Wrapping Thursday

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 be and let the devil take the hindmost. Once again - take what the market gives you and don't fight the tape neither up nor down.

I'm still holding a position in AKS, BGG, and GBB. I'm also holding HST and AV. The only one that was a disappointment today was HST but I expect that one to get back on track during the next week or so. Once the 401K money starts coming into the market the funds will start buying it back as it is one of the beloved stocks. How do I know that? - Simple - I just look at how much the 'toot's held in the last quarter and that was 98.8% of the float - that means that they sold a ton of it off when the earnings announcement came out several days ago and now they are in the process of buying it back again. That's how the game is played - supply and demand - good stocks are always in demand and the supply is always small.

The model portfolio went up .73% to 16.04% and the benchmark beat it for the first time ever by going up .81% to 7.09% - go benchmark - The model portfolio still has a bunch of alpha.

The three amigos were all over the map - GOOG made 7+ bucks today and MSFT made another 30 cents or so. Truth be known - if I could bank on MSFT making 30 cents a day from now on I would own a lot of MSFT. AAPL returned all of one penny to its loyal followers - yes - that's one cent - 100 shares gets you to the dollar menu at Mickey D's you lucky dog you. They are still not participating with all of the spirit that I would expect in any kind of stock market rally so I say the rally is soft.

The VIX is still in neutral but the up/down ratio dropped to 53.98% which it can do even in an up market - in other words a lot of stocks went down today even in the face of rising indices. The INDU ATR printed 98.17 and that is down a bit from yesterday but the rally will continue on that good news.

This guy remains split -


but leaning towards an up day. And even though I haven't got a snowball's chance in hell of calling tomorrow correctly - I'm still going with an up day. That's right - 401K money comes in and the market goes up.

The coin says ... heads - also calling for an up day.

Well we both missed again so the score is now Marlyn 29 - 29 and 12 and the coin is 33 - 25 and 12.

CandleTricks - II

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. What cross over, you ask? Why, this one, I reply -


You see - you can combine 'sticks to make a new stick and now the cross over becomes clear as day.

Even though I had to combine three months worth of sticks to make the cross over what else would you call it? So you see - the current rally was signaled plain as day in February, March, and April of '03. And until we get a counter signal I think it will continue.

You won't get this on any other site on the 'net folks - no where else but here.

Wrapping Friday

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 but was premature. I'm holding it through the next couple of days because I expect the market will take off again next week. I added a little to GGB and a little to AKS. GGB is about half weight now and AKS is 90%. I'm still holding JST and will give it another couple of days and if it doesn't move with the market next week - it will be gone.

Here's a story on me - I bought a couple hundred shares of MFE this morning just because I wanted some tech exposure, I like the company and it pulling back from a rise. As is my habit (for want of a better word) I put a 25-cent stop below my buy price and hardwired it into the account. I hit the transaction button and then switched to the accounts screen to ensure all was OK - I couldn't find MFE. Totally confused I went to the stop screen and still couldn't find MFE. I then switched to the execute screen and there was MFE - bought and 30 seconds later stopped out. I think the second I hit the transaction key on the stop order it triggered. Needless to say it sat right on that number for the rest of the day and closed 1 cent below it. I don't own MFE and I never will.

Here is the rest of the story on the Q's -


And isn't that a neat end to an interesting day? I don't know how to characterize this action except - wow!

The INDU ATR is down a bit to 101.44 and this guy continues to recede -


I think this means that the rally continues.

The model portfolio that I wrote about this morning lost a bit (2.31) and posted a 15.59 (ICON was the big loser on the day). The benchmark gained a few to 6.39. Still 9 points of Alpha is nothing to sneeze at.

The three amigos (winkin, blinkin, and nod) are embarrassing to say the least - MSFT broke 30 again with a 1.02 now let's see how long it can hold it - doubt it will be for long - I mean this is the stock that rang up 69% profit yesterday evening and all it can gain is 1.02. AAPL managed to pull within 8 cents of a 100 even with its 1.08 gain and GOOG resumed the fall, or the slide - whatever you want to call it.

The VIX stays in neutral which is just as well (neutral, for those who don't know the code is that region between -10 points below the 10-period moving average and 10 points above the average).

A month ago I put together (and wrote about in the BLog) what I called the "must buy" portfolio - 15 stocks that kept going up through the collapse in late March. It is now ringing up 5.22% (that's one month returns folks). I'll publish those names over the weekend. There's probably a few on there some folks would like to put in their core portfolios.

The good news is the up/down ratio is printing 39% - look out above.

For Monday I'm forecasting an up day.

Coin says tails - looking for a down day.

Coin missed, I forecast a split day with the DOW up and the COMPQ down - only got that half right so I'm giving us both a loss. The score is now Marlyn 27 - 27 and 12 and the coin is 30 - 24 and 12.

Wrapping Monday

Pretty much as expected - I did well on DNDN managed to dump out near the top for 2.65 per share - I also learned something about Philip's Set-Up which I will share with you in a different post this evening. DNDN did 78 million shares today - I wonder how many of Jimmy Crack Corn Pone's fans were seeing red as they ran to buy shares they may have once owned at a lower basis. One good thing that has come out of this - Jimmy's pronouncement did not make the stock go down. If anything it rose a tick on the word of the almighty one. That probably means that he is losing his Mojo as well as his Bull Snot "booyah". I served active 20 years and I wouldn't use that salute today because it belongs to the active combat soldier - not some useless piece of crap stock picker who never served a day in his life.

Speaking of volume the majors all did about half today - if you've ever wondered what Europe means to us then look at the volume figures on Easter Monday. And if you've ever wondered why the market trades differently in the morning vs the afternoon - Europe is the answer.

AKS didn't treat me that well today - I just don't get that stock - it goes up and then stalls and falls. To be fair it is in uncharted territory. I still haven't decided whether I'm going to hold it through earnings or not (Apr 24). If it is still going up into the date I'll hold because I like a stock rising into earnings. If it is still in a stall pattern I'll probably dump out. It is up 20.5% since February 28th and might need a rest.

I'm holding KNOT for awhile - about 10 days - or until it hits the stop loss - whichever comes first. This stock has just gone though a tremendous sell-off for absolutely no apparent reason and it might be time to buy it. Besides it owes me a few bucks and I want them back. Once I'm even we'll undo the KNOT.

I don't know how many of you noticed that AMGN - Lenny's double down nightmare - just continued to go down again today. I wonder when, if ever, he pulls the pin. And if he does, does he tell his legions of followers that he did? Based on his strategy he already needed over 14 winners to make up for his losses through Thursday - oh well - 4 days to earnings - I hope he gets a good number.

