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.

Philip's Set-Up

I wrote in yesterday's Wrap about Philip and the neat set-up he designed and gave to me - and this is a beauty. I will tell you though on a daily basis, while it works and works well, it back tests poorly. I haven't worked that out yet so you'll just have to take my word for its efficiency on an anecdotal basis - for now. Anyway I put together a few charts for you to look at and wonder at and especially wonder why you didn't notice something this simple (I know that's what I'm doing). And I've provided the code for the paintbar on the first chart below and those of you who want to work with it in stockfetcher can derive the SF code from the paintbar code. (Instead of using "[3]" use "3 days ago" for example).

Chart 1 is a daily chart to show the basic parameters of the set-up.


You can see that it is a 4-rule test that takes into consideration four volume bars and two closes. Can't get any easier than this and if you pull up a bunch of charts you will start seeing this everywhere.

But the place where this seems to really work is on the minute based charts. Here is GGB for example on the 15-minute charts. The "green diamond" is the signal device.


I selected this chart because I wanted to show that the indicator didn't fire every day. In this case there were no signals of this type on this stock on Wednesday. Only a couple of tweezer bottoms and only one actually meant anything.

Here are the Q's also on the 15-minute chart -


On this one you can see that unlike GGB there was no gap down on the open and the previous day's signal carried over to the next day (from Wednesday to Thursday).

It also works on the 30-minute charts - here is GRA with the 30-minute version -


That purple bar in the initial slot is signaling an RSI(2) < 2. But mid-day the green diamond appears. That would suggest if you are already in the stock to load up some more for a day trade. Or don't you day trade stocks in your portfolio? If you don't you are missing a great bet.

And finally, on the 3 minute charts which I like to use to play cheap stocks (I use 4-minute on higher priced stocks and then only to watch for turns).


This shows how the signal when occurring around a pivot point is extremely powerful. It also shows that there are no signals on the down leg of the run. I don't know if that is a coincidence but it seems mighty suspicious.

Wednesday Wraps

Well that was a wonderful day - my key stocks in the portfolio both went up a bit, I bought and sold RI in the space of 6 hours because it round tripped and replaced it with GRA - the stock I should have bought in the first place and a week ago to boot. That was the leader on the must buy list last week and remains number one with a bullet. It gained 3.15% today - of course I bought it late so it will probably lose that and more tomorrow. I added to OI as it seems to be indicating that it wants to run. I'm already overweight in GGB and left it that way.

Took two day trades, XING and TAM. XING I took off a bounce from S1 early and rode it to R1 and made 43 cents on the transaction. Just about the time I was finishing with XING, TAM printed a tweezer bottom just above S2 and I rode that one to R1 - making a buck for the effort. I discovered XING from the BOB set-up filter and TAM came from a gap down filter. Here's TAM so you can see how the trade developed. Very elegant and note that if I had waited for a EMA cross over I would have lost half the move. The arrow is what I have the software print to indicate a tweezer bottom.


And if you don't think I like QuoteTracker - you would be very wrong.

JTX opened up as I expected it would then dropped back then finished up. The specialist didn't get the short squeeze that he expected so it is possible that there weren't that many folks short the stock. It's possible that the drop was so severe that there were very few up-ticks when the stock could be shorted and also possible there just wasn't any inventory to short. It would have been a good play around 27.50 but I had other fish to fry at that time.

I think it's finally time to buy MVIS - two strong days with significant volume suggests that the big boys have finally noticed. I'm going to watch for an entry tomorrow and maybe put some in the portfolio. That'll calm it down.

The model portfolio is up to 11.56% and the bench mark printed 2.43%. It gets easier every day. The shootout is over with my Dead Cat Bounce Filter beating the Rocket - at least in this round. I don't know if there will be a second round - If the Rocket ever outputs another stock I'll do another comparison.

