Trading Bronze Level One
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
Saturday, May 05, 2007
A Very Eventful And Green Week Comes To A Close With Stocks Up Across The Board On Mixed Volume
Stocks started the day off on a very positive note thanks to a couple of big merger rumors and more positive earnings from top stocks that outweighed the poor jobs report. Reports that MSFT wants to buy the search engine YHOO (around a $50 billion transaction) and that RTRSY is being offered takeover bids possibly by Thomson Financial definitely put a fire to a market that is just flush with M&A activity. Great earnings from CROX FSLR UEIC PCLN and RIO did not hurt either.
Good news from the micro could not be found in the macro today. The April jobs report showed only 88,000 jobs were added this month. This was below the 100,000 expected by pundits and was the smallest increase in two years. This is another sign that the economy is starting to slow down. Unemployment ticked up to 4.5% and average hourly earnings rose .2% below expectations of .3%. This can be taken as slightly positive since it does not show rapid inflation in wages.
The good start gave way to a midday reversal that was quickly supported by the dip-buyers, possibly thanks to another fall in oil, and they proceeded to abid stocks up in a choppy fashion into the close. Oil fell $1.26 to $61.93 ending a week where crude oil fell a total of 6.8%. That obviously is good news for consumers.
At the closing bell the SP 600 led the way hitting an all-time high with a .5% gain, the NYSE followed also hitting an all-time high with a .4% gain, the Nasdaq neared 7-year highs closing with a .3% gain, and the DJIA hit an all-time high and the SP 500 came near a 7-year high gaining .2%. Growth investors had a lot to be thankful for today as the IBD 100 led for the third session in-a-row with a .8% gain.
Volume was slightly higher on the Nasdaq by about 2% and for the second day in-a-row the NYSE’s volume came in lower. That is a slight negative divergence with the NYSE hitting all-time highs the past two sessions on lighter volume. However, breadth was very positive which does put a slight positive spin on the lower volume. Advancers beat decliners by a 3-to-2 margin on the NYSE and by an 8-to-7 margin on the Nasdaq. There were a healthy amount of new 52-week highs with 609 and even though there were 66 new 52-week lows the fact that they didn’t expand on an up day is good enough.
For the week the DJIA led the way higher with a 1.1% gain, the NYSE followed with a .9% gain, the SP 500 and the SP 600 rose .8%, and the Nasdaq lagged with a .6% gain. The IBD 100 finally did something two weeks in a row that it has not done for months–lead the market. The IBD 100 gained 1.2% for the week, outpacing the DJIA by a tiny amount. However, that is not nearly as impressive as the fact that the DJIA is up 23 out of the past 26 sessions (I have not checked but I think I got that wrong yesterday) and has hit record highs in seven of the last eight sessions. The current streak of 23 up days out of 26 is one short of the record set in 1927 when it was 24 for 27. Get your “24 for 27″ rally hats on (not really–there is no need to cheer).
I have to admit, last week was one of the more exciting weeks I have been a part of in a while. I am not sure why but I believe it has to deal with the fact how confused everyone seems to be about this market. I have to admit I am not a genius to know why we are rallying. But I am smart enough to know that that is all I really need to know. While I continue to go long stocks, I still see a lot of people hesitant to buy stocks here.
I have to admit, I am, in my IRA. But in my regular accounts I am not afraid at all. There were only two stocks that I am going to have to completely sell-off yesterday due to breakdowns. One was E** (4% loss) and the other was I*** (8% loss). I scaled into INXI so that position did not hurt me and then EDS was bought so close to the 50 dma that that did not hurt me. It is hard for me to be bearish on that. But what I can take away as bearish is the fact that both of these stocks had BEAUTIFUL charts and had strong fundamentals. I have not seen such pretty charts with strong fundies breakdown like that since late February.
So how does that prove the crowd is bearish? It doesn’t. This does: The AAII survey came in with 55% bears this week which was the number seen at the July lows. There were only 29% bulls in the survey. Even though this survey is very fickle it still shows how bearish the crowd is still. If that doesn’t convince you the crowd is bearish let’s take a look at their actions.
