TNH revisited

It pays to stalk a stock for days/weeks on end.

The flock is queuing up....

TNH 15-minute

More profitable price action with TNH today.

Ended up with a little bit of a post-FOMC meeting sell-off. The S&P500 & DJIA (slightly down for the day) ending up between their 20 & 50 EMA's. While the Nasdaq and Russell2000 (slightly up on the close) both closing above their 20-EMA.

Par for the Course

As was to be expected....otherwise a very sideways day in anticipation of the non-news. Let's see if we have a collective panic sell-off towards end-of-day. Even though I would imagine the expectations of a stay-the-course FOMC decision has been factored into today's indices by now. You never know with these people.

Rate Change Thursday?

According to CBOT rate change probabilities there's a 98% likelihood the Fed Fund Rate will stay where it is (compared to a 100% probability yesterday). A good argument for a cut, <here>
I'd put some money on the side of a 5% rate by this time tomorrow (money I would be prepared to lose of course), double or nothing by October for the next FOMC. Maybe Ben Bernanke wants to feel like a real american hero come 4th of July.

TNH

I've been watching Terra Nitrogen Company (TNH) lately. It had an amazing run over the past year. It has some crazy daily action, with wide B/A spreads. It's a step in, step out trade. It has good (lately) moves once it consolidates. Currently a solid pivot point is the $120 price.

I've been so out of the trading game for the past two weeks it's a little depressing. I'm feeling a bit lost and not sure how to get myself back into the swing of things. So, until things start to pick back up for me I'm going to drop in some posts here and there that have nothing to do with trading (i.e. Muffin Top). If anyone has any recommendations to get me back into the swing of things I'm wide open to suggestions. thanks!

Muffin Top

Funny stuff

Wanna Feel Old?

How old does this make you feel???
Baby on Nirvana Nevermind album is 17!!
WOW!
He's all grown up now!

What a Mess

Above average volume sell-off on the S&P500 (all around actually). Looks like some nervous nellies couldn't stand it anymore and just decided to initiate some short selling. The VPCI indicator is looking for some confirmation from a MACD crossover before things start to get really messy. Are we looking to test the 1487 range? Think it will hold up?

Head n Shoulders

Just lookin' at some long term charts today. In particular, the S&P500 over a 10-year time frame. Straight away there looks like a Double Top setting up (even though double tops are more of a shorter term pattern). Also, I can see the potential for a head-and-shoulders formation; which would entail a run-up beyond our current highs, a sell-off, an attempt at rallying before a further sell-off that would bring the index down into the 800 range. Of course that would be in the course of the next 10 years. But at least it would give us an idea of where to expect the primary trend to run. Who knows what might happen.

Double Top

Double Top in the S&P500? On first glance it appears a Double Top formation has taken shape (an "Eve & Eve Double Top" as Thomas Bulkowski paints it) in the S&P500. There's one criteria missing however. Bulkowski stipulates that "the valley drop between the tops should measure at least 10%." The actual measure is in the 3.4% area. Of course there are "exceptions" (basically, anything can happen). The 1487 area would be a point to lend support should things head south, unless of course things fall apart.

Meanwhile...

I officially have no idea what's going on. The Top Hat playing piece (Rupert Murdoch) wants to trade his St. Charles Place (MySpace) for some New York Avenue (Yahoo!). Now WheelBarrow (founder of Myspace, Brad Greenspan) wants a piece of B&O RailRoad (Dow Jones & Co., also being bid on by TopHat) saying he can turn B&O R.R. into a Pennsylvania Avenue (whereas TopHat would just turn it into a Baltic Avenue). But it seems like WheelBarrow just wants to be more like Top Hat.

All morning things were looking like they've been for the past few days (range-bound and over extended). It must have been an early lunch for most Streeters today, cuz by 1:00 the Nasdaq (as well as the DJIA) was in red territory and shed some of that weight it's been floating around with since Friday last week. The S&P500 went, and stayed, red before lunchtime. Setting up for summer doldrums?

What's he Smokin'?

Am I missing something here? Or does this sound like one of the worst deals since the Lenape sold off that island for 24 bucks plus shells and kitsch? Is MySpace really worth what it used to be? So Rupert Murdoch wants a 1/4 ownership in Yahoo! in exchange for an equal portion of MySpace. Maybe I don't see the value that he does in MySpace. If I were Yahoo! I'd tell the old man what the Lenape should have told the Dutch West India Company; "Take a Hike!"

