Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Sectors / Stocks to Watch

  • Rails (bull flags) - BNI / KSU / CSX
  • Ag (downtrend line breaks / look better on the intraday charts) - POT / MON / MOS
  • Water - FLS (bull flag) / AWK (could follow FLS's lead)
  • Steel (bull flags)- MTL / X / CLF/ AKS
  • Tech (bull flags) - BRCM / ADSK / ADBE
  • FLR's opening tomorrow should gap it up to new all time highs

Today's volume was really light. Hopefully we get some more volume tomorrow. For some reason I doubt it.

Be careful out there tomorrow. We have a day loaded with fed speak.

Low volume + tons of fed speak could make for a very choppy session.

Monday, May 12, 2008

Took the day off

Got back pretty late last night and I was exhausted.

Looks like I picked a bad day to miss.

AAPL, RIMM, SINA, SOHU, BIDU, FLS, NSC, & the dry shippers all had solid moves.

Saturday, May 10, 2008

Weekend Reading

Friday, May 9, 2008

SOHU - Sohu.com - Symmetrical Triangle; JASO - JA Solar Holdings - Gapper/Bull Flag; OII - Oceaneering International - Gapper/Bull Flag/Swing

SOHU, from the watch list, formed a nice orderly symmetrical triangle, which failed just below 77.

You'll notice as I was annotating the chart for SOHU, it began to break down out of the triangle/channel. I passed on this trade as SOHU was still above the VWAP (Volume Weight Average Price) for the day. In addition, I've seen that failed moves in 1 direction tend to exaggerate the move in the other direction.

If volume had picked up considerably to the downside and offered an entry point below the VWAP (which was ~75.50 at the time), I would have been more open to looking for a short entry.



JASO formed a bull flag after gapping up and was holding up fairly well considering market conditions and how FSLR was acting. I got whipsawed out as sellers came in at the ~23 level. While it went on to run much higher for the day, I let my stops work for me.

I was a bit aggressive with the trailing stop after exiting a partial position just below resistance, but with the market conditions and with SOHU reversing on me, I didn't want JASO to reverse on me as well.



While I was a bit aggressive with JASO, I still would say I did a decent job managing the trade.

That clearly was not the case with OII.

I've noted my lessons from the trade on the chart. I clearly didn't let my stops work for me.

OII could have been a big winner.



Below is the daily chart for OII. Today's gap up knifed through the down trend line of the recent triangle type formation. I didn't enter at that price of ~68.50, but instead waited for it to settle down and entered a swing position (separate account) as it broke back above the ~69.48 level (which is also where I simultaneously entered my day trade that I highlighted above).



Have a good weekend & get some rest. Next week is options expiration and we'll have a fair bit of economic data.



I'll be out of town for part of it and celebrating the other half with mom. Happy mother's day!

Thursday, May 8, 2008

CTSH - Cognizant Tech Solutions - Base & Break / Bear Flag

CTSH was a HCPG watch list pick for today from last night's newsletter.



Today felt like a consolidation type day. We didn't seem to have a lot of momentum in either direction and it felt like we just grinded up & down all day.

My bearish bias towards the Ag sector held me back from placing some solid trades (MON, MOS) in the sector early in the day.

A lot of steel stocks pushed to new highs (X, NUE, CLF etc) or are setting themselves up to move higher.

Coal stocks are starting to push higher as well. Some have set new highs (WLT, JRCC) while others have printed NR7 hammer type bars today (FCL, FDG, MEE, PCX, ACI).

Keep an eye on Ag, Coal & Steel tomorrow for continuation.

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