Filtering Wall Street

800 Posts

2007-06-30T08:00:00.000-04:00

And I'm out of here - everyone have a great life.Marlyn Trades

Cross Overs Are The Key

2007-06-10T07:18:00.000-04:00

If your chart doesn't show the 4, 8 and 21 EMA then go fix it - I'll wait. We'll get to the reason why in a little while.I have spent an inordinate amount of time over the past several weeks looking for something that I've already found - the best method to swing trade stocks when you are working is the cross over pattern. Put your stop (mental or actual) below the candle that crossed and let

Taking Advantage

2007-06-09T06:54:00.000-04:00

Trading is about taking advantage of any edge you can find. We were given a gift this week and I hope some of you took advantage of it.The gift was three down days in a row. And solid down days they were too. After the third day the up/down ratio sat at 17% and when it gets that low everyone knows that the market is oversold to a fault. The second thing that everyone should know is that the

I'm Sorry

2007-06-08T17:58:00.000-04:00

I think I owe all of the happy holders of GOOG a big apology and that guy I ripped up last month for buying GOOG for all of his clients - I apologize from the bottom of my - wait a minute - let's look at this from a technical perspective. I present GOOG -and, as you can see there was a big ol' cross over on 5/16 and I don't know how many times I've written about cross overs on this site but I do

Buying In a Market Boom

2007-06-03T08:28:00.000-04:00

The most difficult thing in the world is to trade during market booms - yes you can day trade and be successful as long as you stay within the constraints of a few hours. But the trading community is so skitterish during market run-ups that they are ready to sell and buy (in that order) anything on just about any news.I wrote this on stockbee awhile back (I still like that guy) and it was so

Leaving The BLog Up

2007-05-22T17:50:00.000-04:00

Yes indeed - for as long as blogger permits.

The Last Wrap

2007-05-21T16:00:00.000-04:00

As they say - all good things must come to an end and most bad ones too. I've been putting this off for a few days and I can no longer delay the inevitable. When I retired I never stopped working I just did some other things such as trading full time. I've made a living trading on a daily basis, I've learned over the several years that I've done it how to do it. In the beginning I made every

NR 7

2007-05-20T16:38:00.000-04:00

The NR 7 is a very potent candlestick - what NR 7 means is narrowest bar in last 7. And that means that the trading community will probably change directions on the next bar.Here is SAI from Friday -Many of the packages on the market that will observe intraday candles will pick out the NR 7 candle for you and send you an alert. For that reason those particular packages are probably worth their

That's Strange

2007-05-20T09:58:00.001-04:00

I just noticed that comments are not turned on for the post "Is Technical Analysis Worthwhile?" - I don't know why that is or how to correct it - so if you want to comment to that post - comment here

Testing - Composite Cross Over II

2007-05-20T09:34:00.000-04:00

In the previous post I combined linear regression slope with the cross over filter to see what would happen. Recently stockfetcher added fundamental analysis features to their filtering capabilities and I tried combining Beta with the cross over filter v6.Beta is the amount the stocks price varies from a baseline index. If the price has more momentum than the baseline then beta is greater than 1

Testing - Composite Cross Over

2007-05-20T09:21:00.000-04:00

Many times I like to add some complexity to my simpler filters to see what would happen if...Today I was looking at the cross over filter v6. That looks like this -show stocks where close is between 15 and 35and average volume(90) > 500000and open < ema(21)and open < ema(8)and open < ema(4)and close > ema(21)and close > ema(4)and close > ema(8)and close > openand close 3 days ago < ema(21)and

Is Technical Analysis Worthwhile?

2007-05-20T07:46:00.000-04:00

As we've already noted in this BLog the global answer to that question is - oh hell no - but, and there is always a "but" - any trader who is making a living at trading who can't look at three candlesticks and "guess" the direction of the market for the next three candlesticks with at least 65% accuracy isn't going to continue making money. And 65% accuracy is better than "guessing" and 65%

To Each His Own

2007-05-19T11:04:00.000-04:00

TradingMarkets is a source of a lot of trading ideas. Here's one that was published this morning in Yahoo Finance. The premise of the article is that you should wait at least 15 minutes after the opening before day trading and that is always a good idea. Now I don't think I would just willy-nilly throw money at a stock as is suggested but if after the first 15 minutes it was bouncing off the S1

Here Come The Homies

2007-05-19T10:21:00.000-04:00

The other day we had the economic report regarding the lowest number of building permits being issued in 17 years. I said - that's the bottom - apparently a lot of hedge funds read me because -XHB That's the homie sector ETF and, yes that's a cross over. What I like about this cross over and I don't like about the one several days ago on 05/09 is that this one was preceded by a BOB formation too.