The put/call ratio is still above the .6 area at .75. Until the number is below .6 it is hard to say that the crowd is not making bearish bets. And the biggest piece of interesting figures I could find on how investors are actually investing came from AMG. They report that mutual funds had outflows of $5.41 billion for the week ending on May 2. First quarter mutual fund inflows are down 30% from last year!! You do NOT see mutual fund outflows at the top of a market. So when people remind you that this market feels like 1999–it may in fact feel that way, but in 1999 mutual fund inflows were pouring in. It wasn’t until well after the market top that the trend reversed.
Rolling with this theme it also becomes clear that many market pundits are nervous with the rally (I am slightly in the boat–but I still go with the trend). Don Hays, Al Goldman, David Peroni, Dick Arms, James DePorre, Cody Willard, and a few others are issuing either cautious outlooks and in a few cases are starting short positions and/or taking longs off the table. This along with Seeking Alpha’s data showing that sell-side analyst have SP 500 stocks as buys at the lowest level in over ten years!!! Did you get that. The sell-siders are not telling you to buy stocks yet. When they start issuing buys and strong buys, then we probably should be worried. For now it seems everyone is doing the worrying for us.
The other incredibly bullish working thesis this market has going for it is earnings. Earnings are now coming in at a 12% YOY increase, KILLING estimates of 3.2%. This was supposed to be the first quarter in fourteen quarters that earnings grew under 10%. Well have now erased that possibility and now it is 15 quarters in-a-row of stocks showing 10% or higher YOY EPS gains. This is the greatest economic story ever and it gets absolutely NO attention paid to it by the biased media. It is shameful and disturbing that people do not even understand how incredible it is that we are about ready to have 10% gains 15 quarters in-a-row. One more quarter like this and it would be a full four years of 10% gains. INCREDIBLE to say the least.
There can be no doubt about it, last week was an eventful wild week. What a week it was with all the M&A announcements and speculations, great earnings reports, record high closes, and economic data. Of course the big story of the week was the NWS bid for DJ. That clearly showed the bears that this market is for bulls only. Anyone short any stock should take a look at a giant stock like DJ, see how it acted on the news, and then reevaluate why you are short.
A pullback would be very nice here to help setup some nice proper green bases so that stocks can blast out of them when the rally starts again. But if there is no pullback, still demand that you buy stocks coming out of great bases or are bouncing right off of the 50 dma on big volume. The longer we go without a pullback the harder it is to find a lot of perfect stocks setting up in perfect bases.
The one thing you must not do here, unless you are very experienced, is to chase momentum. That game is for the daytraders who can use leverage and get in and out of positions at lightning speed and still make a ton of money. Unless you have mastered the smooth style of a CANSLIM based system, I doubt it is worthwhile for you to try daytrading the highflyers. And the absolute thing you MUST NOT do is short the market or go short stocks in uptrends. AMZN, DNDN, DJ, and RTRSY are all good reason to not short this market.
Have a great weekend. Let’s hope that next week isn’t as jam packed with so much market moving news. I need a break. Aloha and enjoy your weekend! I will see you in the chat room. Aloha!!
