Monthly Archive for June, 2010

Page 3 of 3

A move in the right direction

Published on June 10, 2010, 10:54 pm in Charts and Trading. 1 Comment Tags: , .

We had the same king of morning action as yesterday, but the afternoon was completely different as the markets continued going up after lunch. And looking at this chart of the S&P, just look at the size of those candlesticks the last 3 weeks, all within a fairly wide channel.

And if you follow advance/decline volumes, the NYSE had a positive +40:1 advancing volume. I guess that’s dwarfed by the recent -124:1 declining volume, but that just reflects these long candles in both directions.

The S&P is coming up on its 20 day MA and then the 200dma, which also happens to be the top of the channel, so that’s a lot of resistance to break through and may take several attempts. In the mean time we can just trade the channel up and down.

A funny I saw on StockTwits today:

BREAKING NEWS!!! BP stops the leak! they put a giant wedding ring around it and all of a sudden it just stopped putting out ! ! !

Oooooh, my head!

Published on June 10, 2010, 7:50 am in Opinions and Trading. Closed Tags: .

I didn’t trade much on Wednesday….too busy celebrating my birthday. And today I pay for it. 8)

Looking at the charts, it was an ugly day with a big reversal in the afternoon. Futures are looking good this morning, but then again, they looked good yesterday morning also.

One reminder for you: Equity Indices – TF, ES, NQ, and YM roll today, Thursday the 10th, from the June 2010 contract to the September 2010 contract. The month code for September is ‘U’. There is still trading in the June contract, but you should see greater volume in the September by the end of the day.

Oooh my head…..Happy Trading!

Let’s kick some ass!

Published on June 8, 2010, 10:32 pm in Opinions and Trading. Closed Tags: , , , .

If our president can say it on national TV, I can say it on my measily little blog. :lol:

A strange day indeed. The big-caps had a strong day, with the S&P and Dow finishing well into the green. But the small-caps and high-beta stocks were in the red, i.e., the Nasdaq and the Russell 2000. Even though some of the indexes closed red, none had a late day selloff. The RUT and Naz both fought hard to get back to breakeven, which is quite different behavior than the recent closes.

So can the up move continue? Looking at the chart we seem to be in a range here that goes back to January/February…a channel for the S&P of 1050 to 1100. So the first thing we have to do is reach the top of the channel. That would be a nice 50 point move.

Then we can see if we can break back out once we get back to 1100….but it looks like just getting there may be a rough ride. :twisted:

A Slow Bleed

Published on June 7, 2010, 9:47 pm in Trading. Closed Tags: , .

Futures were way down Sunday night, but by the time I awoke on Monday morning all seemed to have corrected itself. Wrong! The morning started off decently, but soon the markets just started slicing me up…and they bled down all day. I was looking for a woosh down and a recovery. But no, it was torture. 8O

Tonight, futures are going up…almost up 1% in the early evening. Now to see what it can do tomorrow…Turnaround Tuesday?

Since it’s all been about the euro the past couple weeks, are you Ready for a Positive Euro Surprise?

Advance/Decline and PIGSHIT!

Published on June 6, 2010, 8:07 pm in Charts, Opinions and Trading. Closed Tags: , .

The Advance/Decline volume was amazing on Friday….just look at that number…-124:1. You don’t see that very often :!: And the TRIN got up pretty high also: 13.53 at the close, it was even higher during the day. Take a look at this chart.

Now the TRIN I take with a grain of salt. It does not seem to be as accurate since the advent of reverse ETFs. But, according to the book The Arms Index, a TRIN close over 2.0 results in a bounce the next day 9 times out of 10. No bounce? Markets are in trouble. My gut says we’re in trouble. :-(

The newest acronym I found this weekend? the PIGSHIT economies – Portugal, Italy, Greece, Spain, Hungary, Ireland, Turkey. Now, doesn’t that say it all!

Weekend reading 6/5/10

Published on June 5, 2010, 10:19 am in Opinions. Closed Tags: , , .

In between doing all those weekend chores, sports TV, family functions and preparing for another week of trading, here’s some reading material to get you thinking….

F’ugly

Published on June 4, 2010, 11:00 pm in Charts and Trading. Closed Tags: , , , , .

