Big Wave Trading Portfolio Update And Top Current Holdings

Aloha everyone. The Big Wave Trading model is in a mixed variety of signals, with the Nasdaq currently under a BUY signal, the SP500 and Russell 2000 are under a NEUTRAL signal, and the DJIA is under a SELL signal. It is not too often you will see us under all three signals at once but here we are. Overall, the market does have the “feel” of a market that is ready to launch higher. The reasoning behind this is our analysis of leading stocks, leading industry groups, speculative stocks, and the technical condition of the overall market. Right now, things look really good for a continuation in prices in the uptrending direction. We are basically fully invested here, with only a small hedge working in the SDOW. This position will be closed out, obviously, if we switch back to a NEUTRAL or BUY signal in the Dow. We are not fully invested based on what we believe or think the market will do. We are fully invested because so many leading stocks have triggered legitimate buy signals that we have utilized all our capital. Do you know what year it was the last time I was all out of cash to deploy in the market? 2003. So the thinking is that based on past analysis the rest of the year should be solid. Still, do you think we will not sell EVERYTHING if the market tells us to? You know we will. If the market reverses, sell limits or hit, or our big winners reverse on huge volume, trust me we will not waste any time running to the exits and reversing our positions to the short side via leveraged ETFs. At Big Wave Trading the most important thing is to be prepared for everything. Nothing in life is ever guaranteed. Shock events and black swans show up all the time. However, we would like to point out a correlation between the current market and that 2003 market that remains my best trading period ever in my life. In 2003 we went into Iraq. Now it is 2013 and we are going into Syria. Is history repeating itself again? Probably not. But it sure is rhyming. Have a wonderful upcoming week. I wish you all the best. Aloha from Maui. TOP CURRENT HOLDINGS – PERCENT GAIN – DATE OF SIGNAL CAMP long – 202% – 4/26/12 WAGE long – 145% – 1/8/13 FLT long – 132% – 9/6/12 POWR long – 123% – 12/11/12 HEES long – 103% – 9/4/12 INSM long – 102% – 4/19/13 MEI long – 92% – 4/10/13 ADUS long – 81% – 4/22/13 LGF long – 54% – 4/19/13 WDC long – 48% – 1/9/13 GMCR long – 46% – 4/23/13 CHUY long – 42% – 1/10/13 TRLA long – 38% – 6/28/13 V long – 37% – 8/31/12 ADS long – 37% – 12/11/12 OCN long – 37% – 5/8/13 DDD long – 35% – 4/30/13 CCF long – 34% – 6/28/13 WST long – 34% – 1/22/13 LOCK long – 33% – 5/20/13 BEAV long – 31% – 3/5/13

Syria Headline Clips Gains; NASDAQ Shines as Volume Rises

Another day and another missed shot at a bona fide follow-through day. However, given the volume surge in the NASDAQ and its ability to clear/hold yesterday’s high things are brighter than they may seem. The Fed’s Beige Book release did little to stock movement, but now with the focus on data it appears the Beige Book has been left in the dust. All eyes continue to drift towards Friday’s job report and continue to ignore what they should be paying attention to. It is clear the NASDAQ has and continues to be the clear winner amongst the major market averages. While we didn’t get a true follow-through day today is much more positive than meets the eye. Anything is possible and with a lot of headline headwinds many will be fearful of what may or may not happen. Sure we can get a rush of sellers completely wiping out gains over the past two days, but we are missing one key component: our crystal ball. No one knows the future and we can only trade the now. While we still have a short-term downtrend it is looking more likely this market pulls out of the recent trend and resume moving higher. Volume has been above average the past few days with solid gains, not something we have been accustomed too. Stick with the process regardless of what your opinion is. We all know cutting losses and riding your winners is a staple of trend following. Ignoring these rules is hazardous to your trading. Another rule when broken that is even worse is not taking your signals. Ignored Entries/Exits over time will erode your performance greatly. Imagine losing your biggest winners over a course of the year…you’ll notice you will significantly lag the market. Not taking an entry signal and missing on potential gains is just as important as taking an exit signal. Failure to do so will end up costing you in the long run. Ride your winners and enjoy the ride.

