Shave This....

Let's face it. The whole world's gone crazy. The Dow is pushing toward 13,000 just for the sake of going to 13,000. A third-rate Marilyn Monroe dies and creates a courtroom circus. And a rich, beautiful young woman loses her mind and decides to pattern her life after Colonel Kurtz...


A quick entry tonight. First, for you FOREX types, the NZD/USD seems to have pushed high enough to once again represent a low-risk short trade. I'd put a stop at .7070


The NASDAQ 100 has been terribly strong - - reaching a six year high today in the face of a weak day on the Dow. It's tough to short in the face of such strength, but at least it's clear the $NDX is at the top of its rising channel.


ANDE, a long suggestion I've made many times, has all the right stuff.


Bear Sterns (BSC) sported a nice bearish engulfing pattern today. I'm going to buy more puts on this tomorrow.


I've been hanging on to my CME puts for ages, and I was starting to get bored of them. Today the CME fell over 17 points, and it's potentially going to snap its trendline. Now it's getting interesting.


Research in Motion (RIMM), the stock that never seems to break, is high enough to keep the stop-loss level reasonable.


Finally, Ryland (RYL), mentioned here as a short on multiple occasions, is accelerating its downward trek.

I'm Goin' to Disneyworld!

As a counterpoint to God's divine message to me earlier this week, Satan himself appeared to me via the wrapper of my bread this morning. I feel I am at the vortex of a holy war. Get thee behind me, buttered toast!


On a more secular note, I received my first shipment of my book this morning at the office. Joy and rapture! It's been a very long time since I've held a book that I wrote.


This was a strong week for the bulls - particularly Wednesday - the bears can only hold on to the sliver of hope that upward momentum is still waning. That's not a heck of a lot to hang your hat on, though.


Gold and Silver Index ($XAU) is in a bit of a stuck pattern. Shorting this with a stop at $145 might be a good play (via going long puts).


Crude oil to me seems to be in a solid bearish pattern. If you believe this, there are all kinds of ways to take advantage of it (such as OIH, XOM, RIG......)


I've gotten flack for my bullish suggestion of ANDE, but this still seems like a clean pattern to me.


My NVDA puts picked up a bit of steam today.


I've got to hand it to the SHLD bulls - this is a dynamite looking chart. Who would have ever thought Sears, of all things, would be a superstar?


I'm going to be in Orlando for a few days for my employer's mega-event. I'll be speaking a few times. Come up and say hello. Assassins - - aim for my head!

The Chunda from Down Unda

I've been doing this ("this" being running a technology development team, charting, trading) for a very long time, and I've been writing this blog for about a year and a half (in fact, my 400th post is just a few days away). In all that time, nothing like this has ever happened, but..........

On my voicemail this morning was a 5 minute message from someone who reads this blog. Although, like an anonymous poster, he didn't have the gonads to say who he was, he left a scathing, angry, insulting message telling me at length how much he hated this blog. He even had his (presumed) girlfriend check out my picture to affirm that, yes, I'm dorky looking.

Ooooookay.

Listen, my Southern Hemisphere chum: you don't need to read this. To take the time to read my blog at length (including, according to his voicemail, my archives), seek out my phone number, call me, and waste five minutes of your life leaving a flame is curious, to say the least. Here's my advice: stop reading it. What you are doing now is the equivalent in logic of stepping in the same big pile of dog poo every afternoon and complaining about how it's bad for your shoes. Walk around it! If you don't like my poo, go somewhere else! Thank you!

Anyway.

At least that gave me something to talk about, because these markets are a real snooze. On Monday the Dow was up 8.25 points. On Tuesday, 4.57 points. Today, 0.56 points. Zero point five six points, people. Good God, someone do something.

In fact, just about the only chart I've got for you today is Anderson (ANDE), which I first mentioned as a bullish suggestion back on December 27th. With today's breakout, it looks better than ever!


Sigh. I'd love to show more charts, but it would just be more of the same. Maybe something will rattle and roll tomorrow. Until then.........g'day!

Airport Quickie

This is going to be one of those "at the airport" quickie posts.