The three amigos - MSFT, AAPL, and GOOG dropped early which followed the initial market direction but then they didn't get with the program. GOOG as you know is just so much dead opportunity and has been for at least the past 6 weeks of this particular rally. Although to be fair I could go back to the beginning of the rally in November when GOOG was selling for 510 a share and say - wow did you losers miss some wonderful opportunities. But I won't - another one of Booyah Boy's 52-star back up the truck picks - still waiting for that short squeeze - Jimmy.

MSFT stays in the narrow range as does AAPL. Don't know what anyone is waiting for on that one either. Take a look at the chart - get the crash cart - it's flatlining!

What's the longest time that an RSI(2) stays below 2? About 45 minutes or three 15-minute bars worth. That's why I like that particular tell especially when it is linked to a pivot point.

OI is just drifting - I'd like to pull the pin on that one but it too is approaching earnings (4/25) and so I'll just hang on into the number. Besides at this moment I don't have anything else to do with the money. When I talk about opportunity here is what I am talking about - here is OI an old fashioned sticks and bricks company vs GOOG a modern software company. One produces real things the other produces nothing. OI broke out of a range to 18 dollars a share in November when GOOG was selling for 470 dollars a share. Let's say you sold 100 shares of GOOG at that time and converted the proceeds to buying OI - you could have bought 2600 shares of OI at a cost of 47000 dollars. Today you could sell the 2600 shares of OI for 70000 dollars (rounded). Today, if you are still holding the 100 shares of GOOG, you can sell it for 47000 dollars. That's what opportunity cost is all about. Ah - it's your money - do as you please.

I see the cult of MVIS made 2 cents today. Back up the truck, Mavis, I want to take some a dat MVIS home. Rule 1 is always in effect and if you don't know what Rule 1 is - it's simple - Nobody Knows Nothing including me. Trust no one except yourself and only when you have a bona fide set-up to support your decision. Do not ever buy a stock because you "believe" in it.

The INDU ATR dropped a little more today to 102.16. The model portfolio printed 11.965 and the benchmark hit 2.88% both up a bit.

This guy keeps rising and I'm not sure when it is going to key a drop. Of course we had another mixed day today.


The VIX is still 5% below its 10-period moving average and the up/down ratio is 44% or a tad on the over-sold side. Is it enough to move the market tomorrow - maybe - after all the 401K and IRA money is starting to flow in and it all has to go somewhere.

I'm calling tomorrow up.

The coin is calling tomorrow ... tails - down.

Another tie day - the score stands at Marlyn 24 - 24 and 10 and the coin is 26 - 22 and 10. I never paid much attention to it before but it seems to me that we are having an inordinate amount of split days this year.

NewMoMo - All Indices

The only thing I'm missing is the mid-cap. Mid-cap is the best performing class of stocks this year to date - why is that? I don't know - no one knows - it's just a fact.


What this shows is that three of the four have rolled over the top and are now heading back down which is why I'm calling for a down day on Monday. But I think because this is end of the quarter and the last week at the end of the quarter is usually pretty good (about 60 - 40 up) barring catastrophe this could be an up week overall. Friday is, after all, hedge fund manager bonus day and vacation season is upon us and 90 percent of the hedge funds out there are simple stock funds with a couple of options thrown in and so the market must go up. But first - it must go down.

Friday Wraps

Another boring day. I dumped out of AKS because I looked at its chart and I saw that it was probably as extended as it was going to get and I already had a steel company in GGB that has room to run. Then I added back on GGB this afternoon lower than where I sold it this morning. I kept the same level in NFI and I added to SOHU and STD.

For awhile there it looked as if SOHU would actually finish the day up (in my portfolio) but it couldn't hold the gains. I think that next week we will see a rebound. I am ready.

I base that thought on this chart - a weekly of the INDU -



That long tail on this weeks finish suggests that the buyers were coming out to play and it is possible that after today the dip buyers will be back in force next week - but that's not all - a blind man couldn't help but notice the white-red-white pattern on this chart. And given that the weeks of 2/18 and 2/26 were both red (sequentially) we are owed an up week. Of course the market never "owes" it just "does" so this is just a suggestion and not a certainty. There's a reason why I don't write this stuff during market hours - I'd hate to think someone thought that I actually knew something and acted on my say so. On the daily INDU the ATR continues to decline. Today it went down to 135.96. A long way to go but at least it is moving in the right direction.

This is one powerful indicator - it's refusal to break -0.005 yesterday kind of foretold today and it is still refusing to go down below -0.005. All it would have taken is another 47 cents down. But it didn't get it.



The VIX remains neutral (between 5 and -5%) so there is no indication one way or the other there.

The model portfolio is at 2.85 and the benchmark is -1.32. The model portfolio is doing very nicely and that proves if you buy low you will make money - but we already knew that.

GOOG dropped again mostly because of that lawsuit from Viacom - of course that's just a CNBC excuse - a billion dollar lawsuit does not shave $5 per share off GOOG so that was either an overrun or not the reason. I still think that GOOG is dead money. But that's easy for me to say - I don't own any and never plan on owning any. For every share there are just too many missed opportunities. AAPL and MSFT basically broke even on the day. But this is one scary chart -



There are a couple of things going on here - first today's candle is a real good indicator of a change in direction - similar to the one on 2/28. Maybe not instantly but eventually. Second - it is once again running away from its 21-EMA. Third - it keeps bumping up against 90 and not being able to go past it. It's taken four shots at it in the past 20 trading days. Right now we have a good base if you draw a line across the top of the last two white candles and that will be the breakout spot. Can it go up from there? I don't know but right now it's poised to fall.

MSFT's chart isn't much better but it stays in the range and will probably stay there until the next time the market goes down hard at which time it will find a new, and lower range.

Bullish Jim remarked this morning that SBUX jumped but I think it has to beat the high of the last Cathedral of Dead Money before it is clear - that was 6 days ago and a buck higher from where it closed today.

I was in and out of AUY so fast this morning it made my accountant spin and this too is one ugly formation -



The problem with gold miners is that they move with gold and with the market. So you can't be sure if you are going to get fair value or not. If either the market or gold goes down the miners go down - but they only go up when the market goes up. The Japanese call this candle the "evening star" which signifies sayonara Yamana-san. Actually it needs a confirmation on Monday to become an evening star - a red candle is required - but it's two-thirds of the way. I call that candle formation on 2/26 the "cross on the hill" - it is a standalone bear sign. One other neat formation on this chart is called "three gaps down." The first gap was 2/26-2/27, followed by 3/01-3/02 and then 3/02-3/03. The "three gaps down" are usually (not always, but usually) followed by an upward movement. And last, but not least is the BOB formed from 3/02 to 3/06. If the market had been in healthier shape AUY would have been in the 16's by now.

