Bearish Hopes Battered

I'm not even waiting for the end of the trading day to do this post.

Now that the indexes have sliced through the highs of March 26, bearish hopes for a softer market are - for the umpteenth time - destroyed. At this point, only surprisingly weak Q1 earnings........or a totally unexpected world event....is going to slow this market down.

From a charting perspective, the market is in full-blown bull mode, with the only resistance being that major support line that was decisively broken in late February. The market certainly still has more room on the upside.


Since I'm weary of showing potentially bearish charts that get swept up in this bull mania, I'm going to switch hats and offer a few bullish ideas. Dril Quip (DRQ):


Greif.....just look at that volume surge.... (GEF):


Health Net (HNT):


Holix (HOLX):


Jacobs (JEC):


Schlumberger (SLB):


Questar (STR):


I'm sure the naysayers that hang out in the comments section are delighted at the misery of the bears (and, more specifically, me!) Well, that's the market for ya. 99 times out of 100, it belongs to the bulls. Days like February 27 come along only once in a blue moon.

I hope some of you find some good fodder in the charts above.

Crazy Train

Time for a shameless plug. My book is rolling off the press right now. You can click here to go to Amazon if you'd like to pre-order a copy. I paid my way through college writing computer books, but it's been a very long time since I've had the thrill of seeing something I've written in a book store. I hope people enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.


I've drawn a channel representing the NASDAQ 100 (which, in spite of a really strong general market today, is relatively weak). As you can see, we remain very much at the high end of this channel.


I've pointed out the huge divergence between the major indexes and their RSI. This holds true for $OEX as well.


Tomorrow is going to be really important. If we fall tomorrow, today may have been nothing more than a retracement. If we push higher, than we're probably looking at the umpteenth time that the bears have had a little hope injected into their system only to have it ripped away. Today's rise can be explained away. Any more rise could not - - we'd have to concede to the bulls yet again.


Capital One (COF) is still a possibility, even though it's holding up far longer than I ever expected.


John Deere (DE) remains at the high end of its channel, and it actually fell a bit today, in spite of a very strong Dow.


HealthNet (HNT) is approaching both its former high as well as the upper range of an upward-sloping trendline.


Interactive Data (IDC) has a rather toppy looking pattern and is worth a look.


Like I said, tomorrow is key. It was a very tough day for the bears today. Let's see if hope gets yanked away or is allowed to linger just a bit more.

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.

The Tireless Bull

Each day seems to bring more of the same. The market jumps down. Firms up. Dances around the +0 net change all day long. Then does a late day surge. It's teasing the bears. And the bulls don't seem to be getting tired.

One silver lining to this very big cloud is that the leadership is thinning. Take the NASDAQ 100 for instance. In spite of the Dow making lifetime new highs virtually every day, this index has been a laggard. It was even down a decent amount today.


As you can see by the chart of SPY, the market is ahead of itself. It has "overshot" the channel, just like it "undershot" it early on.


Worth considering as a short - Adobe (ADBE):


Another candidate - Allergan (AGN):


I suggested Checkfree (CKFR) earlier this month, and it's getting smashed in after hours trading today. Nice to have a bright spot in this horrible market.


Health Net (HNT) is another short candidate.


And, lastly, Textron (TXT):


I've noticed in the comments section (which is much quieter now that the anomymous people are locked out) that people sometimes append their ideas with "do your homework" or "do your due diligence" or something else along those lines. Let me save your typing fingers - - you don't need to say such things. The whole idea behind charting is that whatever knowledge the market has is already built into the chart.

Does anyone really think that by puttering around the net they are going to uncover some explosive new information about a stock, be it good or bad, that it absent from the minds of the collective body that trades it? If so, have at it. I personally think you're wasting your time.

To everyone who has survived so far - my hat's off to you. This sucks!