Market Commentary At Big Wave Trading Bronze Level One
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
Top Holdings - Date Of Purchase
KNOL 393% - 1/12/06
TRCR 282% - 1/12
PTT 282% - 11/16
TNH 178% - 10/26
MA 171% - 8/2
TTEC 167% - 8/25
JSDA 136% - 12/20
IGLD 123% - 10/26
ANO 116% - 2/14
ULTR 111% - 10/27
HRZ 108% - 9/27
CPA 104% - 9/15
MFW 103% - 1/29
ONT 102% - 12/21
PAE 101% - 3/22
EVEP 99% - 11/16
BAM 99% - 11/17/05
HURN 79% - 9/13
KHDH 77% - 5/30
CXW 77% - 5/19
DECK 71% - 9/13
IMMU 69% - 12/19
VDSI 66% - 1/4
CNH 64% - 11/2
IMKTA 54% - 8/28
CLRT 54% - 11/30
NSH 54% - 12/19
CKSW 53% - 10/11
MNTG 52% - 11/9
LFL 52% - 12/13
Good news from the micro could not be found in the macro today. The April jobs report showed only 88,000 jobs were added this month. This was below the 100,000 expected by pundits and was the smallest increase in two years. This is another sign that the economy is starting to slow down. Unemployment ticked up to 4.5% and average hourly earnings rose .2% below expectations of .3%. This can be taken as slightly positive since it does not show rapid inflation in wages.
The good start gave way to a midday reversal that was quickly supported by the dip-buyers, possibly thanks to another fall in oil, and they proceeded to abid stocks up in a choppy fashion into the close. Oil fell $1.26 to $61.93 ending a week where crude oil fell a total of 6.8%. That obviously is good news for consumers.
At the closing bell the SP 600 led the way hitting an all-time high with a .5% gain, the NYSE followed also hitting an all-time high with a .4% gain, the Nasdaq neared 7-year highs closing with a .3% gain, and the DJIA hit an all-time high and the SP 500 came near a 7-year high gaining .2%. Growth investors had a lot to be thankful for today as the IBD 100 led for the third session in-a-row with a .8% gain.
Volume was slightly higher on the Nasdaq by about 2% and for the second day in-a-row the NYSE’s volume came in lower. That is a slight negative divergence with the NYSE hitting all-time highs the past two sessions on lighter volume. However, breadth was very positive which does put a slight positive spin on the lower volume. Advancers beat decliners by a 3-to-2 margin on the NYSE and by an 8-to-7 margin on the Nasdaq. There were a healthy amount of new 52-week highs with 609 and even though there were 66 new 52-week lows the fact that they didn’t expand on an up day is good enough.
For the week the DJIA led the way higher with a 1.1% gain, the NYSE followed with a .9% gain, the SP 500 and the SP 600 rose .8%, and the Nasdaq lagged with a .6% gain. The IBD 100 finally did something two weeks in a row that it has not done for months–lead the market. The IBD 100 gained 1.2% for the week, outpacing the DJIA by a tiny amount. However, that is not nearly as impressive as the fact that the DJIA is up 23 out of the past 26 sessions (I have not checked but I think I got that wrong yesterday) and has hit record highs in seven of the last eight sessions. The current streak of 23 up days out of 26 is one short of the record set in 1927 when it was 24 for 27. Get your “24 for 27″ rally hats on (not really–there is no need to cheer).
I have to admit, last week was one of the more exciting weeks I have been a part of in a while. I am not sure why but I believe it has to deal with the fact how confused everyone seems to be about this market. I have to admit I am not a genius to know why we are rallying. But I am smart enough to know that that is all I really need to know. While I continue to go long stocks, I still see a lot of people hesitant to buy stocks here.
I have to admit, I am, in my IRA. But in my regular accounts I am not afraid at all. There were only two stocks that I am going to have to completely sell-off yesterday due to breakdowns. One was E** (4% loss) and the other was I*** (8% loss). I scaled into INXI so that position did not hurt me and then EDS was bought so close to the 50 dma that that did not hurt me. It is hard for me to be bearish on that. But what I can take away as bearish is the fact that both of these stocks had BEAUTIFUL charts and had strong fundamentals. I have not seen such pretty charts with strong fundies breakdown like that since late February.
So how does that prove the crowd is bearish? It doesn’t. This does: The AAII survey came in with 55% bears this week which was the number seen at the July lows. There were only 29% bulls in the survey. Even though this survey is very fickle it still shows how bearish the crowd is still. If that doesn’t convince you the crowd is bearish let’s take a look at their actions.