The up/down ratio is at 35% which is a good sign and about the only hope we have for Monday. I think that we are still in the woods but we need a couple of good up days so I'm calling Monday up.

The magic coin, fresh off its most recent win calls Monday ... heads - also up.

The score now stands at Marlyn 20 - 15 and 6 and the coin is 19 - 18 and 6.

One of the the things I've been watching lately is that we seem to be in a secular down trend in the markets and that is very visible on the weekly Marlyn's Curves - I'll publish this weekend with a picture of those along with a commentary as to what I think about all of that.

Tuesday Wraps

Well that was better. This indicator - NewMoMo - seems to know what it is talking about.


Who knows maybe they'll name this one after me - Marlyn's MoMo. Wouldn't that be nice.

I bought both AMMD and ACOR but ACOR proved too volatile for my tastes and I dumped out of it soon after the purchase. I increased my position in AMMD this afternoon. I also increased positions in AKS and GGB this morning early. TIE and GRA remain the same. Although I should have played TIE a little more aggressively but of all my holdings at the moment it has the highest ATR and that still has me worried a bit even though it is falling while TIE is going up. I might put a little more on it tomorrow if the ATR continues to fall.

I picked up AMMD just as it passed through Resistance 1 at 19.73. It went right up to resistance 2 and if I were day trading it that would have been where I would have sold it for a nice quarter profit. But I'd already decided to hold on to it so I did and then I added to it when it crossed R2 again. You can play the pivots high or low - high on a gap up and low on a gap down. If you don't use them you should take the time to study them and start.

The VIX dropped way down today and that too was expected but until it drops more than 10 below it's 10-period moving average we are probably going to continue going up. The INDU ATR continues to increase and note that in order to be sure we have hit the bottom it should start decreasing. It is 174 and change today and yesterday it printed 166.29.

The model portfolio is -.30 and the benchmark is -.42 and for the first time in a week we are ahead of the benchmark - not by much but every little bit helps.

The three pals all went up today and that wasn't hard but GOOG led the way at 3.77% followed by AAPL and then MSFT. GOOG hit that flat spot from 11 to 1:30 or so and then just started climbing through the rest of the afternoon.

Now for the news - the reason why the market went up today wasn't because it was completely oversold - no sir - the reason why the markets went up today was because of investors being encouraged because the "world" markets went up today. The fact that factory orders were way down had absolutely no effect but had the market gone down - that would have been blamed. Clueless - just clueless. Absolutely no mention of the fact that the Yen is cheapening thus taking some of the edge off and certainly no mention of the fact that billions of dollars started pouring into the brokerages today in the form of 401K money - no - just encouragement because the world markets started recovering. Right.

The 4 major indices that we follow all printed red/black candles in the last hour and that is a good sign. The up/down ratio however printed 73% and that isn't so good - too much exuberance.

Regardless I think we could have another up day tomorrow surely all the dip buyers aren't gone yet.

Meanwhile the coin says .... tails - thinks it will be down.

The score now stands at Marlyn 17 - 15 and 5 and the coin is 15 - 17 and 5.

The Past is Prologue

One thing I hate to hear is “this time it’s different” because no - it isn’t. It might not be exactly the same at the detail level but in the larger sense it will be the same.

Here is the DIA, the replica of the Dow Industrials -



Start at the bottom. Notice how the ATR increases and then decreases and how this somehow relates to what is going on with the prices. Expect that to happen – the ATR will increase some more and then eventually roll over and begin to decrease. Now move to the RSI – it will be extremely volatile – expect it to suggest a bottom several times in the next several weeks. But until the ATR rolls over and starts to decrease they are just head fakes. Notice that the volume will return to normal very quickly – the amount of volume we had last week is unsustainable – eventually no one is willing to sell their shares in the quantities required for such a volume spike. Note how any up weeks (a) will have longer tails than normal and when the all-clear is sounded you should have something that looks like (b) – I.E. going up right out of the box. And notice how the price should come all the way to the 90-EMA before turning back up. This last mini-correction took 11 weeks to sort out. In that 10 weeks there were three clear-cut up weeks and two DOJI weeks before it was cleared. The SPY/SPX looked pretty much the same.

Here is the IWM -



You see how it is very much like the DIA. It also hit the EMA-90 before it cleared. The elements marked “a” and “b” were exactly the same.

And finally the Q’s -



The tech took an extra week to clear and actually went down through the EMA-90 but it started from a much closer point. At any rate the same basic principles apply – low RSI several times and then an ATR roll-over. I’ve also annotated on this chart that period from November to the present where the tech market was flat - I posted about that back in December and mentioned that I was looking for a break out. What we got was a breakdown.

I’d expect another down day on Monday and then a little bit of relief for the rest of the week. The retail trade is shell shocked and not fearless so don’t expect a lot of action. But the 401K money comes in beginning Monday and it has to be put somewhere. That’s the law. Then we could have a couple of down weeks and then who knows.

Take your trading a day at a time and try not to keep one eye on the screen all the time. And if we do get an up week don’t start breathing easy until you see that ATR roll-over and start back down.

Wednesday Wraps

As dumb as it gets. Bernake, in an effort to appear a lot smarter than he is, said, "there is no one cause for yesterday's meltdown" and the market responded nicely and went up a hundred points to finish up 52 or so. Marlyn, in an effort to keep from blowing the coffee that he just drank out of his nose, gargled out a strangled, "Bull Snot"! Which caused his Bride to ask if he were OK. Marlyn then attempted to explain what an idiot Bernake is and his Bride just patted him on the head and said, there, there dear - go make us some money. Leave it to the Bride to keep things in perspective - that's why I love her so.

Girls and boys I hope you were all elbows deep today - I know I was - this was truly amazing especially the last hour or so. Everything just turned glorious and life doesn't get any better than this.

I grabbed up a couple of stocks I've been waiting for a pullback to buy - RIO and AKS first thing out of the box this morning. I got into RIO a little early but AKS came along just fine. Both in the green in my account now but it was touch and go for awhile there with RIO. I didn't mind since I'm pretty sure it is going to continue to climb for the next whatever. I'm planning on holding these two for awhile - if they continue to go up.

Also picked up GGB and that was just because it was on my list of 12 candidates. At the end of the day I added TIE to my trading portfolio.

The model portfolio that I spoke about in this morning's post gained 3.18% and SPY (the benchmark) gained 1.48%.