Comparing Data Streams

2007-05-19T09:48:00.000-04:00

I don't know whether you like ratio charts like this - I don't. That's because I'm kind of a dull boy and I can never understand them as well as I should at first glance - in other words - I have to interpret what they are trying to tell me before I understand what they are trying to tell me and in the end I'm no more informed than at the beginning. Because - truthfully - the fact that DIA:IWM is

Wrapping Friday

2007-05-19T07:58:00.000-04:00

A little late but it is the weekend and no blood no foul. I didn't observe the market yesterday on my usual, up-to-the-minute basis but I can say this - it wasn't pretty. Only the small caps showed any real spirit. The roller coaster ride yesterday just yields chop chop and that will chop chop a trader's account to pieces. I find yesterday's small cap trace most interesting - is it possible

Easy Swing Trading - The ETFs

2007-05-18T08:16:00.000-04:00

Exchange Traded Funds (ETF) are yet another way in which you can swing trade - either by trading the funds themselves or, by going into the funds and trading the components after a weekly cross over.Here are a few of the SPDRs which are probably the best sector funds to watch -Energy - XLE You can pick out the cross overs for yourself - you can see - once you get the cross over in most instances

Easy Swing Trading - The Filter

2007-05-18T07:23:00.000-04:00

I wrote a filter that will help find weekly cross overs. It is pretty simple and seems to work - at least to the point of getting candidates. After that you are pretty much on your own - the weekly filters don't back test well in stockfetcher.show stocks where close is between 15 and 35and average volume(90) > 500000and weekly open < weekly ema(21)and weekly open < weekly ema(8)and weekly open <

Easy Swing Trading

2007-05-18T06:36:00.000-04:00

The best way to select stocks for a swing trade that will last a couple of weeks is to use the weekly charts and watch for cross overs. Here is an example - NTRIYou can see that there were two on this chart - the effect lasted for several weeks each time - and you would have made a couple of dollars on each trade.Of course you could have a farm - GIFIWith 10 events in 4 years - every couple of

Wrapping Thursday

2007-05-17T18:45:00.000-04:00

Played golf again today and am planning to play again tomorrow. Can't shake the spring fever and sitting behind a computer screen all day is not the cure.And then there were two - I'm down to GGB and JNPR and I will stay in this holding pattern for awhile longer. The model portfolio lost again today to 16.60 and the benchmark printed 7.77. But the IBD Top Ten actually gained a bit to finish at -

ATR Testing

2007-05-17T06:29:00.000-04:00

We've covered some of this before but I like to revisit favorite themes every now and again to ensure that new readers have a chance to understand what we do here.Today I'll discuss the advantage of using the average true range which I use as a 10-period averaged value or, ATR(10). I have reasons for using the 10-period - first it is the one most commonly defaulted on the various software

A Good Day Trade Method

2007-05-17T03:22:00.000-04:00

I've always liked the counter trade where the stock opens and then begins dropping and then reverses. For years I played this based on tweezer bottoms, 15-minute BOB's and other indicators - many of which were good, some not so good. But the best way that I have found to play the counter trade is with pivot points.Here is BGG as an exampleAt 11 A.M. BGG dropped through the S1 point (green on my

A New Way to Look at RSI(2) and ATR(10)

2007-05-16T18:26:00.000-04:00

This was the lead paragraph of today’s economic blockbuster - Home building posted a small gain in April, but permits for future construction plunged by the largest amount in 17 years, a sign the nation's housing industry is still in a deep slump.When is the best time to buy something? I’ll give you a hint “buy low - sell high.” That’s right – when it is hitting record lows and it is something

Wednesday Wraps

2007-05-16T12:34:00.000-04:00

I think I'll just burn it from now on - absolutely nothing takes - I get on board and it goes up 20 cents and then bang - crash - smash - gone to hell. It's part of the general malaise of the season - that and hay fever run amok. Fortunately my burn rate is small and I'm making more than I'm losing. Blessed steel - it made Andrew Carnegie and now it is making me.The headline excuse for this

Summertime and the Living is Easy

2007-05-16T09:53:00.000-04:00

I have the worst case of spring fever ever known to man both physically in all of its manifestations and mentally and spiritually. Consequently it is taking just about every ounce of effort I can muster to post anything - even though I love it so.That said here is an education in a chart. Listen and learn.As normal I haven't a clue what this company does or how well they do it - all I see is

Wrapping Tuesday

2007-05-15T18:20:00.000-04:00

I went out to play golf - much better use of my time - of course my holdings all went to hell as a result. But that's the price you pay. If we don't get some recovery tomorrow I might be completely in cash by this time tomorrow evening.I detailed all my trades this morning so I won't recap them here. I'll just go to the numbers.The INDU ATR went up to 95.80 today which permits the rally to

Tuesday Morning

2007-05-15T09:57:00.000-04:00

Can't fool the market - at least not the NASDAQ - watch them tech shares go down. The other thing that was going down was BGG and I should have sold it out two days ago on the hanging man on 5/11 but I didn't. Arrogant fool that I am I believed - so much for believing. I sold most of it and am keeping a handful of shares just in case it might resume the march. I still don't trust this market

The Double Cross

2007-05-15T09:25:00.000-04:00

Last week I posted this chart and I said at that time it didn't look like it was a good thing -Apparently it isn't I think I'll wait for the next cross over.