Stocks Fall Hard in Heavy Trade; Homebuilders Rally

A slew of positive economic data helped bolster the case for the Federal Reserve to taper its money printing scheme. Apologies, taper the quantitative easing program. The S&P 500 blew by a key level we had been watching in heavy trade as well as the NASDAQ. Leading the market to the downside were small cap stocks with the Russell 2000 falling 1.93% on the session. On the positive side, a better than expected homebuilder sentiment drove housing stocks higher in heavy volume. Volatility jumped as the fear trade kicked into gear one day ahead of options expiry. A nasty day of selling ahead of options expiry and pushing our uptrend out of the way. It is important to obey your trend following rules. Did you have a stock break through a key moving average, channel, or ATR stop? Whatever your sell rules are you must obey them. Ignore them at your peril. No one knows whether or not today was a buy-the-dip-day or the start of something more sinister. Do not ignore your rules. The S&P 500 did drop below 1680 in heavy trade leading us to believe we are likely to see the major index to test its 50 day moving average. For the NASDAQ, to see its 50 day moving average will take a bit more effort by sellers. Over the next couple of trading session how each index reacts to its 50 day moving average will be a key indicator how we proceed forward. Keep your focus on price action and the market will guide you. Sentiment continues to favor the bull camp, but has come in week over week. Bulls did drop on the AAII survey with Bears inching up a bit. However, bulls still sit at 35% while bears sit at 28%. NAAIM sentiment saw a dip in bullishness due to more bearish bets being placed on the market. We have yet to see extreme sentiment, but perhaps this is apart of the “new normal.” Either way; price rules our actions and everything else is a cocktail conversation. Stick to your rules and with Big Wave Trading.

Another Hindenburg sighting; Europe Emerges from Recession

Its official European nations are out of recession as GDP rises above expectations. The news did very little for US stock futures and neither did Mortgage Applications which fell 4.7% week over week. Homebuilders once again were weak on the session and continue to look very weak. Buyers kept to the sidelines today with the market drifting in a range all day long. Keeping the market from pulling back further was AAPL as the stock punched through $500 or what was known earlier this year as the generational bottom. We continue to move sideways in this market digesting July’s gains and we remain patient studying price. Another Hindenburg sighting was made today making it the 6th time in 8 days (Business Insider and Zerohedge confirmed) the magical formula for predicting crashes has shown up. The omen doesn’t have a perfect track record by any stretch of the imagination, but it did show up in similar fashion in 2007 and 2000 prior to those bear markets. Can we reasonably guess the same will occur? No. We’ll simply follow price action and let it dictate our next move. Key levels on the downside are 1680 and on the upside is 1710. If we do see this market plunge through 1680 in heavy trade we may have something to the downside. Until then we are sticking with our plan. Here are the Hindenburg Omens: http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user3303/imageroot/2013/08/20130814_Hind.png Homebuilding stocks continue to take a beating and today was not an exception. ITB and XHB are in downtrends and continue to act weak. Both ETFs are signaling more lows and if buyers do not step up here homebuilders are at risk of a steep decline. Probabilities say a modest decline is certainly likely. In the same boat, but further down the stream are JNK and HYG. High Yield tends to run alongside equities, but not since May. HYG and JNK continue to show weakness in the High Yield space calling into question if we are about to see some trouble in High Yield land. As the 10 year moves higher the ability for questionable borrowing will simply become more difficult to obtain. Perhaps another “omen” for this market, but we’ll need to see further evidence. Will the Hindenburg turn into something real this time around? Stay tuned.