The put/call ratio is still above the .6 area at .75. Until the number is below .6 it is hard to say that the crowd is not making bearish bets. And the biggest piece of interesting figures I could find on how investors are actually investing came from AMG. They report that mutual funds had outflows of $5.41 billion for the week ending on May 2. First quarter mutual fund inflows are down 30% from last year!! You do NOT see mutual fund outflows at the top of a market. So when people remind you that this market feels like 1999–it may in fact feel that way, but in 1999 mutual fund inflows were pouring in. It wasn’t until well after the market top that the trend reversed.
Rolling with this theme it also becomes clear that many market pundits are nervous with the rally (I am slightly in the boat–but I still go with the trend). Don Hays, Al Goldman, David Peroni, Dick Arms, James DePorre, Cody Willard, and a few others are issuing either cautious outlooks and in a few cases are starting short positions and/or taking longs off the table. This along with Seeking Alpha’s data showing that sell-side analyst have SP 500 stocks as buys at the lowest level in over ten years!!! Did you get that. The sell-siders are not telling you to buy stocks yet. When they start issuing buys and strong buys, then we probably should be worried. For now it seems everyone is doing the worrying for us.
The other incredibly bullish working thesis this market has going for it is earnings. Earnings are now coming in at a 12% YOY increase, KILLING estimates of 3.2%. This was supposed to be the first quarter in fourteen quarters that earnings grew under 10%. Well have now erased that possibility and now it is 15 quarters in-a-row of stocks showing 10% or higher YOY EPS gains. This is the greatest economic story ever and it gets absolutely NO attention paid to it by the biased media. It is shameful and disturbing that people do not even understand how incredible it is that we are about ready to have 10% gains 15 quarters in-a-row. One more quarter like this and it would be a full four years of 10% gains. INCREDIBLE to say the least.
There can be no doubt about it, last week was an eventful wild week. What a week it was with all the M&A announcements and speculations, great earnings reports, record high closes, and economic data. Of course the big story of the week was the NWS bid for DJ. That clearly showed the bears that this market is for bulls only. Anyone short any stock should take a look at a giant stock like DJ, see how it acted on the news, and then reevaluate why you are short.
A pullback would be very nice here to help setup some nice proper green bases so that stocks can blast out of them when the rally starts again. But if there is no pullback, still demand that you buy stocks coming out of great bases or are bouncing right off of the 50 dma on big volume. The longer we go without a pullback the harder it is to find a lot of perfect stocks setting up in perfect bases.
The one thing you must not do here, unless you are very experienced, is to chase momentum. That game is for the daytraders who can use leverage and get in and out of positions at lightning speed and still make a ton of money. Unless you have mastered the smooth style of a CANSLIM based system, I doubt it is worthwhile for you to try daytrading the highflyers. And the absolute thing you MUST NOT do is short the market or go short stocks in uptrends. AMZN, DNDN, DJ, and RTRSY are all good reason to not short this market.
Have a great weekend. Let’s hope that next week isn’t as jam packed with so much market moving news. I need a break. Aloha and enjoy your weekend! I will see you in the chat room. Aloha!!
Market Commentary At Big Wave Trading Bronze Level One
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
Top Holdings - Date Of Purchase
KNOL 393% - 1/12/06
TRCR 282% - 1/12
PTT 282% - 11/16
TNH 178% - 10/26
MA 171% - 8/2
TTEC 167% - 8/25
JSDA 136% - 12/20
IGLD 123% - 10/26
ANO 116% - 2/14
ULTR 111% - 10/27
HRZ 108% - 9/27
CPA 104% - 9/15
MFW 103% - 1/29
ONT 102% - 12/21
PAE 101% - 3/22
EVEP 99% - 11/16
BAM 99% - 11/17/05
HURN 79% - 9/13
KHDH 77% - 5/30
CXW 77% - 5/19
DECK 71% - 9/13
IMMU 69% - 12/19
VDSI 66% - 1/4
CNH 64% - 11/2
IMKTA 54% - 8/28
CLRT 54% - 11/30
NSH 54% - 12/19
CKSW 53% - 10/11
MNTG 52% - 11/9
LFL 52% - 12/13
Saturday, April 28, 2007
Stock Indexes Close Mixed And With Little Change, On Lower Volume; DJIA Up 19 Out Of Past 21 Sessions
Despite amazing earnings reports from BIDU, MSFT, VSEA, MFW, DV, TEX, MTD, NOV, VLCM, NTGR, and DRIV, stock indexes decided to focus on the early morning GDP report and opened flat to slightly lower. GDP growth came in at 1.3% in the most recent quarter, down from economist 1.8% expectations and a four-year low. The poor GDP reading and the fact that YOY inflation is running at 2.2% definitely had a slightly negative impact. This poor reading helped the Euro hit a record high against the US dollar. The poor numbers were enough to keep the market choppy most of the day but the DJIA still hit another all-time high.