Tuesday Morning - CPI Day - HooRay! HooRay!

2007-05-15T08:40:00.000-04:00

I don't know what to say about this - it hit the expected target but the "12-month rate is lowest in a year" - that's good news and good news and the FOREX market said -Which is about a benign as you can get in the face of the CPI announcement. The NASDAQ market began pulling up instantly and the futures fair value indicator went green. We might have a good day after all.

IBD Top 10 Part II

2007-05-15T08:15:00.000-04:00

Bullish Jim put a good comment on the first post in this series and it is worth your effort to take a look. And now. as Paul Harvey says, for the rest of the news.I went through the 10 charts and made an astounding discovery - every one of these signaled its current break out via a crossover of one kind or another. Most were clearcut, a couple were the "candletrick" kind that I wrote about

IBD Top 10

2007-05-15T05:30:00.000-04:00

Wandering around the YHOO financial site yesterday evening and I came across an article regarding the IBD Top 10 stocks. I'm always interested in such things and so I took a look and found these ten stocks listed.ARGNAZZBTJBWLDCYNOEDUGSOLMTOXSYNLTNHNow it is possible that I missed the memo because I don't normally read the IBD propaganda but looking at the charts for each of these stocks led me

Wrapping Monday

2007-05-14T15:59:00.000-04:00

What a boring day. The market is waiting for the CPI data - the market already knows that there will be inflation in it so why it is waiting I don't know but that's the headline story so it's what we'll go with. Maybe there will be a CPI surprise but I doubt it - I smell inflation in the air. But if it comes in .0001% less than the expected then watch out above. To business - I bought and sold

Looking At A Couple Of New Stocks

2007-05-14T08:43:00.000-04:00

I've got two on the radar this morning. Both are from the Industrial Metals and Minerals group as found on the Leading and Laggard site from Yahoo Finance.The first of these is USU which has a nice pivot point profile -and the second is ANO which is a real cheapie but also with a nice profile -And I intend to take a position in both of these today.

Basing

2007-05-13T10:17:00.000-04:00

A reader, Tom, just reminded me of another post I've been meaning to write and just haven't gotten around to - the concept of "basing". I'll start right in with the controversy - there is no such thing as "basing" because it can't be defined, quantified or otherwise measured. The only way a person can know if a stock was "basing" is after the fact. Here is a picture of INTC - pick out bases -

Supply and Demand

2007-05-13T09:31:00.000-04:00

I just read an article in Seeking Alpha by a guy who will never manage any of my cash.Google: Believe It or Not, The Stock Looks Cheap He says - I have been warming up to shares of Google (GOOG) more and more as of late because the stock has been dead money while the company's impressive growth continues. The result of that dichotomy has been a share price that is getting more reasonable on a

I Like This Guy

2007-05-12T08:00:00.000-04:00

I'm adding a new BLog to my list. I don't have many and those that I do have I visit frequently because I find them interesting, encouraging, educational and many times - fun.I have taken several BLogs off my list - sometimes the BLog authors are just wannabe Cramer's and send out 5 or 10 new stock picks every day and that's just stupid. Others become so impressed with their own selves that

Short QID or Long QLD?

2007-05-12T06:03:00.000-04:00

A reader wrote (a long time ago) asking my opinion regarding whether it was better to short QID rather than go long QLD. I've done some thinking about this and a couple of studies and we will get to the math in a minute. The most exciting news is that Proshares seems to have worked out their problems with these two ETF's and they have established the mirror image that they are supposed to

AV - A Trading Lesson

2007-05-11T17:46:00.000-04:00

Some readers wanted to know how I use QuoteTracker in my daily activities so given that a picture is worth a thousand words I present AV on the 15-minute charts. I filtered AV out the other day on a new, simple minded filter called 12 to 18 and rising which is looking for stocks that fall in the 12 to 18 price range and are rising over time. It was a good trade and when I find a good trade I tend

Friday Wraps

2007-05-11T16:19:00.000-04:00

OMGIF! A nice recovery was had by all and right off the bat I want to show you something you might have missed. Here is the INDU over the past two days - can anyone spot the common feature?That's right - both days began with a cross over! Yesterday the cross over said - "going down" - today it said - "going up". Could anything be more obvious?I sold KNOT for a small profit, a bit more than a

