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.

TAM - A Pivot Point Lesson

There were a whole slew of gap-ups on Thursday but this one, TAM, really stands out for two reasons.

On a dull day you often get two moves. They could be two moves down, of course, or one move up and one move down or reverse, or. as in the case of TAM. two moves up.

It is here where Pivot Points earn their living.


The chart shows a conventional gap up and Return to 4(EMA) play in the first hour. The fourth candle crosses the R2 pivot and is where the trade begins. A bit later it hits R4 at 26.03 and you could take your profit off that "cathedral of dead money" (9th bar) you see just before the long red bar down. If you kept this one on your screen though you could take a second bite of the apple at 14:45 when it once again ascended through 26.03 and came to rest with a double steeple at 16:00.

This trade was completely informed by the pivot points.