At the close the DJIA and the Nasdaq led the way higher with .1% gains, the SP 500 finished flat, the NYSE fell .1%, the SP 600 fell .3%, and the SP 400 led the way lower with a .4% drop. Leading stocks, in the form of the IBD 100, did not lead to the upside but they did not lead to the downside either, falling .2%. A respectable showing.
The most impressive index out of the group continues to be the DJIA. The DJIA is now up 11 of the past 12 days and up 19 of the past 21 days. This is only the third time in the past 110 years that this index has closed up 19 of the past 21 days. The other two times? 1927 and 1929. How did that turn out? I think if you have done any research on your own, you know how it ends.
Volume was lower across the board, with volume coming in lower on the NYSE by about 12% and lower on the Nasdaq by about 14%. The most troubling of today’s action was breadth. Breadth was negative across the board and negative by a fair amount, despite the small gains and losses. Decliners beat advancers by a 4-to-3 margin on the NYSE and by an 8-to-5 margin on the Nasdaq. This negative divergence in breadth has been a constant theme all week long. New 52-week highs came in at only 388 but new 52-week lows were only at 68. So at least the new lows did not expand.
For the week, the DJIA and the Nasdaq led with 1.2% gains, the SP 500 and SP 400 followed with .7% gains, the SP 600 rallied .4%, and the NYSE gained .1%. The best news came from leading stocks. The IBD 100 gained 1.6% on the week, finally outpacing the broad market. This impressive week gave the indexes their fifth up week in the past six weeks and the fourth up week in-a-row. This market is clearly starting to enter a semi-crazy phase.
Despite the market not making much headways the past two days, there have been an insane amount of action in individual stocks during that time. Many stocks are gapping up and continuing to rally afterwards after reporting great earnings. Other stocks are going into climax runs which is starting to produce some substantial gains in a lot of the old leaders in metals and other steel related stocks. You can see a list of these climax runs on the Gold forums, if you are a subscriber. It is best to look at the stocks listed on an arithmetic chart going back to 2002. There you can clearly see that a lot of stocks are going on climax runs after years of strong gains. These kind of moves happen when too many people are shorting rising stocks. With the put/call still at .84 it is clear people are still betting against stocks even as they rally.
Another clear sign of out-of-control momentum can be found in China’s Shanghai index and the stocks in that index. A gold subscriber Randyy has posted an index chart and three charts of stocks clearly in parabolic rises. His charts are just as pretty as the charts in TC2007. I definitely recommend taking a look if and when you have a chance. You can clearly see it is getting down-right scary the mania that is going on in China.
The other thing about this insane rally is that the DJIA is clearly the leader now. The fact that after four plus years of gains that the DJIA is now leading clearly shows that we are near the end of this great bull market. The only positive to come with the DJIA gains is the fact that small cap stocks are still moving higher. As long as small caps and leading stocks can keep pace with the DJIA I doubt the top is going to happen tomorrow or very shortly. There is probably still plenty of time left for stocks to rally, even with the crowd getting more bullish and less bearish.