If you’re the kinda person that reads this blog it’s not news to you that the markets were F’ugly on Friday. If you haven’t heard that then you can catch up here Dow drops 324 points as euro sinks or here U.S. Stocks Tumble as Job Growth Trails Forecasts. I just made some notes on the charts I looked at after the close:

On Thursday, the Nasdaq rose penetrating its 20-day moving average and pushing toward its next objective, the top of the resistance zone at around 2,325. But today happened instead and the Naz went speedily back under its 200-day moving average. It’s been hanging around there for more than 2 weeks. It just may need to gestate for a little while longer.

The Russell 2000 looks a bit better because it looks like it’s just basing between the 20 and 200 moving averages. It did close lower than its May closing low, but still has a while to get down to its February lows.

The S&P and Dow have been meandering under their 200ma for a couple of weeks. Both are getting pretty close to violating their February low closes. All the indexes, along with many individual stocks, have ugly evening star candlestick formations.

We still need confirmation of the candlesticks on Monday to see if we continue lower. News events over the weekend will control Sunday night futures trading…which in turn will affect the cash markets. I’d sure like to see oil pickup some and the US dollar to dwindle some, but I’ll play ‘em like I see ‘em. Have a great weekend!

Someday….

Published on June 3, 2010, 9:11 pm in Opinions and Trading. Closed Tags: , .

…It will be nice to trade stocks, for stocks sake, rather than having to trade based on the euro, or oil, or the dollar, or jobs, or news….or whatever! Whether you’re a fundemental or technical trader, the markets have been overly influenced by more than just how individual companies are doing. Sure all that news is important and reactive, but please, now the company doesn’t matter anymore, it’s just what the euro is doing.

OK, I digress….finally, the S&P and other indexes had two, yes 2, up days in a row…haven’t seen that since April 28 and 29. Amazing! What do ya think? Can we make it three?

Of course we also had lower volume as everybody waits for the Non Farm Payroll report on Friday. Anything under a half a million and we may have an ugly day. The best would be that the unemployment percentage went down, maybe 9.5%. But, with many people without unemployment insurance now, they may be returning to the pool. Today showed that retailers had a much better month than everyone expected, so maybe tomorrow we see that employment is better than expected.

Sleep tight!

We’re on our way!

Published on June 2, 2010, 10:10 pm in Trading. Closed Tags: , , , , , .

Dow up almost 500 points off the lows and S&P is 60 points up, all in 5 days. Sure it’s been an up and down, zigzag road, but do you think we’ve seen the bottom of this correction?

The Advance/Decline volumes were big today, much bigger than yesterday’s down volume: Naz +8:1 NYSE +18:1 RUT +11:1 All US stocks +10:1 yeah baby! The TICK stayed above the -400 line most of the day, dipping down just occasionally. And futures this evening and Asian markets are acting nicely. Euro moving up and US$ moving down….C’mon Europe you can do it!

Lotsa news on Thursday….before the open we have ADP Employment Change, Productivity-Revision, Unit Labor Costs, Initial Claims and Continuing Claims. As if that wasn’t enough we get Factory Orders and ISM Services after the open. Will there be enough good news out of all that to have a confirmation day? The Dow and S&P haven’t strung 2 up days together since April!

OK bulls, you better pull this off tomorrow :mrgreen:

I hate when that happens

Published on June 1, 2010, 11:13 pm in Trading. Closed Tags: , , .

The Dow has had only 5 up days since May 4th. This is 3rd-worst post-Memorial Day in S&P history. After last 7 times the S&P lost more than 1% on a post-Memorial Day, the S&P was up 6 of 7 times the next two days.

Looks like the double-dip recession is a self-fulfilling prophecy. We’ve had good and bad news reported for a couple of weeks, but it looks like traders only hear the bad. Lots of reports coming out the rest of the week, with the biggie on Friday. We’ll have to see the reaction.

DRYS looks like it may have run aground. The China PMI report hurt DRYS, but since I already played this a couple of weeks ago, and I still hold some long-term calls, I thought I’d pick up some more of the stock at these low prices. I’ll give it about a 15 cent leash which would stop it out a few pennies below the May lows. This article gives me some hope: DryShips – A Contrarian Stock That Could Offer Lucrative Returns As Global Economy Recovers

Here’s to a good trading day on Wednesday!