From The You Can't Make This Crap Up Dept - II

2007-05-11T11:56:00.000-04:00

My pal Bullish Jim finally sold his GOOG holdings this morning. Apparently the boss man over at the company said they would never split and Jim figured out that they really didn't have the shareholders interests at heart.But I have to ask - how in the world could anyone possibly sell this wonderful stock with articles such as this being pumped out of Jimmy Crack Corn Pone's rag -Google Coils for

QT Code for BOB and Cross Over

2007-05-11T06:22:00.000-04:00

A new reader asked for some code so here it is - once more I make no representations of this information - you use it at your own risk. I provide no guarantees - this is NOT an invitation to speculate in the stock market.BOBIf bar low[1] < bar low[2] AND volume[1] > volume[2] AND bar open[1] >= bar close[1] AND bar open[2] >= bar close[2] AND bar low >= bar low[1] AND bar close > bar open AND

Thursday Wraps

2007-05-10T19:06:00.000-04:00

How about that! The ATR < 80 works again. The only question left is will the market continue down tomorrow? And we'll get to that presently - first business.I went and played golf. But before I left I sold everything but GGB and BGG and in fact I added to both of them and they are now both at 80% of a full position. GGB remains profitable and BGG is currently losing 6 bucks - total - but I own

From The You Can't Make This Crap Up Dept

2007-05-10T10:42:00.000-04:00

Yahoo says -The outlook for consumer spending in the coming months grew dimmer Thursday after big retailers stumbled in April, their sales hurt by rising gasoline prices and the weak housing market.Oh wait - they did make that up.What - not the weather? Ahhh - the weather caused the housing slowdown which caused the retail slowdown, stupid, stupid seasonality - it.just.isn't.right. How about

Sara Lee 3Q Profit Nearly Triples

2007-05-10T09:59:00.000-04:00

Just one of those days.

This is Just Knot Right

2007-05-10T09:08:00.000-04:00

KNOT reported a major loss for Q1 last night and I'm still holding. Well you play earnings roulette and that's what happens - sometimes you get the number and sometimes it gets you. Fortunately it is very few shares so the shock won't be that great to the portfolio. I'll probably keep this one around since the amount isn't that much and maybe over the next few months it will come back.I should

Wednesday Wraps

2007-05-09T15:46:00.000-04:00

I had a good day and I hope you did too. Kind of hard not to the way the market is flowing. The Fed announcement caused a little froth not much more than that. I was watching the Forex screens and they told me all I needed to know quickly. I.E. - the market was going to resume its climb. I added to AKS on a pullback just before the Fed announcement. Apparently the traders liked what they heard

Wednesday Mid Day

2007-05-09T12:08:00.000-04:00

Waiting for the Fed to pronounce - pretty sure it will be "still concerned about inflation" as well it should be. They have the keys to that truck - just stop printing money and inflation goes away. I'm staying busy though - added to AKS and that is turning out to be a smart move. Added to BGG even though it didn't pull back and that is turning out to be a smart move. Added to AV and that is

More Cross Over Charts

2007-05-09T07:30:00.000-04:00

GE printed three cross overs in the past three months - one was profitable, one wasn't and one was a break even.Cross over 1 (X-over 1) was almost an instant failure. I don't like buying into a gap down that continues down as happened on 2/15. I would have passed this cross over as should you.Cross over 2 (X-over 2) became profitable but then collapsed. That hanging man on 3/26 indicates an exit

Some Cross Overs

2007-05-08T17:11:00.000-04:00

Here is a double cross -I have no idea of the significance of this but I don't think it is good. HANS is an extremely volatile stock but this is ridiculous. I'm going to want to watch this for a bit to see which way it goes.Here is HANS on a 3-day 30-minute version. I'm showing you this because there is a cross over on the second day of this chart in the 2:30 bar. This crossover follows through

Wrapping Tuesday

2007-05-08T16:37:00.000-04:00

It was a down day - well for most of the day anyway. The few points off the DOW INDU is nothing to be concerned with - although the bobbleheads on bubblevision will probably try to make it a crisis. Nothing goes down during 401K week. Next week - different story.You'll have to look it up - but two days after I sell my AKS holdings it pops on a takeover report. It looks valid but you never know.

Keeping it Simple Revisited

2007-05-08T13:20:00.000-04:00

One of my readers dropped a comment about a neat little filter I wrote a few months back based on something I read over at Larry Connor's site. The filter was simple as can be and the reader said that he was making good use of it. So, in the interests of fairness - here it is again -show stocks where close is between 15 and 35and average volume(90) > 500000and close reached a new 10 day lowand

Taking Some Time Off

2007-05-06T07:13:00.000-04:00

Taking a few days off - see you again Tuesday with the Wrap.

