Visualization

Visualization is the art of looking at a chart and understanding what is happening and what might happen next. Here is WLT -


Let's walk through it.

a. - The 4 and 8 EMA's are bunching together the stock is flat and we are looking for a breakout. There was a mini-BOB going on just before the breakout. The breakout occurs.
b. - We begin to get steepling and the 4 EMA runs away from the 21 EMA. The final white candle steeple I personally call the "cathedral of dead money".
c. - The slide begins - slowly at first and then getting larger and larger. If you've ever seen the dynamics of an avalanche - this is what it looks like - begins slowly builds to a crescendo and then peters out.
d. - BOB appears - what'd ya know - good old BOB and
e. - the 4 and 8 EMA'S are bunching together the stock is flat and we are looking for a breakout.

What happens next? Stay tuned. I like this stock I don't know why it is behaving like it is and I will buy it again on a breakout from here.

Now, given that, what stage do you think this one is in?



Of course the scenario shown for WLT doesn't have to occur in this stock, in fact it could go on to even greater glory than it already possesses - but which of these two stocks would you have greater confidence in buying today?

Visualization is the key or as my Mom used to say - "Look before you leap."

Look at WLT Go

My biggest problem and I've written about this before is my impatience. I could have had some serious profit in WLT if I had just held on to it. It is up .84% today! Sometimes it just doesn't pay to sell.

Of course the people who listened to Jimmy Crack Corn Pone a couple of weeks ago about BHP are looking at this now -



I have a feeling that they are cursing their patience.

I added to my TIE and RIO positions and bought PAAS off the tweezer bottom this morning and XING too. I've been thinking about TRA but I'm going to wait until the DIA breaks through it's pivot point - 35 cents from where it is this minute (10:43 EST). The DIA bounced off its Support 2 this morning after about 20 minutes and is now going sideways up. It would have been an excellent pivot trade.



It looks like it is done for the moment - from here it is setting up to go down or up so if you did buy earlier you might want to set your stop real close.

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 Monday

I did well today - I got rid of all of my dead wood including TLB on its initial pop. LQDT went up for as much an unknown a reason as it went down the other day and I bought back TLB, CRI, and WLT. Kept WIT that I bought this morning and doubled up on it this afternoon. It didn't go anywhere today but I'm thinking that is because the market didn't go anywhere either and tomorrow will be an up day. Unless ...

Dow Finishes Down 15 at 12,632, Nasdaq Finishes Down 11 at 2,505 on Market Correction Concerns

Let's parse that headline - the market went down because the market participants are afraid that the market is going to go down.

It's a shame that America has lost its ability to have a laugh without a lot of foul language or sexual innuendo because that. is. hilarious.

What else did we learn today? The Tres Amigo were down some, down a bit and up a little. GOOG was down some and that makes sense since I think the shine is off that apple - AAPL on the other hand only dropped a bit and MSFT finished the day with an unexpected gain. I don't know how anyone can invest in MSFT these days - talk about a company that is used up. They are probably going to stay in this range for the rest of their existence - and if you don't think that is possible - trust me it is. The only way Gates or whomever is going to change that is with a massive share buy back and that is probably not going to happen. And even if it did it would only move them to another range where they will be locked.

MSFT is a commodity and it will trade like a commodity with the only problem being it will never be in short supply like a real commodity so it will never go up as a result of demand. There is absolutely no product that MSFT can come up with short of a cure for AIDS or Black Lung that will get them any momentum. And I'm not talking about the odd buck and a half here and there I'm talking about the kind of stooch that makes something like this happen -



Another Seattle firm - well - formerly of Seattle. ("stooch" is an old New York word that means whatever you want it to mean that is big and hairy with cajones that drag along the ground when it moves. I'm not even sure what language it comes from).

The best thing that can happen to MSFT is a correction that takes it back down into the teens so it can come back up to 30 again.