I didn't do any day trading today although it would have been a perfect day for it. I wanted to concentrate on getting some things in place going forward - this kind of opportunity doesn't happen only so often (according to Dr. Brett 5 times going back to '98) and you have to take advantage of the good fortune when you stumble on to it or it stumbles on to you.

I did watch the market though and I tried to learn everything I could about the day after chaos that was possible to learn. That's how you stay prepared learn something new every day. Another thing I did was to build a Proshares inverse ETF list for use in Quote Tracker. Next time the market starts to fall I'll bring that out and watch those charts for day trades.

The three pals (GOOG, MSFT, AAPL) all went up, of course, but GOOG only made 68 cents. If that doesn't throw some warning signs up I don't know what will. AAPL was only a cent behind at 67 cents and MSFT did the best of all with 30 cents (based on percentage gained). I'm not sure if I were holding GOOG that I'd wait much longer for it to hit 520. It probably will but you wasted a lot of trading capital today on a stock that may or may not go anywhere. Now that's not a recommendation to sell GOOG just something to consider when you are making your decision.

I saw a bunch of this today -



That little DOJI suggests caution. And after the smack down yesterday one would expect traders to be a bit cautious. Of course I also saw a lot of this -



- which reader's of this BLOG will quickly identify as a BOB!. The part I like about this BOB is the volume. That suggests some conviction in the move. So we have caution and conviction - I wonder which way it's going to go tomorrow.

The four indices that we follow - DIA, IWM, SPY, and Q's all printed a black/red candle in the last hour. GS printed a DOJI. That is good - shows traders taking a breath. Of course the VIX began its trek back to low-number-land but remains more than 10% greater than its 10-period moving average. And this indicator continues to go down.



That's expected of course because all indicators based on price take a little while to work - if the market goes up again tomorrow - and I don't know why it wouldn't - we will see it turn at that time. And that will be the major indicator to begin buying stocks.

Of course the up/down ratio recovered too and output a 54% or neutral reading.

Given all of the positives I'm calling tomorrow for the bulls - an up day.

The coin meanwhile, fresh off an amazing win today calls tomorrow ... tails - bear coming. Dumb coin, bad coin, stupid coin.

Having nailed today, and who couldn't, the score now stands at Marlyn 16 - 12 and 5 and the coin is 13 - 15 and 5.

I think this is the last post for February - I just noticed that it will be number 113. There are entire BLOGs out there that don't have 113 posts in their entire existence. At any rate that is a record for me and it is unintentional I just have a lot to say. But as long as I continue to enjoy doing this I will continue to attempt to amuse, confuse, but never abuse, you my dear readers. See ya's tomorrow.

Wrapping Tuesday

Wow! Well I've been saying that we needed a blow-out and I think we got one. Now, of course, the question is what's going to happen tomorrow?

Given my aversion to losses I sold everything off except for LQDT. I doubled up on it this morning and managed to make up a lot of my losses when it peaked out around 20.80 or so. I sold shortly thereafter and doubled up again this afternoon at 19.98. I reacquired WLT on the bounce for tomorrow. I need 12 cents from it to get a break even on today. I need about 30 cents from LQDT to cover everything else for good.

What happened? Well what always happens - an oversold market started falling and the hedge funds panicked and like a herd of crazy steers just stampeded it down. Why the hedge funds? Because that wasn't retail traders. They sit around and wait. Funds move quickly and program trades start the avalanche.

But this is the view you need to see -

I first started showing this view in December and at that time I said it looked like we were getting too far away from the EMA 90 and a correction was needed. Since then it's only become worse.

It's also pretty obvious that we're still oversold and we could go down quite a few hundred points more. I don't know if that's what will happen but you can see from this chart that we are overdue a visit to the 90 EMA and it might take a couple of weeks to get there. Now that can happen just as a matter of "swup" (sideways-up) but I think a couple of more blow-offs are needed. Once there it will be time to start making some real money once more.

And while this indicator looks pretty oversold -

You can see here from last year that it can go a bit further down -


Point 155 is in August and 177 is in June. If you look at the chart above you can see what was going on at that time. So it can go a bit more - but not much. The key is the rollover - when it changes direction again we will go up for awhile again.

The important thing to remember about markets like this - if you don't short - your best effort is to take a break and let it sort things out on its own. Normally such a large drop happens over days to weeks - not in one day. But the fact that it did is not unprecedented. I'm going to watch WLT and LQDT and if we get the bounce tomorrow well and good - if not I'll sell off - go flat and wait for NewMoMo to turn around.

I've been doing the up/down ratio for many months now and it is at 9% which is the lowest I've seen it. The VIX went up 7+ points today to 18.31 which puts it at 39% over its 10-period moving average. Last July it spiked to 14.9% which is less than half of today's by a bunch. All 4 indices that we follow and GS - the proxy for the market forever - finished the last hour with deep red/black candles. These are all excellent indicators for tomorrow. Along with these the INDU ATR is an amazing 126 and the RSI(2) is 0.31. Severe drops in the market are always accompanied by huge ATR and an ATR of that level is unsustainable.

I am forecasting an up day tomorrow.

The magic coin is saying ... heads - also calling for an up day.

Having missed today by a country mile or two the score now stands Marlyn 15 - 12 and 5 and the coin is 12 - 15 and 5.

Wrapping Friday

Excellent day - I was hoping for yet another down day and we got it. This should be it for awhile - the INDU dropped through the 21 and then came back up to sit on it - that's generally a good sign.



I'm still holding LQDT, about 21 cents down, SYNA, about 51 cents down (4 cents higher than my planned stop - if it opens down on Monday it's gone), TLB, I'll talk about this one later, TTI, today's success story, and WLT, 19 cents down.

I lost TLB to a stop early this morning but I reacquired using the 4-minute charts and tweezer bottoms - see if you can guess the four places where I reacquired this stock from this chart -



This chart is from Quote Tracker and I set up a filter that watches in real time for tweezer bottoms on the 4-minute charts. Tweezer bottoms are very efficient on the low frequency charts and I bought it each time the arrow popped up on the screen.

The three Amigos, AAPL, GOOG, and Mr. Softy dropped today and that is a good sign too. The market is desperately in need of a blow-off to get the pressure out and provide some buying opportunity. The last several days have provided that.

Bubblevision was talking about a 5 to 10% correction and you know that I don't even think in those terms - I believe that I showed you in my recession post that this market was turning up and it has a long way to go yet before we get to a 5 to 10% correction (he says - I'll probably eat those words on Monday evening but I feel good about it right now).

This indicator suggests that we have gone down far enough and will be turning around fairly soon.