Sector Rotation

2007-05-05T14:39:00.000-04:00

Some folks are trying to suggest that traders should start looking at sector rotation about now because some of the mainstays appear ready to drop. I just spent some quality time with the SPDRs (Standard and Poors Depository Receipts) or the market ETFs. If you don't have a Candle-glance setup with the 9 SPDR charts on it along with some indicator such as slow stochastics you are probably not

StockFetcher Setup

2007-05-05T05:50:00.000-04:00

I use a certain configuration in my back testing. It is not unique to the test but closely matches my own trading style and methods.First when I trade I try not to have more than 4 stocks in play at any one time - I prefer to have a lot of shares of a winner than a few shares of a winner and a few shares of several losers. And realistically - they all can't be winners - you've all seen that I

Friday Wraps

2007-05-04T17:04:00.000-04:00

TGIF - even us retired guys like weekends. The market was up again but that was expected – today the 401K money started coming into the market and by law it has to be invested. So by cracky they began buying overpriced crap and made it even more overpriced.I had an uneventful day. I sold off just about everything and am about to sell off the rest. I’m still holding GGB (through earnings which

Cross Over Re-Test

2007-05-04T08:35:00.000-04:00

I ran several re-tests on the cross over filter (Cross Over v6) and here are the results -This is a 4-month stepped re-test beginning last October and completing yesterday. You can see that the win percentage remains relatively stable regardless of market conditions and the ROI remains fairly high as does the reward/risk factor. This is also a good long term (30 days) filter.The charts from the

Re-Testing BOB

2007-05-04T06:54:00.000-04:00

We've been discussing BOB a lot on this site and on Bullish Jim's and Jim has even provided some modifications which we've adopted. At any rate every so often I re-test my filters against the most recent period and compare them to the previous period tested. This is done to ensure that I’m using the most efficient filters in my toolbox for the current market conditions. Here are the results of

Disclaimer

2007-05-04T05:44:00.000-04:00

Every few months I feel the need to write a brief to introduce myself and say what I'm about. What I am is the promulgator of Rule 1 and Rule 1 is - Nobody knows nothing - including me.I say that frequently - especially after I've had a big win - having a big win does not make you better, nicer, prettier, or even smarter than anyone else - it just makes you a little better off than you were

Wrapping Thursday

2007-05-03T18:29:00.000-04:00

I don't know where all the liquidity is coming from - it's a day or two too early for the 401K money which usually takes 3 days from the 1st of the month to make the transition (even in the digital age). So I haven't got a clue. Normally I would expect a couple of breather days and then a few boom days but this is somewhat ridiculous. Oh well, whatever - I'm taking advantage of it as you should

Another 2-Hour Chart

2007-05-03T12:02:00.000-04:00

Here's yet another example of what you can do with 2-hour charts - Again it is AKS but what I wanted to show you was a simple three-pronged set-up.What you see here is an RSI(2) < 2 coupled with a tweezer bottom (the black diamond below the third candle informs that formation) coupled with an S1 pivot point.Note that a purchase on the tweezer bottom candle - say at the cross over on the S1 at

Two Hours For Fun and Profit

2007-05-03T11:08:00.000-04:00

If you really want to see what your planned purchase or sale is doing bring up a 20-day view of the 2-hour charts. I've written about these before but I have a couple of new readers and they may not appreciate the concept of using multiple time scales to inform trading. (Now before anyone writes in to correct me - I know that there aren't 4 2-hour periods in a trading day - there are 3 2-hour

Thursday Morning

2007-05-03T09:57:00.000-04:00

There is nothing more disheartening than watching one of your favorite holdings put 60 cents on right off the bat then give up over half of that in the next 15 minutes. I can not figure out why that happens. No matter - I added to AKS anyway on the pullback and now it looks like it is going to try to reclaim the lost ground.I put HST into the portfolio - one of the stocks that I mentioned in an

Thursday Pre-Market

2007-05-03T07:34:00.000-04:00

The Yahoo Finance site is calling for a "soft" day and up until a little while ago I might have agreed. But now the futures are up and so is Europe so I don't know. I think it might be a quiet day.The trouble with a day like yesterday is that it always throws off a ton of good looking prospects. I looked at a couple of charts and these might be some to put on a watch list and if you see any

Wrapping Wednesday

2007-05-02T15:11:00.000-04:00

Well I guess that's what happened - up through R2 and drift sideways to the close. AKS did well today. I'm still not sure whether I'm going to hold GGB through earnings or not. At least it went up today which is different from the last couple of days. I hate dumping stocks that are first - going up into earnings and second - in a sector where more companies are doing well than not. I think US

