Transition is basically complete

I’ve moved my blog to http://tradermd.blogspot.com.

While I believe in many ways WordPress is a superior blogging platform (esp in respects to publishing posts, and a wider stronger base of templates), they’ve had quite a few bugs lately with posting pictures, and placing categories on posts. In addition, the fact that they don’t allow the use of scripts of any kind is a major shortfalling.

Thanks to all those who’ve been patient with the transition, and if you’ve been kind enough to add me to your blogroll, please update your links

4/17/08 Recap & Setting up for a switch to blogger

The market acted pretty well today all things considered. Some of the momentum names shot up early and reversed hard (especially the Solars). Other then that we had very orderly trading and consolidation of yesterday’s huge move up. The only sector that performed poorly was the trucking sector of the transports. Then again, I don’t really see how that’s all that surprising with oil at record highs day after day.

I had some nice trades in NUE, RS & FDG. I got whipsawed out of MTL & SLB though.

I still can’t post charts right now so I won’t be doing any trade reviews tonight. I’m working on a transition of this blog over to blogger.

The new blog address will be http://tradermd.blogspot.com

Sorry about the inconvenience.

I will be switching over the feedburner feed and other settings shortly.

Watchlist for 4/17/08

This is going to have to be another text only watch list. I still can’t post pictures on WordPress (or assign categories for my post right now) and most likely will be changing over my blogging platform this weekend. I will keep you posted.

I like:

• RIMM here (or over 124) – Nice well formed C&H
• RIO here – inverse H&S
• The copper plays I mentioned a few days ago – FCX here inverse H&S, PCU same situation
• GNK inverse H&S
• TBSI (another dry shipper) symmetrical triangle
• CEL – somewhat on the lighter side volume wise, but wow thats a nice C&H

Pending their earnings (tomorrow BMO):

• RS – nice well formed multi year consolidation / base
• NUE – symmetrical triangle

And of course keep VMW, NILE, NTRI and BZH on your radar as potential short squeezes.

And as always, check out Momentum Trader, for additional setups.

WordPress Sucks & Market Recap

I had a great day and I wanted to highlight a setup I used to trade CSX after their earnings broke. You can call it an earnings setup per se… but I didn’t actually enter until after the earnings of course.

We’ll see how much longer WordPress continues to have bugs with their image uploading system. I’m already some what dissatisfied with the fact that I can’t run a lot of script type commands, including some minimal advertising. So I maybe switching over to blogger soon. I’ll be sure to let you know if/when I do.

Re: The market.

Today’s rally was for real. As I mentioned in my late post last night, we’ve begun the next leg higher and we should continue higher for the short to intermediate term as long as there are no real major shocks. Any minor shocks are buying opportunities for those of you that like to buy pullbacks.

Sure the volume today wasn’t great, but if you remember the rally that took place off the lows in August didn’t really have accumulation type volume either.

Money has to be put to work somewhere. Oil, as I highlighted early last week, has basically hit my primary target of $115-116 today. Who knows how high we could eventually go as the dollar continues to weaken. Anyhow, enough self promotion… and back to my point:

• sure the economy looks bad and could potentially get worse
• sure inflation is creeping up and is possibly out of control
• sure housing prices are falling and probably will continue to fall

That being said, money has to be put to work somewhere. Cash has been building on the sidelines for weeks and as inflation creeps up and the dollar continues to fall, the value of that cash decreases. If you’re going to do nothing and lose $$, you might as well put some of it to work.

• With rates so low (and inflation creeping up), bonds don’t exactly look like a great place to put $$
• Gold, Silver, etc need time to correct &/or consolidate their huge recent run ups
• Only so much money can be put towards shorting the dollar (especially at these levels – and no I’m not calling for a rebound or making a dollar prediction), or in other currencies
• Housing is in a depression
• In addition, money managers get paid for returns (it’s also convenient that they’re not managing their money, but yours)
• Oil is in a similar situation as the dollar: only so much money can be put towards the long side, especially at these levels
• Expectations for stocks have been taken down quite a bit. When WaMu can come out and report a bigger loss than expected and still move up nicely and when Intel can come out with average to slightly better than average numbers and have nearly a 10% move higher, you know people are just itching to put $$ into stocks

As a result, stocks have plenty of reasons to move higher (at least for the short to intermediate term)

*edit*

Other things to like:

• The $VIX broke its up trendline
• The IYT broke out
• The XLE Broke out & set new all time highs
• The XLB broke out & set new all time highs
• The Nasdaq/Russell lead the way, the Financials participated their fair share, and the Semis have rebounded nicely

Market update & Watchlist for 4/16/08

Hm, so WordPress isn’t letting me upload any images right now . I had just annotated some charts to post as well.

Anyhow, here’s the text version in brief:

• the XLF held the 24.40 level I was talking about on a closing basis and has started to bounce off that level. Additionally, despite posting worst than expected numbers on their earnings, WaMu rallied on the news (remember its not the numbers, but the reaction to the numbers that matters).
• the SMH moved below the the up trendline of the ascending triangle type formation that was highlighted in last nights post. It has since trapped some sellers/bears below that level as it spiked underneath it on an intraday basis. After the bell, Intel came out with earnings that were basically inline and the stock rallied much higher.

Based on the action I’ve seen today and the reaction to the 2 key earnings reports after the close, I believe we’ve setup for the next leg higher. Whether we’ll actually break through the key levels of overhead resistance is another topic, but I’m somewhat confident in being able to put on some swing positions here.

The market has priced in that earnings expectations will be somewhat lower, and provided we experience no major shocks (like GE’s earnings last Friday), I believe we’ll start to work our way higher for the short to intermediate term.

As for a watch list (they’re just so much better when displayed visually)…. check out Momentum Trader (he and I follow similar stocks and as a result come up with similar watch lists).

Some others to keep an eye on:

• RIMM, Bullish flag
• AKS, Bullish flag
• NFLX, Bullish flag
• XLB, Bullish flag
• AEM, continuation type play (Gold’s movement will have a lot to do with China’s GDP released tomorrow and our CPI #s)
• BZH, short squeeze continuation