Since I go with the trend (ALWAYS) of the market, this market has been treating me very well recently as many of my top holdings representing significant portions of my account make substantial gains at this point in the rally. Still, back in 2003 when this rally started, people were bearish everywhere and I had charts breaking out of beautiful patterns on strong volume that made gains immediately. Despite being very long still, the recent buys simply don’t explode like they did when this whole thing started. The other clear thing about that rally was that everything was clicking on ALL cylinders. The only thing that was constant was the bearishness as stocks rose.
This time the crowd is very bullish and there are many warning signs that are starting to show up underneath the recent price gains. Some clear negative divergences that I am worried about are the relative strength of the Nasdaq and IBD 100 lagging well behind the SP 500, the moneystreams (technical indicator in tc2007) in the indexes are making lower highs with prices making higher highs, the amount of new 52-week highs keep decreasing on every new high in the markets (Nov-Jan-April), breadth is starting to be negative everyday even during the days when stocks rise, sentiment indicators are all bullish (realmoney, marketvane, investors intelligence, and AAII), GDP is trending down, and earnings growth is below 10% for the first time in four years. This is all troublesome. None of this existed during 2003 when this rally started.
The positive are few but still very important. The fact that the put/call is at .84 shows that the traders are still shorting this rally and the VIX is still not at new lows, despite the markets being at higher highs. There is more volatility in stocks right now which are producing better gains than the gains from August to late February. This is a positive but is typical of markets in speculative stages. This divergence however positive right now is actually bearish in the long-term as it shows the market is setting itself up for a dramatic move; that move would probably be lower, since the VIX is trending higher.
So to sum things up, this market is still trending higher and we must continue to be long here for some potential huge gains. But the fact that the DJIA is up 19 out of 21 and that hasn’t happened since 1929 is just showing you how insane this market has gotten. We are clearly in a very speculative stage and with all the breakouts I am still getting there should be more upside, but we must be ready for the eventual sell-off. When that happens it is probably going to be very ugly.
It is going to get ugly because everyone I know is long the stock market now and all the perma-bears that used to be around in all the chat rooms that I monitor are now virtually gone. There is also very few people talking about the possibility of the bubble popping. Instead I am starting to hear those famous words: it is different this time. Sure it is! Sure it is!
The one thing I want to make sure is that people that are thinking of going long DJIA stocks here should NOT move their portfolio into these stocks just because they are outperforming on the short term. Over the long-term it is clear that top stocks that breakout from sound chart patterns and that have great fundamentals via earnings, sales, ROE, and profit margin clearly outperform these stocks in the long run. Don’t forget, despite the DJIA beating the IBD 100 the past three months, since May 2, 2003 the IBD 100 index is up 164.5% compared to the SP 500’s 59.6% gain. It is clear where the big money is made: in top stocks.
There are more earnings and a lot of economic numbers coming up this week so traders are sure to have plenty of reasons to move stocks all over the place. Even though I don’t like all the negative divergences I have, as long as the trend is up I will keep riding it. Maybe the old axiom of sell in May and go away will come to fruition but until it the actual selling shows up it remains foolish to sell now. There is still a very high wall-of-worry out there for stocks to climb.
Aloha and I will see you in the chat room!!!
Market Commentary At Big Wave Trading Bronze Level One
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
Top Holdings Up This Week - Date Of Purchase
KNOL 353% - 1/12/06
TRCR 265% - 1/12
AKAM 191% - 9/30/05
TTEC 171% - 8/25
TNH 156% - 10/26
JSDA 155% - 12/20
MA 128% - 8/2
HRZ 115% - 9/27
MFW 109% - 1/29
ONT 105% - 12/21
MEH 102% - 8/30
IGLD 101% - 10/26
CPA 101% - 9/15
EVEP 98% - 11/16
ULTR 97% - 10/27
HMSY 94% - 6/23
ANO 94% - 2/14
PAE 90% - 3/22
CLRT 86% - 11/30
EPHC 85% - 12/20
LTS 85% - 1/11
BAM 83% - 11/17/05
MOS 82% - 10/12
KHDH 78% - 5/30
VDSI 72% - 1/4
CXW 71% - 5/19
PERY 65% - 10/4
CNH 64% - 11/2
DECK 62% - 9/13
IMKTA 61% - 8/28
XOMA 60% - 1/12
SLP 58% - 2/5
RKT 55% - 12/4
MNTG 55% - 11/9
TESO 51% - 2/16
At the close the DJIA and the Nasdaq led the way higher with .1% gains, the SP 500 finished flat, the NYSE fell .1%, the SP 600 fell .3%, and the SP 400 led the way lower with a .4% drop. Leading stocks, in the form of the IBD 100, did not lead to the upside but they did not lead to the downside either, falling .2%. A respectable showing.