Wednesday Morning

2007-05-02T10:07:00.000-04:00

Don't like the market - wait a day. Today will probably be a reverse of yesterday - boom up in the morning - hit the ceiling - drift into the close. I added to AKS and started a new position at the open (swing trade) in BGG off a cross over filter. So far I am pretty pleased. I also put a day trade in on AV (a cheap stock). I am not pleased with that one but at least it is going in the right

Wrapping Tuesday

2007-05-01T18:42:00.000-04:00

Interesting day - even though the market wanted to sell off it couldn't because too many stocks were already sold - remember last night's up/down ratio. The up/down ratio is the key to the following day especially when it is printing below 40. Before I left to play golf I bought back a portion of AKS (25%) and it went up from where I bought it at the bottom of the day. I'm still holding a half

Tuesday Morning

2007-05-01T10:01:00.000-04:00

Another crappy day in the making - no sense in fighting the tape - I sold off DISCA and now I'm going to call the gang and see if I can get up a game of golf - See you in the Wrap.UPDATE - Watched AKS get clipped another half a buck and sold off all my shares - preserve profits - do not let a short term reversal take your profit away. But 'em back when they hit the bottom - and if you know your

Wrapping Monday

2007-04-30T15:52:00.000-04:00

Somebody pulled the plug and let all of the liquidity flow out of the market at about 2 P.M. - I know my trading portfolio was affected and I'm sure most people took a hit or two. Not sure what it was all about but the Q's dropped through S2 all the way to S3 and if 4 P.M. didn't come they might be falling still. I'm going with the "profit-taking" theme which is as good as any. Although why

Here We Go Again

2007-04-30T11:39:00.000-04:00

Anyone who thought we might get a respite from the range bound madness that is overcoming the markets - take a lookBoring - I'll put an update in the Wrap. We'll see how many times it makes that 15 cent roundtrip.I did take a huge profit from JST this A.M. - thanks Bullish Jim but I won't be joining you in IN.I did grab some DISCA this morning off my new day trade finder (close = high). That's

Stumbling Around

2007-04-30T06:54:00.000-04:00

Well I stumbled upon a new method to find potential day trades. It isn't completed yet but I'm going to throw it out here and see if any of you guys want to work with it a bit and come up with some solutions.This is as simple as it gets - for your favorite price range and average volume simply look for stocks where the "Close equals High of day".That's all there is to it and here is what it

CandleTricks - II

2007-04-29T15:50:00.000-04:00

When I first learned candlestick analysis I learned this nifty little trick that I want to share with you. It is an important tool to add to your tool box because it will help you make sense of nonsense.First we have the monthly chart of the DIA over a long period of time.Had you seen that cross over that I circled you would have put all of your money on this ETF and lived happily ever after.

The ATR Advantage

2007-04-29T07:04:00.000-04:00

Which is better a high average true range (ATR) or a low one? The answer - it depends on the circumstances. If you are going to day trade and you have two stocks where everything else is equal and you only want to be involved with one of them for whatever reason - pick the one with the highest ATR on the minute-basis you are playing (ATR varies with time scale). You do this because you want the

Speaking of Fun

2007-04-28T09:52:00.000-04:00

All work and no play makes Jack but not much else. I enjoy trading, I enjoy the hunt for a good stock, I like the very act of putting on the trade, I enjoy the wins when they come and I love ringing the cash register on a good trade. But when I relax I like to gamble (as does the Bride).Over my many years I have played and mastered most of the casino games - at least mastered to the point where

BOB - We Have A Leader In The Clubhouse

2007-04-28T07:36:00.000-04:00

I won't say "winner" because that would imply that the contest is over and done and nothing more can change and that it is finished. It will never be finished - the quest is never ending - but we do have a modification to BOB that I'm going to adapt. Bullish Jim discovered it and you will have to read about that here and I suggest you read Jim's BLog frequently. There are two kinds of

Wrapping Friday

2007-04-27T15:50:00.000-04:00

Another record. That's nuts. Now we go into the new month (well technically still one day left in this one) and the new money comes into the market. We've had some crazy moves today - it was raining most of the day so I couldn't get outside much and spent the day glued to my screens. Just as well - I had a couple of opportunities and I took advantage of them. I bought DPTR off a cross over

Interesting Day

2007-04-27T14:31:00.000-04:00

Seeing is believing - I don't know why this works this way except that everyone uses pivot points and so it makes sense to buy and sell in a channel such as this.We've got a little BOB along with some tweezer bottom action and Brett Steenbarger's Bull Bar at 13:15. But it can't break the pivot point barrier. If someone told you that the Q's were stuck in a 14 cent range today would you have