And the up/down indicator says 41% which is lower than yesterday (yesterday's post contained a typo on this indicator - it actually was 49% and I typed 40%). That drop is significant even if the VIX remains neutral - stupid VIX. The best indicator - the last hour of the indices are all black/red and that is always a bullish indicator. The INDU ATR remains above 80 at 83 and change so put it all together and Monday - we are going up.

The coin says --- we are going down - well - it's a race.

Marlyn wins this leg and the score is Marlyn 15 - 10 and 5 and the coin is 11 - 14 and 5. I'm doing a lot better than luck now - and that's pretty good.

Thursday Wraps

Well I did it - I took a day off and didn't miss it. I said in my post this morning that I had bought SYNA, WLT, LQDT and sold half of my TLB. Of these LQDT was in the money all day and the other three just drifted. Some action late took them all up to near where they were purchased with WLT poking above break even.

I said if the market was going to be down I would buy them at the close but I didn't know at the time if I were going to be here for the close so I bought them early.

What a day - AAPL finished up 30 cents, GOOG finished where it started and MSFT made all of its millions upon millions of happy owners - 3 cents. Once again tech was up with the semis (I know - I pronounced them DOA a week ago or so) leading the way. Somehow none of that makes sense nor does it fit with the news reports regarding the glut in semis. But if the three Amigos couldn't make a score today I'm telling you something is rotten in this story and we haven't heard the end of it yet.

Of course I forecast a down day today because the various indicators that I look at pointed in that direction. And for tomorrow - I think we have one more down day into the weekend. We just aren't set yet and most of the indicators remain neutral or bearish.

The up/down ratio is close at 40% but the VIX remains neutral. The INDU ATR is at 86 which suggests that it is coming time for the market to turn. But the NewMoMo indicator hasn't broken below -.005% yet and that will be the real deal when it does. That's the direction of the momentum so one more day should do it.



Meanwhile the coin says ... heads - bull market coming tomorrow - stay tuned.

Despite the fact that tech went up the broader market went down so I'm calling it a down day - too many ties lately.

So we both got it and the score is Marlyn 14 - 10 and 5 and the coin is 11 - 13 and 5.

Tuesday Wraps

As posted earlier, I bought TLB and if it sets up again tomorrow I'll double up. I'm holding it up to earnings on March 7th or until I get tired of it - whichever comes first.

I also had CORS and CRI as day trades and I almost kept CRI but then I read that I wasn't wrong about the earnings - they post tomorrow. What they did last week was give a little preview so that the market wouldn't be shocked tomorrow when they officially announce. What do I think is going to happen? Why should I care - I got my quarter out of them today. CORS too was looking good for awhile but I had bought that deliberately as a day trade off my "Day Trading with BOB" filter and I got 21 cents out of it after expenses. That filter is still proving to be a real winner when it comes to picking stocks for short term gains. It might also be good for long term gains but I don't hold them long enough to know.

I also took a position in SOFO towards the end of the day - this will be another swing trade. After watching it all day I decided I should probably just commit. I'm only going for a half a buck or three days on this one though so whichever occurs first - it's gone.

Both CAR and RDEN finished the day up and either one would have been a good counter play for a day trade once the market turned around.

I didn't expect that - in fact I was figuring on a dull, down day but for some reason or other the market turned at 10:15 or so. I'm pretty sure it wasn't Wal-mart's blowing the top off the estimate (imagine that) that caused the turn around since that was already known at market open.

Of course I really don't care why the media thinks it went up - I'm just certain that it is still overbought, the range is narrower still, and eventually we are going to have to have a little blow-off to get the pressure out of the prices. Not a crash - I never predict a crash - just a 100 point or so drop in the Dow, a couple of dozen in the NASDAQ and 10 or 12 in the SPX. That would be more than enough.

GOOG went up a couple of points, MSFT went up a couple of cents and AAPL is up a buck and a little. AAPL is still trading in that narrow range but keep a close eye on it - today could have been a breakout signal. If it opens higher and goes up tomorrow there is a possibility that it will put a couple of bucks in the pot before it is through. That'll make the AAPL fans happy.

BARE, the cosmetic company I wrote about on the weekend, the one with the massive secondary coming out - dropped to 32.88 and then recovered most of that - finishing only 85 cents down from the close Friday. Just can't keep a good company down - it will probably go to the moon tomorrow. And just because it has dropped 9 of its last 10 days doesn't mean anything other than it is just an excellent company taking a little nap. Of note - its turn-around this morning was a classic blow-off bottom so that isn't all bad. Just in case you have forgotten what that looks like - here it is again.



All together now, one more time - Weee are being FOOOOLED by RANNNNDOMMMMNESSSSS! Alright - that should satisfy the fundamental purists in the audience (although I doubt I have any of those hanging around).

I spent a lot of time today working with QuoteTracker - I'm not ready yet to report my findings. Maybe tomorrow. For now let's just say I'm of mixed feelings. The interface could be a little less cumbersome and the help panels a little more helpful - but I'm new at it and I always give a piece of software a good, rigorous test before I write the report.

For tomorrow I'd say I-dunno except I'm in a contest with that stupid magic coin - so I'm saying a down day is coming. The up/down ratio is neutral, about 52%, the VIX is neutral, and all four major indices as represented by their respective ETFs printed black/red candles in the last hour of trading, as did GS. Normally that would mean that an up day is coming but the INDU ATR is still below 80 and this indicator remains in the sell zone (.005 and above).



Sooner or later we have to have a down day - it is impossible for the market to keep going up without a breather. The fact that the Q's round tripped and closed red today suggests that there is a need for a nap. Now you do understand that the only thing that happens for me on a down day is that I get to do things with my Bride such as take day trips to museums and the like which is a good thing for a retired person to do. She puts up with my sitting here at this box day in and day out without complaint and she needs a break every now and then too.

The magic coin, having called today almost completely correct - says for tomorrow ... heads - bull is coming again.

The score now sits at Marlyn 13 - 10 and 4 and the coin is 10 - 13 and 4.

I hope you all are having as much fun as I am. And I hope you all are making money too.

Small Caps Rising

My new rendition of Marlyn's Curve shows exactly what the old one shows - small caps as represented by the IWM ETF are once more taking the lead. The tired old Dow Industrials on the other hand, despite making new all-time record highs day after day after day, are kind of flat - in other words, for as strong as they appear to be in the newspaper or on TV they are actually pretty not doing well at all.



As you can see the small caps took a hard turn back about January 24th or so. Again Marlyn's amazing Curve doesn't concern itself with the mundane of price but rather the excitement of return so we can see that you would have been better off putting your money in IWM rather than DIA.