The most impressive index out of the group continues to be the DJIA. The DJIA is now up 11 of the past 12 days and up 19 of the past 21 days. This is only the third time in the past 110 years that this index has closed up 19 of the past 21 days. The other two times? 1927 and 1929. How did that turn out? I think if you have done any research on your own, you know how it ends.
Volume was lower across the board, with volume coming in lower on the NYSE by about 12% and lower on the Nasdaq by about 14%. The most troubling of today’s action was breadth. Breadth was negative across the board and negative by a fair amount, despite the small gains and losses. Decliners beat advancers by a 4-to-3 margin on the NYSE and by an 8-to-5 margin on the Nasdaq. This negative divergence in breadth has been a constant theme all week long. New 52-week highs came in at only 388 but new 52-week lows were only at 68. So at least the new lows did not expand.
For the week, the DJIA and the Nasdaq led with 1.2% gains, the SP 500 and SP 400 followed with .7% gains, the SP 600 rallied .4%, and the NYSE gained .1%. The best news came from leading stocks. The IBD 100 gained 1.6% on the week, finally outpacing the broad market. This impressive week gave the indexes their fifth up week in the past six weeks and the fourth up week in-a-row. This market is clearly starting to enter a semi-crazy phase.
Despite the market not making much headways the past two days, there have been an insane amount of action in individual stocks during that time. Many stocks are gapping up and continuing to rally afterwards after reporting great earnings. Other stocks are going into climax runs which is starting to produce some substantial gains in a lot of the old leaders in metals and other steel related stocks. You can see a list of these climax runs on the Gold forums, if you are a subscriber. It is best to look at the stocks listed on an arithmetic chart going back to 2002. There you can clearly see that a lot of stocks are going on climax runs after years of strong gains. These kind of moves happen when too many people are shorting rising stocks. With the put/call still at .84 it is clear people are still betting against stocks even as they rally.
Another clear sign of out-of-control momentum can be found in China’s Shanghai index and the stocks in that index. A gold subscriber Randyy has posted an index chart and three charts of stocks clearly in parabolic rises. His charts are just as pretty as the charts in TC2007. I definitely recommend taking a look if and when you have a chance. You can clearly see it is getting down-right scary the mania that is going on in China.
The other thing about this insane rally is that the DJIA is clearly the leader now. The fact that after four plus years of gains that the DJIA is now leading clearly shows that we are near the end of this great bull market. The only positive to come with the DJIA gains is the fact that small cap stocks are still moving higher. As long as small caps and leading stocks can keep pace with the DJIA I doubt the top is going to happen tomorrow or very shortly. There is probably still plenty of time left for stocks to rally, even with the crowd getting more bullish and less bearish.
Since I go with the trend (ALWAYS) of the market, this market has been treating me very well recently as many of my top holdings representing significant portions of my account make substantial gains at this point in the rally. Still, back in 2003 when this rally started, people were bearish everywhere and I had charts breaking out of beautiful patterns on strong volume that made gains immediately. Despite being very long still, the recent buys simply don’t explode like they did when this whole thing started. The other clear thing about that rally was that everything was clicking on ALL cylinders. The only thing that was constant was the bearishness as stocks rose.