Today the market recovered partly from yesterday's sell-off. All eyes are on earnings, naturally. We are, for the zillionth time, in a middleground where it's not clear if the market's going to push higher or lower. Just look at this graph of the Russell 2000 from the past 60 days on a minute by minute basis. Just no clear direction whatever!



ANDE, a long suggestion posted earlier in this space, is continuing to perform well. Breaking above the horizontal line would obviously be a good thing for owners of this stock.


Bank of America (BAC), on which I own puts, announced great earnings today and fell. Good.


Lastly, Health.net (HNT), although not a slam-dunk pattern, seems bearish enough to mention.


For those of you who enjoyed BillyWitchDoctor.com yesterday, I'm glad. For those who had no idea what it was about, I congratulate you on your sanity.

Earnings Season Begins

Earnings season is upon us again. So our chances of turning the corner downward appear briefly once more. Unless earnings are, on the whole, not up to expectations, Dow 13,000 seems all but inevitable.

Intel (INTC) is down after-hours, in spite of hitting expectations. And Rackable Systems (RACK) is getting completely clobbered:


My colleague Michael Kahn wrote this morning, "The rally rumbles on and quite honestly we are out of new ways to say that this should not be happening." Well said. The NASDAQ Composite is above even the high water mark of its channel. This rally is based on the same sensibilities as late 1999/early 2000. Just insane.


The S&P 500 is much the same story.


Of particular concern is the Dow Transports. Just take a look at how swiftly it has managed to retrace back to the descending trendline. I have a feeling it could pierce above this, which would weaken the bearish argument further still.


Looking at more history of the $TRAN, you can see how prior breakouts preceded substantial moves upward.


ANDE, mentioned in this space before, remains a good speculative bullish play. It all depends on the stock pushing above the neckline you see drawn here.


BP, which has been much in the news lately, looks like it is forming a tremendous top.


CCJ, although not in any crystal clear pattern, is a short I entered today. It seems to have a very good risk/reward profile.


And Cigna (CI) may have formed an important double top. As always, you must use stop-loss orders!


A short idea I haven't offered here before, I don't think - symbol GEF.


Now GOOG is interesting. It matched a lifetime intraday high today, but actually fell a little bit. Is this a double top? Or does it simply proceed a rush to $600 when they announce their earnings? I certainly don't know.


McKesson sports an interesting pattern with those Fib Fans as a backdrop. Might be a triple top here.


As for MLS, shown below, I'm not saying buy or sell. It's simply a fascinating study in how, once higher highs/higher lows are broken, the trend shift can be devastating. Because it completely morphed into a series of lower highs/lower lows. Fascinating stuff.

12,500

Wow. They finally did it. The bulls got the Dow over 12,500. 2006 is definitely going to be a year of great memories for the bulls. Congratulations, longhorns!


If you look at the performance of the various indices this year, you can see that - strangely - the Dow 30 is the king. Clearly mega-caps are on top of the world. The Dow is usually the boring, staid index compared to the likes of the NASDAQ. The laggard here is in fact the NASDAQ 100.


One chart that provides some small bit of comfort to bears is of the S&P 500. Take a look at how the index has behaved within the confines of the channel I have drawn. It certainly seems that the time is pretty ripe for a push downward. We are completely mushed up against the highest bounds of the channel, and the time space between the arrows is calling for a fall.


Anderson (ANDE) is a pretty handsome looking chart to buy (yes, buy). The volume is relatively anemic, however, and that's not a great confirmation sign.


Immucor (BLUD), which I've mentioned many times in the past as a buy, continues to push higher. The higher it goes, the stronger it looks.


Express Scripts (ESRX) actually fell today, in spite of the triple-digit rise on the Dow. I've always enjoyed this one as a bearish play, and I'm in it again.


Google is still looking good for a fall, in spite of recent strength.


Looking closer, one could even suggest a small head and shoulders pattern recently. Today's big upward move was a nice retracement to the neckline.


There are only two days left to the very tough year.......I suspect the bulls are going to just keep padding their gains.

Hope springs eternal. Come on, 2007 - - be kind to us!