Housing

Here's an interesting look at U.S. Home Price Performance expectations over the next year (as also referenced by WallStreetFighter). Based on the CME Housing Futures (the Composite being -3.3%) Las Vegas is expected to fare the worst (-5.6%) while San Francisco is expected to decline the least (-3.0%). Also are some charts of the historical year-over-year monthly percent change in the actual home-price figures for the 20 cities. "These charts paint a pretty good picture of the severity of the declines in home price appreciation across the board. The one exception is Charlotte, where a decline has yet to take place."
Grace Cheng also provides some data on the murkiness of the U.S. Housing market.

The indices are certainly range bound. We had a bullish finish to the end of day. The Nasdaq has had three consecutive lower lows over the past few sessions, but very tight range and not giving up much ground after it's gap-up on Friday last week.

Market Summary

I was impressed to see the Nasdaq hold its Friday levels.

MVIS

I've been keeping my eye on MVIS due to all the hype a certain blogger has been giving it. Today's candle (in conjunction with yesterday's candle) formed a tweezers bottom formation. It appears as though a key support level has been established ($5.15).

Got some nice follow-through on the ICE cup & handle that broke out yesterday. Initial target is in the $166 range.

Let's Jamba!

I go to JambaJuice maybe a handful of times in a month. Yesterday, as I was waiting for my wheatgrass juice to be made (I know, I know, it's not exactly a "refreshing" juice, but it's really good for you) I was thinking how every time I come to this joint it's always packed, and always turning over the packed house (as one customer leaves, two seem to come in the door). So, I down the shot of wheatgrass, chase it with a complimentary orange wedge (the citrus helps the body absorb the calcium inherent in the wheatgrass; looks to me like this operation knows what it's doing), and off I go. My very observant fiance says to me as we leave; "did you notice the flyer with the JMBA ticker?" So, I put two and two together (always crowded business + Nasdaq ticker symbol = potential $$$). Lo-and-behold this article surfaces today at seekingalpha.com. "On June 11th Jamba announced earnings for the first quarter of 2007 of $11.9 million or 20 cents per share versus a year ago loss of $81.5 million or -$3.88 per share. Although these first quarter results included a pre-tax gain of $15.2 million, after backing out this gain the results still handily beat analyst expectations. Revenues increased 22% year over year coming in at $89.4 million." Not only a fantastic earnings turn-around, but the summer is settling in, and I expect JambaJuice to be just as crowded next time I go in for a shot of grass. Long Jamba.

ICE ice baby

Here's a set-up I've been keeping my eye on for the past week. Intercontinental Exchange Inc. (ICE) has drawn out a cup w/ handle pattern for the past few months.
It had some nice growth in the morning (that's what she said), corrected early in the afternoon, and printed a hammer-esque 13th/14th bar.
Snapping Fib. lines from the intra-day high to yesterday's low gave a 38.2% target that was hit and consolidated around before deflating a little towards end-of-day.

I've had a bullish bent towards gold since '03 (still do) regardless of what I've heard for reasons to be bearish, and reasons for now being the time to sell. Here's an interesting article about gold price manipulation.

Running of the Bulls

Alot of opening gaps (with stringy shadows) this morning as it looks like people are buying some dips. Another rebound day similar to Monday. Retail sales report came out this morning (twice the number expected for May sales) which provided the initial momentum experienced this morning. Things appear to be flattening out as we approach lunchtime (the DJIA giving up 20+ points. Bond yields gave up some ground as well. Market cryptographers will have a keen ear open for today's Beige Book report due out 2p.m. today.

S&P500

causing jitters with that 50-day EMA.

Here We Go Again

The markets spent all morning in negative territory. Things started looking brighter as the markets went into green territory in early afternoon. Then, next thing you know, we're in the toilet again. Bond yields are up again, combined with options expiration week(?) Greenspan's also out there today, getting in people's heads.

Choppity Chop Chop

A rough-n-tumble start to the day, which was to be expected. I look up at the indices and the DJIA is down 20+points, I look up again 5 minutes later and it's up 20+ points. Things settled down a bit though, and the indices are settling aroung their 20-day EMA's.
INFY presented a good daytrade opportunity (chart to come later).
Ugly was on the money (literally) with his target for CROX. Nice job.