The Q's have turned down again which reflects the problems that tech is having finding a champion now that GOOG and MSFT and AAPL have all abandoned ship. SPY is looping up a bit and the dodgy old Dow just stays flat to down. Was there ever a time to play long caps in the past year of so - maybe back last Spring when the small caps turned over and the Dow took a bit of a jog up. But since that brief time - no - unless you want to call being in big caps during the run down into August was a good thing (you were losing less on a percentage basis at that time). And then there was another brief period - but you get the point.

Small caps rule.

Wrapping Tuesday

Another one-hour day. That's pretty much it any more - the market spikes and then drifts back down, touches the EMA 8 or 21, spikes again, then more drifting. Tough way to make a living.

I got back about 80% of my profit on LQDT this afternoon when it printed a blow-off bottom on the 15's. I got in at 19.20 - rode to 19.90 and when it pulled back to 19.80 I was out. I don't think it is going to recover soon - it might have an up day tomorrow, and might even have a gap up on the open, but the sell off today was relentless and very, very angry. Usually in the secondary offerings you get one gap down and you sit and wonder what happened - this was a gap down followed by relentless selling starting about 10:30. And the only thing that happened was the volume kept increasing. Four times normal volume and that doesn't speak well for their plan. This could have been simple short selling but I don't think there were enough up-ticks to make that possible. Tomorrow will complete the picture and we'll see then if all is forgiven.

There's been a lot of angry selling lately - AOB has been on the bad end six of the last seven days - although today looks like it is finally bottoming. I'll be watching this one for tomorrow and see what happens. This was another stock where I took a "secondary offering" beating a couple of years ago - it still owes me money. At least with LQDT I'm a bit ahead of the game.

CRVL we've discussed several times - and it is toast right now - at least the volume is drying up some. And there was some nice action in the last 45-minutes. They finished today with a nice DOJI too and that might mean that the sell-off is over for the time being. But as I've said before unless they come up with another buy back plan they are probably going to keep going down.

But they're not the only ones - AMD keeps getting hammered day after day - as does NTRI. But NTRI also formed a nice DOJI this afternoon. I don't know if these DOJI are significant - there are a lot of them and they don't necessarily have to mean a bottom. They might - that's all I can say.

HANS looks like it has blown its top (not a blow-off top but a blown top) and it shaved 9% today. I mean this is a day when the markets were going up and all of this carnage was taking place among the darlings.

Gold has been going up quite a bit lately - the problem with gold is that the miners go with the metal and with the market - if the metal is down - the miners are down, if the market is down - the miners are down. The only time the miners go up is when the market and the metal go up together - like today - but most of the major miners (sorry Mom) formed gap-up DOJI and that might spell trouble.

GOOG gained 70 cents today. I don't know whether to laugh or cry about that. That was 0.16% which I'm sure made some fund's quarter - I'm also pretty sure that it wasn't the "short squeeze" that Jimmy Crack Corn Pone predicted.

AAPL continued its losing ways but you know how I feel about AAPL. It is probably done for all time.

The semis are done - here is a "maximum top" from last week.



You see on 2/01, 2/02, 2/05 three gaps and a DOJI - classic maximum top. It tried to get over it but it couldn't. If the semi's are done - tech is done - it's pretty clear. Have you looked at a SYMC chart lately? It's been trading between 17.60 and 18.00 for a month now - that's a 40 cent range. Oh well, just as long as they keep paying that dividend. Oh - that's right SYMC is another one of those tech stocks that has been around forever (1990), backdates options, and doesn't pay a dividend. Tell me - exactly what part of a 40-cent wide daily range makes this piece of crap a "must buy"?

MSFT is fighting back but swinging like the little old lady it is. It will fight all week to pin at 30 and once it has caused maximum damage to the options trader's accounts it will resume shuffling down the hill. Mr. Softy is another one - the sizzle has already been sold and nobody is buying the Bull.

And I'm saying all of this on a day when the INDU is up 100 points - I must be absolutely nuts. But that ATR-less-than-80 indicator that I wrote about last week worked like a charm - the INDU ATR(10) went below 80 last Thursday and took the INDU down through the EMA 21. Once the INDU closes on or below the EMA 21 it goes back up again. Maybe the market is just fine and some of these mature stocks are just that - mature stocks. Time to start looking for fresh meat.

Took two swing trades today - RX and CRI. Both of them breaking out and they look like they might be able to make a couple of points in the next month. I have a feeling I'm going to have to hold them for awhile.

I'm dropping the new 20-period high/low ratio because it doesn't seem to be a good predictor - certainly not as good as the ATR indicator I found last week. The up/down ratio is a relatively good indicator as is the Newmomo indicator below. So I'm going to be using these three plus the VIX for forecasting from now on and I'm dropping the last hour indicator also - unless it is five reds or white/greens. Those two configurations actually have meaning for the 'morrow.

So saying for tomorrow the up/down ratio is printing 59% which is neutral and the VIX is back in neutral territory, the INDU ATR(10) is above 80 and the Newmomo indicator still reads bullish.

Thus while it doesn't necessarily have to be an up day tomorrow - I think it will be.



The coin is saying --- heads - also forecasting an up day.

We now have the score as Marlyn 11 - 8 and 4 and the coin is 8 - 11 and 4.

Monday's Wraps

Well I sat and watched for awhile then went out with my bride - didn't miss much. About 3:30 I reloaded with LQDT and maybe I'll get another bump up tomorrow. It would be nice. Other than that I'm flat, dumb, and happy to coin a phrase. As of the close LQDT was already profitable. We'll see.

Last week I read that the market went down because oil went down (!) and there was too much talk of raising interest rates. Interest rates of course are always a one-day story so today it had to be something new - and that was investor disappointment with a number of collapsed deals. I was always taught that there is always going to be inflation in an economic system based on smoke and mirrors and the way to combat inflation would be to --- wait for it --- invest in stocks. Apparently we can't invest in stocks when there is inflation because inflation gathers interest rate hikes and interest rate hikes cause the market to - you guessed it - go down. And you wonder why I gave up all that mumbo jumbo and do silly things like buy at 3:30 and sell at 9:45. Self preservation is the real reason behind rule 1.

Just read an interesting article on Seeking Alpha by John Hussman regarding "selling too early." It is an interesting commentary on today using a historical figure. Worth your time to read, IMO.

I spoke about the historical basis for stock movement this morning and its relationship to the EMA 90. I hope everyone got a chance to look that over. Same theme as always - buy low and sell high. It truly is an easy game in a market that refuses to come down. Although the last couple of days have been a good start.

