Archive for the 'Charts' Category

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Gee, it sure felt like Monday

Published on July 6, 2010, 10:03 pm in Charts and Trading. Closed Tags: , , , .

Last week, the indexes fell on average 5%. Discretionary consumer stocks, industrials, and financials were hit hardest, which pretty much put the S&P’s 50-day moving average to cross below the 200-day moving average….or the “famous” Death-Cross. Whenever a shorter moving average crosses below a longer moving average, well, the bear is back.

Last night it looked like the bear had it well under control, but by this morning, the bulls were back. For the first couple of hours, it even looked like we would have a trend-day-up. Oil led the stock markets up. But, the bulls couldn’t get their act together and began to waiver at noon, and spent the rest of the day snorting: What the $%@&*!

The S&P ended closing right where it opened, creating another doji day or another indecisive day.

Remember that at the close on Wednesday some inverse, or bearish, ETFs will undergo a 5-to-1 reverse split: ERY, DRV, TZA, and TYP. That is, if you own 500 shares of TZA Wednesday night, you will own 100 shares of TZA at a higher price…specifically 5 times the closing price….on Thursday morning.

So watch it! Happy trading :!:

Not very festive

Published on July 2, 2010, 9:10 pm in Charts and Trading. Closed Tags: , , , , .

It looked like we could have closed in the green just 5 minutes before the cash close. But bam! The bears gave the bulls a big F U and the ES quickly dove 10 points in as many minutes…and kept going for another 10 minutes into the futures close.

“Death Cross” is upon us…. Y’know when the 50-day moving average crosses below the 200-day moving average. They are at the same place right now, but one more down day will send us well below. The last time this bear signal happened was Dec. 2007…. and you do remember what happened the next 15 months, don’t you? You get the picture. But y’know, everybody is talking about it…even the TV talking heads….too much. Since everyone is talking and expecting it, maybe it won’t happen this time….or will it?

The Nasdaq has 10 down days in a row. I think this may be a first. It had 9 straight red days back in 1994. Since we broke the record it may be time for an up day.

Overall it was a very odd day – stocks down, VIX down, bonds down, dollar down, oil down – just about every asset class. So there is a lot of figuring out to do. We do have a good thing about to happen…..Congress is going on break….and when they are not in session, the markets go up. So I’m thinking next week is an up week. :mrgreen:

And if not, at least it will be a short week. Have a wonderful weekend.

Bad News Bears

Published on June 30, 2010, 10:19 pm in Charts and Trading. Closed Tags: , , , , , .

Bad news for sure! I think we have fallen enough from the highs to be in an official bear market now. :-(

The SPY, along with the S&P, confirmed a head ‘n shoulders pattern by breaking through the neckline.

Oh my!

Check out some of these other shenanigans: TSLA after being up $8 for the day, closes in the red; DNDN after closing about 4% in the red ($32.22) continued to dive after hours, trading at about $25; Oil is running down and BP is running up…What the $%@&*!

This evening, China PMI came in below expectations, so futures are in the toilet, at least for now. The bear is back! When a market opens higher and closes near or at the lows…THAT is classic bear market price action. :!:

Our one salvation is to see what the European reports come in like. I think I’ll go and by some firecrackers for the weekend. :twisted:

This could hurt

Published on June 28, 2010, 11:35 pm in Charts, Opinions and Trading. Closed Tags: .

Well, today didn’t go the way I thought…or wanted. The bulls really dropped the ball as they had some good news and good technical setups but didn’t have any energy to gore the market. On the other hand, the bears had an opportunity to rip out the bull’s heart, but they failed also! Look, we ended with another candle just like Friday…although this was also a bearish engulfing candle, small, but engulfing.

If the bulls don’t show some determination on Tuesday, I’d say the market is done for. I’m hoping that this week traders will get some patriotism running through their veins and get the market waving the old red, white and blue. Let’s run that up the pole and see if it flies!

Let’s ride a bull

Published on June 27, 2010, 10:55 pm in Charts, Opinions and Trading. Closed Tags: , , , .

The news from the G20 meeting sounds encouraging and oil looks like it wishes to be a leader. But the weekly S&P chart put in an ugly bearish engulfing pattern.

The daily chart though, looks like it poked out a bottom on Friday and may want to try the green side of the market for at least a few days.

The week prior to a holiday is usually bullish, so we have that seasonal advantage working for the bulls. Next Monday the markets will be closed for the 4th of July holiday, but this Friday morning we have the always fun and wild monthly employment report. So the markets will be fun again this week. Be careful and happy trading!

4 in a row with no relief!

Published on June 24, 2010, 7:29 pm in Charts and Trading. Closed Tags: , , , .

In my 10+ years of trading, it has never been tougher than trading this week. Both banks and oil led us down. Banks kept us down while oil looks like it’s trying to recover. The only thing I traded today was ES, the S&P emini. Looking over the trades, not one was more than 5 minutes and several were under 120 seconds in duration! Oh my! Sure it was a down day, but all my trades were long.

Check this out….you would think we would go a lot lower with a VIX of 349!!

Sure it’s a bad tick, but I thought I’d grab a picture of it just to remember. :)

The TRIN again closed high at 2.99. Remember what I said a couple days ago when the TRIN closed at 3.82…The Arms Index says: TRIN close over 2.0 results in bounce next day 9 times out of 10. No bounce? Market in trouble…..and we got NO bounce…and yes we’re in trouble.

So we’re down 4 days in a row. A 3 or 4% correction is no big whoop, but that is assuming tomorrow the markets get back on track and show some bullishness. If not, the bear is back and we may be on our way to some new lows.

Looked scary for a while

Published on June 21, 2010, 10:28 pm in Charts, reading and Trading. Closed Tags: , , , , .

I didn’t like that move today…a 200 point range on the Dow…and closing near where it opened. Yes, another Doji day (open and close nearly identical) for the Dow. That’s four in a row. The Dow ran up and kissed its 50ma and then retracted for the rest of the day. But y’know, it wasn’t panicky, it wasn’t fast and it wasn’t with any large volume. So we closed right about where we closed on Friday. No big deal really! Tomorrow will say more….unless of course we close at the same place again.

The S&P candle is uglier than the Dow, a big bearish engulfing candlestick, but it still held 1110, its 200-day moving average. We haven’t given anything back since we bounced off 1050 two weeks ago.

Oil almost made it to $80. I unloaded some UCO, but as it turns out I should have unloaded it all. I’m still looking for a nudge of $83 or around the 200-day moving average, but I don’t know how fast that will happen. I guess we need to breakthrough the 50ma before hoping for that.

While I’m hoping for that (remember, hope rhymes with dope), here’s something to look over:

See you in the market! 8)

What a week!

Published on June 18, 2010, 10:11 pm in Charts, Opinions and Trading. 1 Comment Tags: , , .

After a month of building a base and trying to get back above the 200ma, the S&P has spent 4 days above it but staying close by….maybe building the next base. The 3 doji days each closed just a little bit higher than the previous one. I wouldn’t mind a fast trip to the 50ma.

Ok, so I’m bullish, but I have this one seasonal problem….we have not had an up week after June options expiration since 1998! That may work against me. :cry:

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 ! ! !

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!