Monday Madness

The stage seems to be set for a strong open for the markets come Monday morning. It appears as if the (Tues.-Thurs.) correction was mostly shaken off and there doesn't seem to be as much paranoia about the economy. It's still a bull market and the shorts just might be squeezed on Monday.
"The U.S. labor market is holding steady, businesses are rebuilding inventories and the consumer is still spending, all signs pointing to stronger economic growth in the latter part of this year."
"Stocks could move higher next week after a bond market rout led investors to wonder if the threat of inflation was on the horizon or if the economy was actually stronger than expected, and good for stocks."

The Singularity is Near

A future with no power cords! Amazing stuff in store for us in the next few decades. It was only ten years ago that I got my first email address and using a CD player and cassette tapes. Now I've got a 20GB iPod that holds all the music I could ever need (plus a couple miscellaneous files) and a laptop 20x more productive than that first Compaq I had. Now, check out what these kids are up to at MIT. The concept is WiTricity; "based on using coupled resonant objects. Two resonant objects of the same resonant frequency tend to exchange energy efficiently, while interacting weakly with extraneous off-resonant objects. A child on a swing is a good example of this. A swing is a type of mechanical resonance, so only when the child pumps her legs at the natural frequency of the swing is she able to impart substantial energy."
The MIT team explored a system of two electromagnetic resonators coupled mostly through their magnetic fields; they were able to identify the strongly coupled regime in this system, even when the distance between them was several times larger than the sizes of the resonant objects. This way, efficient power transfer was enabled. Magnetic coupling is particularly suitable for everyday applications because most common materials interact only very weakly with magnetic fields, so interactions with extraneous environmental objects are suppressed even further ("important for safety considerations”).
"WiTricity is rooted in such well-known laws of physics that it makes one wonder why no one thought of it before. “In the past, there was no great demand for such a system, so people did not have a strong motivation to look into it...Over the past several years, portable electronic devices, such as laptops, cell phones, iPods and even household robots have become widespread, all of which require batteries that need to be recharged often...Hopefully, we will be getting rid of some more wires, and also batteries, soon."
The Singularity is Near.

The four main indexes featured here seemed anxious to get back to their 20-day EMA's; the Nasdaq making it just above (on average to low volume) and the Russell2000 and DJIA (again, on low volume) closing just under. The S&P500 closing under its 20-day EMA, but on some strong volume looked like a good correction rebound.

Freak Fest Friday

Well, we were off to a seemingly rational start to the markets today after the past three day correction. And then, all of a sudden, it's irrational exuberance, and we're off to the races with solid gains across the indices. So, WTF?!? Here's a string of "reasons" why the markets are so optimistic: Trade Gap has narrowed. Even though "The overall deficit remains an unhealthy 5.1 percent of GDP and will likely rise in May as petroleum imports rebound and imports from China continue to surge." Bond yields retreated a correction that seemed expected to occur after yesterday's run up to 5.25%. Oil dropped more than $2 on "demand concerns," "due to higher interest rates." (gimme a break). Should make for an interesting week come Monday.

Two Opposing (Apple) Views

Here we have two opposing views on the future of Apple Inc. (AAPL) shares. There's Piper Jaffray & Co. and UBS AG increasing their share- price forecasts for the company because of "speculation that iPhone sales may exceed analyst estimates...Apple may sell as many as 45 million iPhones in 2009, according to Piper Jaffray, which raised its share-price forecast for the company by 14 percent to $160."
Then we have an opinion piece (i know, i know; they're a dime a dozen) by John Dvorak for DowJones. Making an argument for the time to short Apple coming around the corner; With design flaws (which we'll have to wait and see how serious they'll be) and hype deflation once the iPhone craze comes and goes. Still, though, Apple is awash in cash and coming on strong with laptop, ipod, iTV, and iTunes sales. We'll have to wait and see were price settles after all the hype has been factored in, I'm looking at the $119 range (maybe down in the $90 range on some bad news).

Ring the Register

I'm all cash at this point. It was tough selling those last bit of shares I was holding in Apple (AAPL). I've been holding Apple since th $50 days (pre split adjustment) and just wanted to fold 'em, walk away, etc. A decent +17.89% for the year, though now that I'm all cash I feel like I'll be starting all over come Monday next week. On the other hand, I feel a lot more at ease this way.

