Wednesday, October 31, 2012

ETF with Year High Volume

In my evening reading I've come across a few post regarding silver which jarred my memory.  About a month ago a few of my scans began to populate with miners and I took a trade with PAAS without much success.  Given that the market has been correcting since then and I've been sitting on the sidelines I haven't put really more thought into it. However, human nature being prone to influence, I decided to take a second gander and run a scan on year high volume of ETFs and 4 today meet that criteria.  A lot of dollar volume has been put into these ETFs today and makes them worth further investigation.    

EPP
IYE
XLK
SIL
Looking at some of the components of SIL shows some nice set-ups forming.

AG

CDE
PAAS
SLW

All Time High With Volume

While the general market was muted today as expected, there were still 57 stocks that hit all time highs and two did so with strong volume.

GNRC
PWR
One of my tasks I've given myself for the month of November is to build out a database and tally the stocks that repeatedly hit new highs and begin to focus more upon this universe.  In conjunction I'm also looking upon stocks that clip their highest volume for the year.  These two criteria will be my primary focus list.  One issue I often find myself having is managing information and losing the thread of stocks that I've been stalking because I get attracted to something else. In part this is because my scans are dynamic and stocks that I've been tracking lose momentum and drop off, so the intent through this process is to simplify matters and have a focused list that is scan independent.

There were a number of stocks making new 52-Week Highs today with high dollar volume as well.

AUY
CVLT
VRSK
While the general market continues to correct there are stocks that are breaking out to fresh highs which is promising.  There are stocks holding just under their highs and are beginning to set up.  A few I noted today.

ENOC

$HL
HW
NVDQ
REED

And just in case there's a reversal and selling hits the market, my expectation is that the SPX which thus far has held up well will offer the best risk/reward so my play on this is the SPXU.

SPXU

Monday, October 29, 2012

Watch List Rebuilding


Observing price and money flow during corrections offers an excellent opportunity to rebuild watch list and notice emerging themes. Stocks showing relative strength and demand during these periods are noteworthy. One of the simplest public domain tools available is BarCharts All-Time-High. Going through last Friday's list and sorting by sub-industry shows a cluster in Chemicals: POL, EMN, GRA and NEU.

POL
EMN
GRA
NEU
Another technique I've been using is a year high volume scan on the Worden database and looking for stocks that meet this criteria. I chose this because for one I consider it significant and meaningful and secondly it produces a more manageable universe of stocks to watch as on any given day a very small handful will meet this parameter. Here are some recent additions to my list.

ACI
CFNL
COHR
SSI
TASR
TYL

Sunday, October 28, 2012

Weekend Review 10/26/2012


The current correction has been somewhat deceptive due in part to the relative strength shown by the SPX. The close of this week shows the SPX down 3.29 from the 9/14 high and the Russell and NASDAQ are down 5.01 and 5.32 respectively. Usually I use the $BPNYA but this weekend I decided to do a comparison of indexes based upon their specific $BP signals and do a comparison to the corresponding index and it's price relationship the last time it was at these levels. What stood out was the NASDAQ with only 54% of stocks showing a buy signal compared to the NYSE at 66 and SPX at 69.

$BPSPX

$BPNYA
$BPCOMPQ

Many consider the NASDAQ to be the leading indicator and outside of the obvious that it has pulled back further, the 14% disparity in stocks showing a buy signal is more glaring. Going into this week I'm leaning bearish and focused upon SPX related ETFs to short the general market. The main reason I'm looking at the SPX is that should heavy selling begin to hit the market and given the relative strength thus far, this looks like the better risk/reward play.   

Friday, October 19, 2012

Triple Top and Confirmed Down Trend

It wasn't completely clear to me after Tuesday if this was the initial stage of a rally or a short term bounce but after the past two days action there is no longer much doubt.  The SP which looked the strongest through the majority of this pull back and was within range of a new break to a 52-WK high has put in a triple top pattern to close this week and the NASDAQ which was dragging confirmed a down trend.

SP Triple Top
COMP Confirms Down Trend

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

GMMA Perspective of Correction


Historically corrections of 5% occur on average of 3 times per year. Of the major indexes that I follow, only the NASDAQ-100 pulled back to this level on a closing basis and much of that has been erased with today's 1.41% up move.  Using GMMA charts of a few of the major indexes I follow shows that this has been an orderly pullback and although the major long term moving averages have squeezed, they've yet to roll over to the downside.  

GMMA NDX
GMMA COMP
GMMA RUT
GMMA SP

In general my current bias is still to the upside until the market confirms otherwise.  Besides retail showing sector strength there are a number of charts setting up nicely, something I typically don't see when there is an erosion in the overall market.  The one caveat I've had as of late hast been a breadth signal I use which has been neutral due to a lack of buyers or sellers.  Now that earnings season is gearing up this week I'll be looking to this indicator to support my views that there is a buying opportunity here on a swing term time frame.  Until then I'll take some shots with smaller positions and wider stops.

10 Day Buyng/Selling

Monday, October 15, 2012

Retail/Textile Sector


With the market correcting I've been pruning off the stocks that have broken down and replacing my watch list with new set-ups. One theme that has begun to emerge from some of my scans has been in retail/textiles.

VFC is approaching new highs and GIII hit a new 52-Week high today.

VFC
GIII
GPS, KORS and CHS continue to base just under their highs.

GPS
KORS
CHS

MW has retraced its earnings break out and is hovering above a well watched 50MA. URBN and ANN have held their earnings break and are also hovering above their 50MA.

MW
URBN
ANN

JOSB and LULU have also held their earnings break out and continue to base.

JOSB
LULU