Anyone catch the HPQ and DGX action - today would have been the day to back up the truck and do the triple buy. Of course you could have done that on FRO at 2 P.M. and made some before close. I shouldn't pick on Jimmy Crack Corn Pone - there are like 800 web sites out there that specialize in it but I'm still waiting for that GOOG short squeeze - and I'm not kidding - One would think that GOOG would be shorted to a how d'ya do but it would only take 1 day to cover. Contrast that with TRLG which would take 16 days to cover - absolutely nobody expects that one to go up. FRO also has a heavy short interest (9 days) so who knows.

Cost Of Talent Skyrockets In India

WIT is an Indian company and I saw this headline under its summary on YHOO finance. I'm not sure what people expected - once labor becomes educated enough to be able to use the internet they find out how cheap they are and guess what - they don't stay cheap. Apparently they don't have enough IT workers in India so they're outsourcing the work to the United States to meet their contracts. Kids - you can't make this stuff up.

SSCC shot up out of the gate and then dropped back into a dull sideways move and I couldn't find a reason to buy it.

The up/down ratio stayed the same as the other day at 41%, the VIX is over 5% away from its 10-day moving average, the INDU ATR slipped back below 80 and the INDU RSI is below 5. And this indicator is massively oversold


We are going to have a boomer tomorrow or a crash - I'll go with an up day.

Meanwhile, the coin sat quietly by all day today waiting for its magic moment and the coin says ... heads - up day tomorrow.

The coin won today's race and the score is Marlyn 15 - 11 and 5 and the coin is 12 - 14 and 5.

Monday Monday

Bought WIT and CRI - sold WLT and SYNA - the latter two I sold for not doing anything other than moving sideways. Sold TTI - earnings are coming Wednesday and I really liked the pop I got this morning. I'm in WIT off the RSI 2 filter and CRI because it looks like it might go up a few cents before noon.

I'm 19 cents away from breakeven on LQDT and 19 cents away from stop loss on LQDT - every time it hits 19.30 a bunch of sell orders hits the wire and it can't get by that spot.

These are the days I hate the most - market explodes up in the first five minutes comes back and then sits.

Well I can sit too.

Update - And of course as soon as I sell WLT it takes off for parts unknown. I knew it would I just had to sell it in order to induce it to move.

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.

Two Fer Thursday

I'm going to take introductory positions in WLT and SYNA today - and depending on the mode of the market at 10 A.M. I'll take the position either this morning or at COB. By that I mean if the market (SPY) is going up at 10 I'll buy then if not I'll wait till close. This helps get a better price on the day of purchase.

Why WLT and SYNA? They popped out of my "three month low" filter (which is still bring home winners) and I had enough time this morning to do some due dilligence - at least Marlyn style. As you know I'm not that interested in what they do only how well they do it and apparently both these companies are in good hands management-wise. Institutional holdings are in the 90's so there is a low supply and both companies are distressed and coming off the bottom.

Here is SYNA



And WLT



WLT insiders are buying with both hands but SYNA is kind of a mixed bag - the institutions are buying but some of the insiders are selling. I'm not too concerned with that for the moment.

I'm targeting SYNA for 1.25 up or .65 down (1 ATR). After it hits the 1.25 up that will be the new stop and I'll take it day by day after that. WLT's target is 2.00 up or .87 down (1 ATR).

As you know I am a proponent of pivot points and I have learned to use the pivot point method as kind of a moving average. Using that method I produce these kinds of charts -



This is WLT and what you do is fairly simple - when the red line crosses the blue line you buy. The method is a bit slow - in other words the move is under way when the cross occurs but I like that because it reduces the number of switchbacks. As you can see in this example sometimes the red line sits on the blue for awhile and sometimes it just takes off. I prefer it when it just takes off - naturally.

Again this is not an invitation to invest in any stock, bond, mutual fund, or your Aunt Nellie's latest get-rich-quick scheme involving alligators and barbecue sauce (although you might stand a better chance with Auntie than with the "uncles" down in the pits - wink wink).