Morgan Stanley issues Triple Sell. The 5th time since 1980 that the advisory warning has been issued.
"The first of the three signals Morgan Stanley monitors is a "composite valuation indicator" that divides the price/earnings ratio on stocks by bond yields (currently at an all time high of 20). It measures "median" share prices that capture the froth of the merger boom, rather than relying on a handful of big companies on the major indexes. The other two gauges measure fundamentals such as growth and inflation, as well as risk appetite." "Morgan Stanley is not predicting a recession, believing bond yields will fall during a correction and act as an "automatic stabiliser" for the world economy. Once the market shakes off the latest excesses, it's back to the races."

TD Ameriscam?

Being that TDAmeritrade (AMTD) is leading the advancing issues this morning, I thought I'd rain on the parade a bit with this dis-satisfied customer rant. It is alleged that this customer created an account with TD (consisting of "16 random alphanumeric characters, which [he] never gave to anyone else.") One month later he was receiving pump-and-dump stock spams to his given email address. Finding this to be peculiar, and likely very annoying, he did a Google search for "ameritrade spam" where the top hits were of people with similar experiences (go ahead, Google it and see all the testimony that comes up). So the question is, just how compromised is the Ameritrade account one sets up? And why doesn't this get picked up by the media? Maybe it will come to an end being that this guy was just busted.

I'll take "Buying the Dip" for $1000 Alex

a: It's what a speculator might do after the market comes down in price.

Waiting to see how big of a correction (part deux) we have. At the moment, all the indexes seem like they're comfortable coming back into their 20-day EMA range. If that's as far as they go things will have shaped up to be quite orderly in terms of correction mode and the scene may be set for some buying-on-the-dip.

nice

Remember how far you ever got in a game of Pac-Man with only one quarter?

New Yorkonomics

Here's an interesting article found in New York Magazine on making a buck in NYC. They "picked a disparate cross section of New York institutions and examined their inner workings. Some are nonprofits (a soup kitchen, a private school), some are not profitable (a fledgling yoga studio, the Yankees—at least on an annual basis), and at least one, Goldman Sachs, is stratospherically lucrative (though a lazy meth dealer ekes out a higher margin). A note: Where companies wouldn’t provide figures, our estimates are based on analyst reports, tax filings, and interviews with former and current employees." $192,000 profit/year for owning a sex-shop in the west village!! Not too shabby.

Monday action seemed to shake off the China sell-off news, finishing much stronger than it seemed like it was going to.

Pivot Points

Want some schooling on Pivot Points? Go here...

More M&A's

Lots more on the front of mergers & acquisitions...Loews Corp. (LTR) in a $4 billion deal to buy Dominion gas (D). Rite Aid Corp. (RAD) agreed to a $3.9 billion cash and stock deal for Brooks and Eckerd stores. Palm Inc. (PALM) announced a selling of 25% interest to a private equity firm for $325 million that brings in once senior VP/GM of Apple's iPod unit as executive chairman in hopes of reviving the Palm brand and "perhaps develop a relationship with Apple" (oooo scintillating).
Rupert will be doing some shmoozing today to convince the family that controls Dow Jones & Co. (DJ) "that his $5 billion offer for the company won't undermine its flagship newspaper, The Wall Street Journal."
If only Sirius and XM had someone like Murdoch on their side. Seems like the NAB (National Association of Broadcasters) has been doing some shmoozing of their own of the Justice Department. At least Sirius has the League of Rural Voters on their side, woohoo. Although, some seem to think Sirius is "sucking a lot less."

DRAM

Cheap DRAM costs bad for suppliers, good for buyers. "Amid plunging prices and expanded factory output -- which is forcing some manufacturers to sell their chips below the costs to produce them -- all DRAM makers are expected to lose money this quarter for the first time since 2001, according to one semiconductor researcher (iSuppli)."
Weak prices are hurting chipmakers Micron Technology Inc. (MU) and Qimonda AG (QI), among the world's largest providers of DRAM, and pinching the order books at Applied Materials Inc. (AMAT), and Lam Research Corp. (LRCX) who supply the equipment to make DRAM chips.
Meanwhile, PC makers Hewlett Packard C0. (HPQ) and Dell Inc. (DELL) have been able to buy up cheap DRAM, which may help profit margins. Dell, for instance, posted its best gross margin in six years in the first quarter, thanks in part to low DRAM cost.

I just love these stories.
...Poland...
...Arkansas...the second word you say after being in a coma for 19 years is Pepsi!?!? come on

Google's Insatiable Appetite

Check out the List of Google Acquisitions

Super Best Friends

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