The three pals - GOOG, MSFT, and AAPL had a wonderful day. MSFT won the race with a 2.26% gain and that puts it at the top of its trading range again. It actually went into breakout territory but then pulled back just in time to level off with the last two highs of the past 20 days. Anyone care to guess where it goes tomorrow? My guess is back to 27.90 or so. GOOG flatened off with yesterday's gains and printed a spinner - I.E. - nobody knows what to do. AAPL, having read my critique this morning, went nowhere. Lost 23 cents. This stock has now lost 6 days out of the last 7 and is not even going anywhere as a result. It is sliding sideways. I don't know - I think there is a lot of lost liquidity in these stocks that could be used in other places to make money - but apparently the Cult of AAPLGOOGMSFT is just too powerful and knowing. Earnings are coming - here is my guess - AAPL - makes by a penny, MSFT - misses by 2 cents, GOOG - makes a profit but misses estimates. You read it here first.

The DJI ATR slipped back to 104.15 today and that is excellent - I think it will go below 100 before the end of next week. Unfortunately this guy went back up today to peek over .005% and that usually means a down market is coming -


The VIX remains neutral and the up/down ratio actually returned to an oversold - kinda - configuration - printing 46%. I told you it was an ugly day.

So we have competing up and down indications - I'm guessing tomorrow is more of the same as today with a bit of a down bias. The big guys will all take the afternoon off and only the rookies will be manning the pits. Their orders will be - do no harm.

Then Friday is a day off and Monday the 401K/IRA money starts flowing into the market.

So as not to be ambiguous myself I'm calling for a down day tomorrow - I know it is more of a wish than a reasonable guess but it's all I've got right now.

The coin is saying that tomorrow is going to be a ... heads - up day - the coin never guesses.

We both missed so the score is at Marlyn 24 - 23 and 9 and the coin is 25 - 22 and 9.

Wrapping Monday

I wanted to do some of this as a midday report but Blogger wouldn't allow me to upload a figure that I am using later and so I'll do it as the normal wrap.

Maybe tomorrow we'll be able to do a "midday report". Maybe tomorrow Blogger will sprout wings and fly. Shouldn't complain - you gets what you pays for.

Picked up RAD as a day-trade - gapped up and came back to the EMA 4 and that's when I grabbed it up. Same with BSX. Sold off RAD mid-afternoon as it seemed to be done. Decided to hold BSX (convert to a swing) as it looks pretty strong. There were a number of these types of set-ups today - these were just the two I took.

Speaking of the "gap up fall back" set-up, one of Broker-A's favorites, MVIS, did that this morning. MVIS looks like it is finally catching on. They are developing a heads-up display for automobiles - just what we need - another driver distraction. Actually the tech market is so barren of new ideas that any idea sounds great. I mean let's face it how many different ways can you say "telephone and takes pictures" and make it sound new and exciting - twice? So MVIS is being rewarded for innovation if nothing else.

SYMC is up a bit. This one is driving me nuts. I'd be better off day-trading it than holding it as a swing. I'll hang in there one more cycle (4 days) and if it doesn't break out of this range (> 21.80) then I'm out of it. We'll see on Friday. If I do sell it will be your signal to load up. I dumped nearly all of my DHI this morning - maybe housing isn't ready to go up. I'll keep an eye on it and if it turns I'll get my losses back - they weren't too severe but I hate losses.

Picked up some CRVL on a reversal day-trade this afternoon. I sold at COB for a buck and change. I keep this one on my screens all the time - it is a thinly traded stock with a massive spread but I usually buy it as a limit trade by putting my bid square in the center of the bid-ask. Somebody hits it almost immediately. There are a lot of scalpers in this stock. Selling is the same process - put it out between the bid and the ask and some fish will rise to the bait. Trading is like fishing - a lot of patience and knowing where to drop your line goes a long way.

One of my fellow Bloggers - Bullish Jim - bailed on CTXS last week and look at it today - up a buck and change and look out above. Only wish I had jumped on it at open this morning (just kidding Jim). Actually I'm not, Jim. CTXS put out a "buy me" crossing signal this morning and I saw it but got distracted and by the time I got back half the move was made. That "buy me" crossing signal looks like this.



You will see this on just about every time period including daily, weekly and monthly. I use three EMA - 4, 8 and 21 and a "crossing" signal is when the open of the first 15-minute candle is below the EMA 21 and the close is above the EMA 4. When you get a confirmation (as shown in the figure) the next move is up - usually. Sometimes they fool us and go down but that is what risk management is all about. I normally set a stop just below the EMA 21 and that is generally sufficient. Readers of this Blog know that I also normally use "mental" stops. (Charts courtesy of Prophet.net - a good company).

