Buy Buy!

Two days into 2007, and each of them an up day on the Dow. The bulls are still having their fun. Granted, both days combined don't even equal 20 points. But the bulls are still lovestruck.


OK, that probably woke you up. I hate to be punitive, but no one commented on my gallery of Worst Album Covers yesterday, so I wanted to supplement them.......from the pious.....


...to the romantic....


...to the deepest male emotions.....


....to Ken.....by request. I imagine this is simple a blank vinyl disc.


ABT looks attractive as a buy. This market is really overpriced, I think, but this is still a handsome chart.


HAL, on the other hand, is more symbolic of what's happening. Broken trendlines, weakening stocks, all masked by a strong megacap market


I'm starting to lose faith in GOOG (and RIMM) as shorts. Today was a very strong day on both counts. I've marked by stop-loss price on GOOG here.


DST is sort of fascinating in how it shows trendlines "changing coats" from support to resistance. This kind of thing happens all the time.


BLUD, which I've mentioned many times before as a long, continues to be fantastic. Just look at this strength.


BAC, Bank of America, seems a possible attractive short as it seems to be changing direction here.


QID, the double-inverse NASDAQ ETF, is fascinating in the sense that volume is exploding and the price is finally turning around. Hopefully this is the shape of things to come.


OXY is a good representative of the weakening oil stocks.


Whereas the broad OIH continues to falter. I've been bearish on oil for a few weeks now.


HYDL, mentioned here as a short before, is also enjoying a downdraft.


Although I haven't mentioned HP (the symbol, not the company) in a while, this is a gorgeous example of Fibonacci retracements in action. Magical!


Finally, RTI looks like it may have put in a double top.


See you Friday afternoon......it'll probably be a late posting. It might not even happen until the weekend. But I'll get it done!

Burying the Week

This was one of those days that the market went up but my all-short portfolio actually went up too. I guess I can make a good decision now and then.

I tossed out a 'Second Life' reference a couple of times, but hardly anyone said anything. Maybe I'll just give it a miss. Here's my avatar in case you happen to see me. No surprise, eh?


The market exploded higher earlier in the day, but a lot of those gains melted off. The market was still up (in most cases), but most indices are sporting a nice shooting star.


I've been short gold for a couple of weeks, and that seems to be heading in the right direction finally (as viewed via the $XAU).


I've taken a few stabs at Black & Decker (BDK). Finally it took a tumble! Just look at the volume today, too.


I remain long puts on Capital One. It's only inching down slowly, but I still really like this pattern.


I entered a new position on CSX today (buying puts).


GOOG is a bit of a fascination of mine. It's getting a little weaker every day. They will be reporting earnings in January. Obviously a disappointment there (as happened a year before) is the only thing that could really take the wind out of this stock's sails.


I'm also still short Goldman (GS), my favorite investment bank pick now.


HYDL is starting to behave well to the downside.


RIMM gives quarterly guidance next week on the 21st. The past couple of days gave RIMM some upside, but today's shooting star pattern gives me some comfort. It seems the market is saying, "oh, no you don't" to any sustained strength here.


I see a lot of quitters in the comments section. That's totally your decision, of course. Just try not to be rude on your way out the door. You may be back!

Making It Up to My Readers

Well, I'm going to make up for the lack of a decent post yesterday (although it certainly didn't seem to diminish the activity of the comments section). This is going to be a big 'un.

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned the disparity of wealth distribution in both the U.S. and the world in general. An interesting study came out about this in the past few days which illustrates that the top 1% of wealth holders control 40% of the world's wealth, and the top 2% control 50%. How about the bottom half? They have about 1%. That's right......50% of the world has 1% of the wealth, and 1% of the world has 40% of the wealth. Pretty skewed, eh? Here's the link.

Another interesting item I read in yesterday's New York Times was how bullish newsletter writers have become. The graph in the article shows, on the left side, the U.S. stock markets, and on the right side, the bullishness of the writers. They seem like virtually identical graphs. Make you wonder how much value these guys add. Anyway, again, here's the link.

Today was a nice (although modest) down day. Take a look at the Russell 2000, shown below (and, as always, clickable to be larger), which I've embellished a bit with some studies for those folks finding my graphs too plain. Examine the "waves" of the past, and notice how far the moving averages were at the peaks of those waves. Looking at the most recent data, the averages have never been farther apart.