Unfortunately while we could use a bit more downside I'm thinking that we are in a perfect dip buyers crease and that tomorrow will be an up day as a result.

The following figure is something I've been working on for a few weeks and it looks as if it might have promise.



I call it the "Newmomo" because it, unlike every other indicator known to civilized man is built on EMA's. It is the variance of the EMA 4 vs the EMA 21 of the 20-period normalized DIA. Or the difference between the green line and the red line as shown on this chart.



If you are looking for the routine you've come to the wrong place. Anyway this indicator (for which I have hundreds of samples not just the few shown here) suggests that whenever it went below -.005 that a market turn around should occur in the next day or so. If we couple that with my usual rap I think that turn around could start tomorrow.

The up/down ratio printed 34% which was actually up 6 points from Friday but the new 20-day high/low ratio printed 40% which is 10+ points down. The VIX is sitting at 9% over the 10-period moving average and that probably is enough - maybe a spike up in the morning to take it over the 10% mark and then a slow decline through the day into the close. Goldie (GS) and the Q's printed DOJI while SPY, DIA, and IWM all put out white candles in the last hour. The mix is good - shows that the market isn't sure what it wants to do.

My forecast for tomorrow - rain, sleet, snow and an upward moving market (weather report gratis).

The magic coin agrees - bull market tomorrow.

Neither the coin nor I got today correct so the race is now Marlyn 10 - 8 and 4 and the coin is 7 - 11 and 4.

Best Friends Forever (or Until Dawn)

Bought LQDT last Friday at 3:40 for 22.63 - sold this morning at 9:45 for 23.40 +77 cents for a trade I held about 35 business minutes.

A couple of years ago I found that the only way I could make any money consistently was to buy at 3:45 and sell at 9:45. Given the looks of the market lately we might be entering that sort of time period again.

Everything just looks way overbought or way oversold - there is no happy medium. When you have a stock such as LQDT that is just lollygagging along you can make what I call a "spike" trade and get some quick profits out of it.

Another stock that went up abruptly this morning was CIEN. I had considered taking this one as well on Friday afternoon but didn't - oh well - there's always tomorrow.

I might buy LQDT back again this mornng for a day trade if it keeps doing what it is doing - tagging the EMA 4 and going up. But for now I've made a good profit on the day and I'm happy and I may just take the rest of the day off. Less stress - happy Marlyn.

Looks like the market is going to take the rest of the day off too. SPY is down, Q is down and DIA is folding. Goldie (GS) is down, oil is down and VIX is up. A good day to just watch - I think.

Wrapping Tuesday

Bernake speaks - he says - don't worry - education and training will help narrow income inequality. That is - education for those who can afford it - which means parents who can afford it because you don't get through school jerking sodas anymore - not at 5.25 an hour or even 7.25 an hour. Which means - we're screwed. But you all knew that already.

But that's not what I'm here to talk about today - I'm here to talk about this amazing new stock market of the new intertube century - it slices - it dices - it cures every ailment known to man and a couple not even discovered yet - it goes up and down like a psychotic yo-yo - watch the shells boy and try to pick the walnut with pea under it - I'll give you two chances for one money ... would you like to try again?

Wow! Will this ever end? There were so many set-ups coming about mid-day I didn't know what to do. Here's several that you can look up for yourselves (all 15-minute charts) - at 11:45 JNPR printed a dummy spot followed by clear confirmation that also formed a tweezer bottom at 12:00. It took off from there. At 12:45 to 1:15 MSFT formed a classic blow-off bottom (sorry Jim) and took off from there. At 11:30 SYX formed a classic blow-off bottom with a confirmation 15 minutes later. It took off from there. SPY printed a tweezer bottom at the 11:45 - 12:15 on the 15-minute bars. In the 11:45 to 12 time period on the 1-minute bars you can see a huge 2.5-3 million share sell in SPY that was probably one transaction. After that the market reversed.

I took a bit on SYX - a stock I'd never played before. And got out at the dummy spot at 1:30.

Still holding CRVL even though it gave up a buck and a half today - probably get it back and then some tomorrow. Also holding DHI and it is only 20 cents away from where I bought it despite the best efforts of thestreet.com's loyal 10 subscribers. Still holding JNPR - it is in a nice chart formation and I think it is going to continue to go up - I'm looking at 18.90 as a target. I did sell the Q's this morning just as they jumped up at the open because I thought that they were going to go down from there hard. They did, then recovered most of it. Holding KKD too - although the next time it goes profitable I'm out because I think it is done for now. I'll wait for another set-up in the future.

I knew ahead of time that this was going to be a strange day because around noon I took a look at the up/down ratio and there were more stocks up than yesterday and the market was crashing all morning. How can stocks go up with the indices down - damifino but they do and they did.

CSCO beat - that probably means a 20 point day on the NAS tomorrow. GOOG went up today - it too had a classical blow-off bottom 11:30-12:15. Remember the BOB is characterized by a minimum of two down bars (Red) with elevated volume on the second down bar. This is followed by a Green/White bar with a higher low than the last Red bar or an absolutely equal low (tweezer bottom) with the last red bar. That is all it takes and if you see this formation you buy it and put your stop someplace below the low of the Green/White bar. You choose the spot but some multiple of the 15-minute ATR would probably be appropriate. For GOOG at that moment it was about 2 bucks which seems about right. Who in their right mind is going to day trade GOOG? Here is an example of BOB on the hour charts (yes you see it on all time scales). Of course the longer the time scale the longer the run (generally) so if MSFT goes up tomorrow too - don't say I didn't try to warn you.



Nuff of that. The up/down ratio went up today to 43% which is neutral. The new 20-day high/low ratio is 77% which still means an overbought market ahead of us. Four of the five majors finished with white candles in the final hour, only the Q's were down and the VIX remains neutral - if I were the VIX I'd probably want to stay out of it too.

I'm forecasting tomorrow as an up day. I want a downer so bad that I'm calling for an up day (although I'd take one like today but that just doesn't happen that often). It probably will be mixed again, but we'll see.

Meanwhile old magic coin says --- tails - bear market again. The coin just never learns.

Having missed today by the barest of margins, the score is now Marlyn 8 - 6 and 4 and the coin is 6 - 8 and 4. Marlyn is just barely better than lucky (which puts him head and shoulders ahead of Jimmy Crack You Know Who).

Forgot to mention - I absolutely love this stuff - every boring minute of every boring day and I hope that my absolute passion for it plays through in my writing. Have a good evening.