This signal, by the way, works for shorts too (red candle crossing down) and works in many different markets. I have seen it work after the open (today NVEC for example) but keep in mind the rules are fairly strict - you must have the crossing and the confirmation before taking the trade.

I keep an eye out for this signal on my various watch lists that I have set up 24 to a page and start going through 15 minutes after the open. If I see the indicator I copy the stock to another watch list for the next 15 minute scan.

As for tomorrow - the up/down ratio is back to 52% (erroneously reported earlier as 60%) and the new 20 day high/low ratio is at 35% which is mixed. The VIX is still more than 5% greater than its 10 day moving average which, while not a hard and fast indicator, does suggest a certain amount of oversoldishness. The four indices that we track (via their ETFs) all finished the last hour in the red and GS finished with a doji. That last is understandable given the 4+ point gain it had today - poor guy had to be plumb tuckered out. Or as we New Yorkers say - "Dat guy is f'in tired." Put all of this together and it spells - another up day tomorrow. And that's my prediction.

The magic coin says - tails - bear again.

OK the score so far is Marlyn - 1 and 0 --- Coin 0 and 1 - the race has begun.

Wrapping Crappy Wednesday

Man I’m getting sick of these boomerang days. Up we go, down we go – around we go – nobody knows where we want to go. I want the market to go down and go down hard. I want that to happen in the next 10 days. That will give us a good set-up for the next year. It won’t of course – don’t know if you’ve noticed or not but there just isn’t any volume in this market. All of the indices ETFs that we follow are at half speed if that.

I’m still holding SYMC although I wish I had sold this morning early and I picked up some DHI and was probably a day or two too early on that one. Dumped out of WFC – a 9-cent gain off a three-day hold. Could have had 9-cents after the first three minutes. Sometimes you just waste time although a profit is a profit. Sometimes they are so boring you just have to kick them out of the portfolio. WFC fit that profile to a T.

I took a day trade in CRVL. That chart's below – I took it on the fifth bar where it "kissed the 8" and dumped out right at 48 – that was my target and I had to go shopping again. Good thing – looks like everyone else had to go shopping too. MAMA would have been a great trade again today – as I mentioned in my post on cheap stocks – MAMA and MVIS both were showing some support on the monthly charts. MVIS hasn’t been doing much but MAMA has been running pretty well.



I’m getting sick of shopping. I read a column by Barry Ritholtz this morning on Seeking Alpha containing anecdotal evidence that the season is lacking in the retail sector and I’ve got to tell you – I agree. I’ve been out almost every day in December and in years past where I would have had problems with parking – no sweat this year. Also we have had some lines but nothing too difficult and an awful lot of stores just don't have anybody in them. Not the big boxes of course but a lot of the specialty shops. I don’t know what that means for certain but I think it bodes ill for the retail reports in January. That will mean a one-day market decline at best and then ho-hum up we go again. Adam on the Daily Options Report said it best – he called it “relentlessly plodding upturn.” That pretty much nails it.

I really thought we’d have a good day today – at least go up and stay up but there are a lot of profits from the “relentless upturn” and somebody is taking them. Possibly the funds – setting the end of year markers – the retail trade is too conditioned to wait for January to take profits and there are hardly any losses to take this year.

For tomorrow the up/down ratio went up to 48%, the new 20-day highs gained ground and the new 20-day lows lost ground. Everybody went red in the last hour except IWM. The small caps had a great day. The VIX slid back inside of 5% below its 10-day moving average.

This all sums up to a great big – I don’t know. I’m going to sit on my positions through the holiday and see where we go next week. I'll watch CRVL and MAMA and a couple of others to see if I can get a day trade but other than that I'm pretty set where I am.

The magician is now at 38 – 29 having called today correctly – I should have listened and not played DHI – oh well sometimes you have to believe your own stories. I still think homies are over-sold and I'll get 10 - 15% out of DHI yet. I'm looking for a about a buck-60 with no real downside risk. For tomorrow – magic says --- tails – more bear. Could be.