The same can be said of the S&P 500. Just look how rapidly the index has ascended and how much distance is spread out among the averages. At the same time, look at the continuous softening of the RSI. Quite a divergence, wouldn't you agree?


The $VIX has finally gotten some legs. It seems to be pushing way higher, as the market seems to be not-quite-so-sure about the certainty of indexes rising every day of the year. And this is all in the context of the Dow 30 hitting a lifetime intraday high today!


Now, some specific stocks - most bearish, a few bullish. I've been terribly impressed with Akamai's (AKAM) strength. It seems to be defying any weakness right now. This is one of those stocks which, in 2002, you might have felt was doomed to bankruptcy. But it's been a barnstormer.


I must again offer Capital One Financial (COF) as a short suggestion. My puts on this are doing well, and I just really like the look of this chart.


My small bearish position on GOOG is doing OK as well. I do not normally watch CNBC, but at the airport yesterday I saw they were doing a featured story called something like "Can Anyone Stop Google?" That's my feeling exactly. People seem to think Google is perfect and unstoppable. A good time to fade the market's disposition. Can you imagine the collapse when they make their first earnings stumble? Whether it happens next quarter or in 2025, it will happen. And great will be the fall of it.


Being short investment banks has been tough lately, but maybe we've finally turned the corner. These banks got great news yesterday in the form of a very favorable court ruling, which stated that class action lawsuits against these banks were not permitted. I'm sure the 50 Goldman Sachs personnel getting at least $25 million each for their Christmas bonus (you read that right...) are having the time of their lives. But take a look at the graph below. How's that for a monstrous bearish engulfing pattern?


HYDL looks ripe for a short as well, with a nice, tight stop.


I've had puts on LEH for a few days (someone commented how I got whacked on it; I have no idea what they are talking about; I did not get stopped out). The way it's playing inside these Fib Fans is cool, and it seems to be losing its grip at this level.


Here's a longer view on LEH to bring more clarity to my explanation.


NVR has had a good run-up of late, and a look at the Fibonacci retracement levels gives good reason to short here, with a very tight stop.


I suggested Redback (RBAK) back on October 4 when it was about $14. It pushed to about $17.50 today on strong volume. This stock looks more bullish than ever.


I put puts on RIMM a few days ago for the worst of reasons - "it just seems really high." Luck has smiled on me so far and it seems to be tumbling more than a skosh.


I remain long puts on SHLD.


Apparently all eyes are on tomorrow morning's employment report, released an hour before the opening bell. It's one of those funny ones where if employment is strong, the market supposedly will take that badly, whereas if employment is weak, the market will respond well since rates are more likely to drop. Ya know, folks, interest rates are not the entirety of the economy! Take a look at Japan during most of the 1990's which was completely buried in recession and had negative interest rates. There's only so much good they can do.

Profits in the Face of Gains

It was one of those nice days where the market went up but my portfolio went up as well (in spite of being completely short). Weakness in oil and gold were the reason.

Taking a look at the NASDAQ Composite, it's pretty plain that the market is at the upper boundaries of an ascending channel. Setting aside bullish/bearish arguments, don't you think it's time for the market to take a breather? Even if we're in a bull market for years to come, it doesn't go straight up. This graph alone should persuade you that it's more likely to ease off than push above the bounds.


The same argument, but for different reasons, applies to the S&P 100 ($OEX). Look how far above the 100/50/30 day moving averages the price is. It hasn't been this lofty since December 2003 (and you can see the softening that happened afterward). We've come very far, very fast.


As I mentioned, gold was weak today. I like how this graph is shaping up. The stop remains the same as noted earlier.


Now here's an interesting and unusual graph. I plotted YHOO and GOOG onto the same chart, each with their own independent axis. What's fascinating to me is that during the first half, the stocks tended to share the same fate. But during the second half, it's clear that GOOG has kicked YHOO's butt, and there's a growing rift between these two. Does it mean that GOOG will eventually "catch up" with YHOO by drifting down sharply? Or that YHOO is simply a company of the 90's and will never catch up again? Time will tell.


Now on to some specific short favorites. Here's AEM, which takes advantage of gold's weakness.


AL is a good play on weakness in industrial metals.


ARE is a very clean short in the world of real estate.


I like MRO as an energy short.


COF is shaping up nicely. I've mentioned this numerous times.


HYDL is another sweet looking short.


We're still in "a new high every day" mode. This can't last forever. You know that as well as I do.