AAPL Jumps on Icahn News; Lifts markets

A less than stellar retail sales report couldn’t keep the market down today. Volume jumped over Monday’s super light trading volume. It isn’t a surprise to see Tuesday volume higher than Monday, but nice to see where the market reverses its early morning losses. The story today was Icahn announcing his position in AAPL. Begs the question, didn’t Ackman do the same thing with his HLF? And the reason Icahn went long HLF? Certainly doesn’t matter to us, but seeing hypocrisy in this world isn’t very hard to find. At the end of the day the push in AAPL gave a big boost to the NASDAQ. Another solid day for the market and our uptrend and we are going to continue to stick with the trend. It is truly amazing to continue to see people fight this trend we have been in since November 16th. Sure, at the end of 2012 the market was shaky. Had you paid attention to leading stocks you would have likely ignored the noise coming from the Fiscal Cliff discussions. While DC may not have solved all the issues it was enough to help propel this market to new highs set recently. The moral of the story is to stay with price and forget everything else. At the moment it appears the market is digesting July’s gains quite well. Yes, we do have some distribution in the market. However, the distribution days are far from being devastating. On the flip side we continue to see leading stocks acting strong. In what kind of market would you have leading stocks acting weak? One nearing a correction is this answer. This may change over the course of days or weeks, but what we have now is a normal uptrend. Stick with the trend and Big Wave Trading. Obey the cardinal rule of cutting losses and riding your winners.

NASDAQ Books Gains in Quiet Session

The dog days of summer hit the market with volume dropping to the lowest levels since early July. Early morning lows were met with buyers, but for the S&P 500 and the Dow couldn’t muster gains. Over at the NASDAQ and Russell 2000 were able to grab gains. Not much in the way of economic data to get the market to dive one way or another. Our uptrend remains despite the number of distribution on the NASDAQ and the S&P 500. While it is easy to make excuses and say we should be cautious, but there isn’t a way to know whether or not we have topped. We will continue to push forward and use price as our guide. Market leaders continue to act well in this market environment. It is nice to see market leaders continue to hold up well despite the number of distribution days we see. Sure, next month we’ll see a confluence of events that may or may not trip up this market. However, we aren’t there yet and guessing how the market will react to any kind of event is a fools’ game. We have price and what we know at this point in time is this market does not want to go down. If we do see major cracks in market leaders and further major distribution we’ll change our tune. Until then we’ll continue to push forward. There are plenty of people writing and bloviating about what will happen with the Fed through the end of this year. Will Big Ben taper or not? Is the next Fed chairman Yellen or Summers? We can debate how Fed policy has completely destroyed the cost of savings devastating those living off interest including pension funds. However, this is simply policy debate and should not be mixed with trading the markets. It doesn’t matter to use if the Fed will taper or if the next Fed chairman is Yellen or Summers. We’ll stick with price and leave the rest of the nonsense to others. Cut those losses short and ride your winners!

Stocks Find Strength at the Morning Lows Closed just off the Highs of the Session

After the recent bout with selling the market was able to find buyers pushing the market higher as volume swelled. Whether or not it was managers trying to get in their trades prior to leaving the Hamptons or Shore doesn’t really matter. Expanding volume as price moves higher is generally a good thing. Just after 10:30 AM EDT it appeared as if sellers were winning the day and would extend the trading losses. However, the market was able to find buyers willing to step up and scoop up shares. We did not hit new highs today, but the action was certainly bullish enough to suggest we may have another new high. Stick with the trend. Sentiment indicators crept towards the bullish tint, but not in huge waves. AAII Bull increased to 39.5% from 34.62% last week. Bears jumped too from 25% to 26.65%. Clearly more of the crowd edged towards a bullish stance week over week. However, we aren’t seeing extremes where Bulls exceed 50% and bears are well under 20%. NAAIM sentiment survey showed rose slightly from 74% to 75% invested. This move doesn’t exactly scream over exuberance from money managers putting money to work. Again, price action certainly hasn’t suggested we are at a top and even sentiment hasn’t suggested we’ve hit one either. Market leaders continue to act well in this environment despite a few mishaps with earnings: GMCR and SCTY. Even GMCR which reacted poorly to stop didn’t end the session in terrible fashion. TSLA performed well after earnings and continues to be a leader. PCLN reported today and is jumping nicely in after-hours trading at the moment. If you stick with market leaders and stay disciplined you can reach outsized gains. It takes following the methodology and not making reckless decisions. Many will still try and call a market top here. They may be right about this market and we’ll go lower. However, what we know right now is we remain in an uptrend and we are going to stick by our process. There is no need to be a hero and turn into a zero. Longevity is the name of the game and we are here to build long-term success. Have a great weekend.