Wrapping Monday

I'm not feeling too well - I guess I picked up a bug last week when I was on the road. Probably not too difficult when you observe how many people cough without covering their mouths with their hands at least. Anyway I have a miserable head cold so I'm mostly watching today and thinking.

I saw an opportunity to grab some DHI on a minor pullback so I took it. I bought it on a blow-off bottom around the noon hour that was also a tweezer bottom on the 15-minute charts. Then at 4 minutes to the close I bought a load of JNPR based on a report I read in Notable Calls and the fact that it too was forming a bottom in the final hour of trading. I will probably sell this one tomorrow.

That makes the load CRVL, KKD, still holding the Q's even though they are profitable and I swore I'd sell them, and now DHI and JNPR.

I was going to buy FNF but it just didn't look good to me. It will probably report good earnings and go to the moon tomorrow morning. But maybe not. I don't have a feel for it and I still don't like holding stocks through earnings unless I do have a feel for them. Of course at about 2:30 it started catching a bid and it went up 60 cents in the last hour and a half. I don't trust after hours so we'll see tomorrow but the earnings were down.

I did notice that GOOG had another "long squeeze" today. A "long squeeze" is when the retail traders sell all their many millions of ... wait, retail traders don't sell millions of shares ... well who's selling then? I don't know but there are a lot of 200 - 1000 lots coming across plus quite a few larger than that. I can guess that most of these are not retail traders because the time and sales window is color coded and most of the trades are in cyan - that means the trade is not at either the bid or the ask. Contrast that to a GM for instance where most of the trades are in red or green (for bid or ask). I don't know why GOOG is losing ground - I think it is possible that people are taking profits to pay for Christmas now that the bills are coming in. Yeah - sure.

Speaking of GM - back in early December Carl Icahn sold off his holdings because as he said, and I'll paraphrase - dumbass company won't listen to me so its stock is going to go down. He managed to beat it down to 28 and change in a couple of days and since then it has gained back about 5 bucks - 3 higher than where Carl sold. So much for Carl as stock picker - see just because you have barrels of money doesn't mean you're smart.

But I'd like to do another object lesson on this same theme. Let's say that on Jan 14th or so Jimmy Crack Corn Pone said that GOOG was going to 513 and from there a short squeeze would take it to 520. Let's say that you believed him and with 10K of your hard earned money you bought GOOG on 1/16 at 507 (approx the open) and you got 19 shares. Today your 19 shares are worth 8971. If you had gotten the 19 shares to 520 you would have a 247 dollar gain. If on the same day you had used the same 10K to buy 324 shares of GM it would be worth 10692 today or 692 dollars in profit or nearly 3 times the profit you might have gained with GOOG but didn't.

The point of this exercise is not to ridicule Jimmy Crack Corn Pone (although I can't help myself I really can't) but to show you that you have choices where to put your money - or as your mother used to say - if everyone was jumping off the bridge would you jump too? Sometimes it just makes good sense to buy an old sticks and bricks company like GM. From a traders perspective GM is a great day trade up or down - just watch the Dow and go with the flow.

Broker A over at Fly on Wall Street has a rant up regarding the fact that GOOG should split - and it probably should about 5 to 1 if not more. If it were anywhere near BIDU you'd be able to make direct and realistic comparisons.

Unless you have Marlyn's Curve. I'll do a post later today or tomorrow showing GOOG, BIDU, and YHOO as you've never seen them before - it's pretty neat.

MSFT and AAPL were both down today but MSFT looked to me like it might go back up again tomorrow. AAPL just looks tired and I have a feeling it will be taking a long rest. SMH looked like it put in a maximum top today - three gaps up and a DOJI star. I wouldn't be surprised to see it drop a bit tomorrow. Of course volume is drying up in just about everything. I'm not sure what everyone is waiting for but I don't like this quiet - it's too quiet.

The up/down ratio has pulled way back to 38% and the new 20-day high/low ratio also pulled back to 74% which isn't great and still reflects an overbought market but some relief is in sight. The last hour was mixed with a couple up and a couple down. And that story is getting to be real old too. The VIX has pulled back into neutral territory which is OK but I'm calling tomorrow a down day. And that is based on the tweezer top that formed on the SPY and IWM today and Friday. They weren't perfect but they were within 2 cents of one another and that's close enough for me. Between that and the absolute minimal volume across the board and I think we need a few days of downward movement just to get the pressure off.

Meanwhile in magic land the coin calls tomorrow --- tails - also down.

Let's call today what it deserves to be called and that is another mixed day or what I'm calling a tie. I lost money on my several investments today but they are all green from where I bought them.

The score is now Marlyn 8 - 5 and 4 and the coin is 6 - 7 and 4.

Wrap It Up Friday

Late for Friday's wrap - had some important things to do. Anyway as you may have noticed it was a kind of up and down day but the one thing that stood out was the low volume.

After peaking on Wednesday at 2 million over the average the DIA was 2 million down for Friday. The SPY, Q's and IWM showed the same pattern with IWM coming in at only about half of the average volume.

I think this shows a reluctance on the part of the funds to sell their winners and that probably supports the belief that the bull has some run left. Of course earnings in general have been not too bad and there haven't been any outright misses - yet. But we are getting close to the end of the earnings season and it appears as if everyone is breathing a sigh of relief that things aren't as bad as the anecdotes would have it.

I didn't do much today because I was busy with other things but I did reacquire KKD. I took it at the daily pivot point (12.29) after it had gone below and touched the mid-point low. I was going to sell it at R2 but it never made it that far so I decided to hang on for another day.

An update on CRVL - the other day I said I'd either double or sell and I opted to double. Problem was I was only able to get half my order filled before the price ran away (I won't "market" buy this one) so I only went up another quarter. I'm going to hold a while longer as it made my week this past week and I see no reason to sell at this time.

Monday is looking like a down day even though the cycle should have us going up. This will be the first (full) week of the month and it normally is an up week because of the influx of the retirement fund money. There are mixed signals however because the up/down ratio withdrew to 53% but the new 20-day high/low ratio stayed in the high 80's (88%). The VIX went back into the yellow zone low (-5-10 below 10 day moving average) and 3 of the 4 indices finished the week with stong white final hour candles. Only IWM finished in the red. I think that there is just not enough out there to buy and that the stress on the system caused by the huge number of new 20-day highs is going to be enough to knock the market down a little on Monday.

Meanwhile the coin says - - - tails - bear market. We agree again.

Nothing to be said about Friday except another mixed day. The score is now Marlyn 8 - 5 and 3 and the coin is 6 - 7 and 3. I wonder what all of these mixed days are going to mean? Six months last year we had 1 so far we've had 3. Stay tuned.