This time the crowd is very bullish and there are many warning signs that are starting to show up underneath the recent price gains. Some clear negative divergences that I am worried about are the relative strength of the Nasdaq and IBD 100 lagging well behind the SP 500, the moneystreams (technical indicator in tc2007) in the indexes are making lower highs with prices making higher highs, the amount of new 52-week highs keep decreasing on every new high in the markets (Nov-Jan-April), breadth is starting to be negative everyday even during the days when stocks rise, sentiment indicators are all bullish (realmoney, marketvane, investors intelligence, and AAII), GDP is trending down, and earnings growth is below 10% for the first time in four years. This is all troublesome. None of this existed during 2003 when this rally started.
The positive are few but still very important. The fact that the put/call is at .84 shows that the traders are still shorting this rally and the VIX is still not at new lows, despite the markets being at higher highs. There is more volatility in stocks right now which are producing better gains than the gains from August to late February. This is a positive but is typical of markets in speculative stages. This divergence however positive right now is actually bearish in the long-term as it shows the market is setting itself up for a dramatic move; that move would probably be lower, since the VIX is trending higher.
So to sum things up, this market is still trending higher and we must continue to be long here for some potential huge gains. But the fact that the DJIA is up 19 out of 21 and that hasn’t happened since 1929 is just showing you how insane this market has gotten. We are clearly in a very speculative stage and with all the breakouts I am still getting there should be more upside, but we must be ready for the eventual sell-off. When that happens it is probably going to be very ugly.
It is going to get ugly because everyone I know is long the stock market now and all the perma-bears that used to be around in all the chat rooms that I monitor are now virtually gone. There is also very few people talking about the possibility of the bubble popping. Instead I am starting to hear those famous words: it is different this time. Sure it is! Sure it is!
The one thing I want to make sure is that people that are thinking of going long DJIA stocks here should NOT move their portfolio into these stocks just because they are outperforming on the short term. Over the long-term it is clear that top stocks that breakout from sound chart patterns and that have great fundamentals via earnings, sales, ROE, and profit margin clearly outperform these stocks in the long run. Don’t forget, despite the DJIA beating the IBD 100 the past three months, since May 2, 2003 the IBD 100 index is up 164.5% compared to the SP 500’s 59.6% gain. It is clear where the big money is made: in top stocks.
There are more earnings and a lot of economic numbers coming up this week so traders are sure to have plenty of reasons to move stocks all over the place. Even though I don’t like all the negative divergences I have, as long as the trend is up I will keep riding it. Maybe the old axiom of sell in May and go away will come to fruition but until it the actual selling shows up it remains foolish to sell now. There is still a very high wall-of-worry out there for stocks to climb.
Aloha and I will see you in the chat room!!!
Market Commentary At Big Wave Trading Bronze Level One
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
Top Holdings Up This Week - Date Of Purchase
KNOL 353% - 1/12/06
TRCR 265% - 1/12
AKAM 191% - 9/30/05
TTEC 171% - 8/25
TNH 156% - 10/26
JSDA 155% - 12/20
MA 128% - 8/2
HRZ 115% - 9/27
MFW 109% - 1/29
ONT 105% - 12/21
MEH 102% - 8/30
IGLD 101% - 10/26
CPA 101% - 9/15
EVEP 98% - 11/16
ULTR 97% - 10/27
HMSY 94% - 6/23
ANO 94% - 2/14
PAE 90% - 3/22
CLRT 86% - 11/30
EPHC 85% - 12/20
LTS 85% - 1/11
BAM 83% - 11/17/05
MOS 82% - 10/12
KHDH 78% - 5/30
VDSI 72% - 1/4
CXW 71% - 5/19
PERY 65% - 10/4
CNH 64% - 11/2
DECK 62% - 9/13
IMKTA 61% - 8/28
XOMA 60% - 1/12
SLP 58% - 2/5
RKT 55% - 12/4
MNTG 55% - 11/9
TESO 51% - 2/16
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