Some Mods To BOB

2007-04-27T09:51:00.000-04:00

When I first began this BLog I did it with one purpose in mind - to share my ideas regarding filters with the general public in the hopes that it would stimulate others to begin thinking about these things and to start looking at new ways of looking at the market.I think I'm succeeding. Recently I've had several comments directed at possible modifications to the basic BOB and I listen to

Return To 4

2007-04-27T07:26:00.000-04:00

One of my tools is the Return to 4 (RT4) method which I use in gap-up situations to inform a day trade. It looks like this -Even though I call it the Return to 4 the price could actually drop through to the 8 or to the 21 - the method remains the same. In order to know that you have the real thing you must see the rebound candle and buy off the top of that. In the chart above and below that is

Cross Over - Reverse English

2007-04-27T07:05:00.000-04:00

I mentioned the other night that the cross over method can also be used to short the market - here are a couple of examples -About 12:45 you can see the crossover clearly. It didn't net much but this is just an example of how it works.This is DNDN and this shows where I should have sold the stock on Wednesday morning rather than waiting for it to hit the stop loss. The 5th bar in shows the

Lessons From the Model Portfolio

2007-04-27T06:00:00.000-04:00

These are the stocks that I selected the morning of February 28th to put into my model portfolio along with the base price and the price as of Tuesday and the gain/loss since the simulated acquisition.Needless to say there are only a couple of "contest winners" but all in all a nice set of winners (with one loser - to date). Considering that these were all plucked out of thin air based on a "

Wrapping Thursday

2007-04-26T17:59:00.000-04:00

Pretty mild day all told. I bought the KMX as I said I would - we'll see how that works out. Still holding AKS, a small position in GGB and JST and for the first time in a long time all my holdings lost money today. I did get to play golf and that was good. The model portfolio lost money today and closed at 16.20% but the benchmark surged ahead and hit 6.60 a .17% gain. The INDU ATR dropped

Thursday - Not Expecting Much

2007-04-26T09:46:00.000-04:00

Weak opening - and if you think a gap up on the Q's means anything wait awhile - Thursday is the best day for gap closing both ways. I was correct regarding DNDN and the probability of a jump up which I felt was nil - it jumped down instead and hit the stop - oh well - good riddance - I hate biocrappa anyway. Looks like we're going to get that down day that I've been looking for - SPY is

Cross Over - The Filter

2007-04-26T04:43:00.000-04:00

I have been working on the Cross Over filter for several years and I think I might have finally found one that is everything I look for in a filter - good short term and excellent swing trade potential rolled up into one common package. Here is the filter -show stocks where close is between 15 and 35and average volume(90) > 500000and open < ema(21)and open < ema(8)and open < ema(4)and close >

Simple Methods - The Cross Over

2007-04-26T02:17:00.000-04:00

Simple methods that are price-based are the best. While waiting for one moving average to cross another moving average, or worse yet a system of moving averages such as the MACD to get involved, you will miss a lot of a move. For long term traders this is not necessarily bad - for swing traders it means significantly lost profit.That is one of the reasons why I like using indicators such as a

Wednesday Wrapper

2007-04-25T16:14:00.000-04:00

Another! Record! Day! - I've covered this in my earlier post regarding volatility so let's get to business - it's hard not to make money as long as you dump the weak ones and put good ones in their place. I did that today - I dumped KEP after expecting it to go up on a record in Korea last night and it didn't and that's what you get for buying a stock with a 37 cent ATR. Keep that in mind when

Volatility Is King

2007-04-25T15:51:00.000-04:00

Long time readers know that I hold the average true range as the key to volatility. Any other so-called volatility such as the VIX, VXN, or VXO are pretenders in my humble opinion. Long time readers also know that whenever I make a bold statement I try to back it up with evidence - here is the evidence -You can see where the ATR was during the "bubble" of the 90's. It began below 600 (monthly

Tuesday Wraps

2007-04-24T16:28:00.000-04:00

Another pitiful day. I made money but only because I held AKS though earnings. Of course the fact that it was booming for the past 5 days or so and announced another early pension trust fund contribution on Monday didn't hurt my cause. In fact - if you are thinking about holding a stock through earnings those are the kinds of things to look for. AKS also guided higher so I believe I can hold it

The Blow-Off Bottom or BOB

2007-04-24T12:37:00.001-04:00

I like to do a post on the BOB about once a quarter so that new readers won't have to search through the posts (I'm bad at organization) looking for the details. I'd like to say that I "invented" the blow-off bottom (BOB) but that would be totally inaccurate - BOB was always there - all I did was find a particular formation and then describe some rules that could be coded into filtering software

I Get Questions

2007-04-24T12:37:00.000-04:00

Jørgen said:I've been trying to develop an rsi(2) swing trading system now for a while, perhaps some of my findings could be useful to you and I hope you might have some suggestions to how I can improve it.Buy criteria:rsi(2) < 5 and volume(not average volume) > 150000Sell criteria:when rsi(3) crosses over rsi(5)Annual ROI from this hypothetical system depends on what the buyprice/sellprice are.

