Friday Wraps

TGIF - even us retired guys like weekends.

The market was up again but that was expected – today the 401K money started coming into the market and by law it has to be invested. So by cracky they began buying overpriced crap and made it even more overpriced.

I had an uneventful day. I sold off just about everything and am about to sell off the rest. I’m still holding GGB (through earnings which turned out to be a non-event), BGG, and AV. That was a mistake – I hate cheap stocks and have to take profits on them when they present. If I don’t then I will take a loss – it always happens that way because I haven’t got the patience necessary to wait for two weeks while the stock makes a couple of cents a day. I’m always thinking about the money that I could be making whenever I’m trapped in a crappy trade. Live and learn. Anyway I'll be out of town on Monday so AV has one more day to cause me grief but it is either up Tuesday morning or gone.

AKS was behaving as many stocks do post earnings – they go up for a couple of days, hit a ceiling and then start collapsing back on themselves. Watch your stocks when they go through earnings and see if this doesn’t happen. I’ll probably buy it back again the next time the market goes down a bit. If that ever happens again someone wake me up. I'll buy it back again when it closes over 32.00.


It's still a good company with a lot of room to run.

HST turned out to be a disappointment. It just rolled over and blew away. I didn’t like the action so I put the stop up tight under a pivot point and it managed to hit it. I don’t know if it will recover next week or not. I’ll watch it and if it does I'll take another shot.

The model portfolio went up .47% to 16.59% and the benchmark also went up by .38 to 7.50%. The model is still ahead and will probably stay there although I think it will need some maintenance on the next market drop.

The three Amigos are still not really participating in the rally – the MSFT-buys-YHOO story kind of blew the wind out of GOOG’s sails although why I don’t know – do you think the GOOG ownership is getting antsy? I do. MSFT went back down into its range bound muck and AAPL made 40 cents or so. YHOO was up strong and then faded away. Jimmy Crack Corn Pone had a story about YHOO today but he's so full of crap it's sad.

The INDU ATR fell to 87.98 today and that is goodness. We desperately need a correction, everyone knows it but everyone is afraid to stop buying for fear an already oversold stock will become more oversold and they won’t have it in the corral. And when I say everyone I’m not talking about the handful of retail traders – I’m talking about the big guns out there.

The VIX remains in neutral relative to its 10-period MA and the up/down ratio printed 53.40%. That’s neutral too. The NewMoMo remains orbiting 0 and that is also a neutral position.


For Monday I’m looking at another dry day like today – up but not by much.

The coin says tails – calling for a down day on Monday.

We both got another one right and the score is now Marlyn 30 - 29 and 12 and the coin is 34 - 25 and 12.

I'll be back over the weekend with some more posts regarding BOB - I'll show you a couple of charts.

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.

Two Hours For Fun and Profit

If you really want to see what your planned purchase or sale is doing bring up a 20-day view of the 2-hour charts. I've written about these before but I have a couple of new readers and they may not appreciate the concept of using multiple time scales to inform trading. (Now before anyone writes in to correct me - I know that there aren't 4 2-hour periods in a trading day - there are 3 2-hour periods and 1 30-minute period - these are just called the "2-hour charts").

Let's take a look at a 2-hour chart.


As you can see you can use the same technical analysis tools on the 2-hour charts that you use with any other time frame. The difference being you cross day boundaries when using 2-hour charts.

The prevalent formation on the 2-hour charts is the cross over but you will find a BOB every now and then. I've circled the two cross overs on this one and put a rectangle around the BOB.

Here's another 2-hour chart.


Again we find both the cross over and the BOB.

And one more - this one is HST and it contains a number of strange patterns -


But when we look at this on a color-coded chart such as the ones I use in QuoteTracker you can see that it is actually an RSI(2) < 2 and I use those to inform me when to add to my holdings or to day trade using my holdings.


The long purple bar is how I have the chart tell me about the RSI activity.

You can also see on this chart how the 2-hour charts support pivot points as well.

I currently own all of these stocks. That doesn't mean that I will own them later today or even five minutes from now - but right now I do own them.

Thursday Morning

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

I put HST into the portfolio - one of the stocks that I mentioned in an earlier post. and I will be adding AV in a little while. Both of these for swing trading.

Looks like we might have a reasonable day after all - I don't know why a reduction in the number of unemployment claims means anything other than people just giving up but apparently the market loves it even though full employment will require the Fed to raise interest rates - go figure.

Have a good day - see you all later in the Wrap.

Thursday Pre-Market

The Yahoo Finance site is calling for a "soft" day and up until a little while ago I might have agreed. But now the futures are up and so is Europe so I don't know. I think it might be a quiet day.

The trouble with a day like yesterday is that it always throws off a ton of good looking prospects.

I looked at a couple of charts and these might be some to put on a watch list and if you see any reason to buy them in the next day or so they might turn out to be good swing trades -

NUAN (reports on 5/8)
SIRF (reported Apr 19th guided lower)
HST (reported in Apr - market overreacted)
TZIX (reported on 4/30 guided lower might be ready to recover)
KBR (reports on the 4th - a cross over candidate)

Then I think I'm going to take a swing trade in AV - looking for a bit of a pull back today to start the position and I'm also hoping for a pull back in BGG so I can add to the position.

Good trading all.