Tuesday Pre-Market

2007-04-24T07:49:00.000-04:00

The USDJPY is suggesting an upward trajectory to the day - probably not a good day for day trading - one shot up and then drifting.Based on some material I read on Notable Calls I'm going to take a position (not day trade) in DNDN. Looks like it might have a winner coming.Read your notable calls - more good ideas there than in any ten BLogs that I can think of.UPDATE - Yeah - one shot up and

Wraps Monday

2007-04-23T15:59:00.000-04:00

Stocks Drop on Rising Oil PricesYou betcha they did - rising oil prices and no volatility and no liquidity and nothing to buy - oh my - oh my.Still holding AKS and GGB and one went up and the other stayed about the same. Dropped AMAT - actually it hit a very close stop that I put in place because I didn't like the action and I was correct - see I don't need to sell them - I just put my stop up

It Might Be A Good Week

2007-04-23T07:35:00.000-04:00

The Weekly BOB filter has a whole bunch of good candidates for this week and I'll just give you the top 5 of 26 (by volume) SBUXDHIPALMNDEBPOPTwo of these BPOP and DHI already announced earnings on the 19th. SBUX is coming up on the 3rd of May, PALM isn't until June, and NDE is announcing on the 26th.None of these appear to be bad on the daily charts but do your own due diligence.This is not an

A New Approach

2007-04-22T15:49:00.000-04:00

It was too nice a weekend to sit and update the old BLog so I hope you all did something special with family and friends as did I.But while I was enjoying the weather and continuing my quest to get my veggie garden ready I came up with a new idea. Some months ago I showed you all a filter that captured stocks when the MACD first crossed below the 0 line rather than waiting for it to reappear in

Friday Wrappers

2007-04-20T16:12:00.000-04:00

Wow! - I've said it before I'll say it again - when the up/down ratio drops below 35 look out above.The money just keeps rolling in - the model portfolio is up to 14.08% and the benchmark is printing 5.74%. My trading portfolio is doing very well too. It currently contains GGB, AKS, AMAT, and the new kid - ANR. I think I'm late to the dance on ANR I should have picked up on it about 6 weeks ago

Anything Is Possible

2007-04-20T09:19:00.000-04:00

In the Google Zone - or the "thank God GOOG made some money" rally. As I wrote yesterday the fear was so thick you could cut it with a knife - and fear goes both ways - fear that GOOG misses and you lose a hundred bucks just - like - that and fear that GOOG excels and you miss out on a hundred buck rally just - like - that.Fact is nothing really happened - GOOG opened up 19 and is currently at 16

Friday Pre-Market

2007-04-20T08:43:00.000-04:00

You don't need me to tell you that we're going to have a positive day on the street. Between the oversold reading as provided by the up/down ratio, the volatility of the ATR reading on the DOW and GOOG's surprise (not really but some people think it was) the market, as a whole has no where to go but up.The only fly in the ointment is this -That side-stepping is not encouraging in the least.As

Thursday Wraps

2007-04-19T17:00:00.000-04:00

These are the times that try men's souls. A good morning dropping into a bad afternoon. As usual there are a couple of neat things to look at today - but first - business. The KNOT is untied - I just became so frustrated with the fact that the traders in this stock want it to go down rather than up that I said to hell with it and dumped 'em all at cost. Lost a couple of commissions but it was

Lenny Re Revisited

2007-04-19T14:48:00.000-04:00

Well now he's a hero - he escaped this time - AMGN gapped up this morning and now the calls he is long are worth 8.60 and he is 10.5K to the good on his trade. Wow! Hard way to make a buck. Good Trading Lenny! Can't wait to follow you on your next suicide mission. Hope it comes out as well.

GOOG Reports

2007-04-19T12:16:00.000-04:00

GOOG reports tonight and you can almost smell the fear -Based on the fear meter reading (that little doji forming up today is a "fear meter" btw) I'm thinking that GOOG not only hits the number plus a buck, it also forecasts 40% growth going forward (for just this quarter) and guarantees a 90 dollar dividend and announces a plan for a zillion share buyback. GOOG will be 550 by this time

Thursday Morning

2007-04-19T10:22:00.000-04:00

Added to AKS because it was showing an oversold condition (RSI(2) < 2) along with the SPY this morning. Eventually I'll be up to a full load on that one. I began looking at other steel companies and the ones that have reported to now are all talking high profits (which is known) and guiding higher ahead which is what causes the market to react. As a result, unless something else happens, I'm