Dull Markets

The past two days have been miserably dull with the awaiting of Fed Day tomorrow. There were a number of opening range expansions and break-downs that I didn't trade (nice and orderly though). Those particular moves were more or less done by about noon. So, what's there to do when things just don't move (I'm open to other suggestions)? The one option I was experimenting with these past two days is scalping the Q's.
This chart is a bit messy; I color coded the vertical lines red for short positions and green for long positions (the same for the up/down arrows). It's a big commissions generator, you have to buy large lots (200-1000 shares per trade) to make it worth while, and the moves aren't spectacular ($0.10-$0.30 per side more or less). But you can get away with a tight stop and nice enough return. It's also a straightforward (dummy) technique, playing trend line breaks.
I used a 200,000 share-bar chart.

The Future

There is no accountability!

vroom

TS data unavailable

While my Tradestation data is unavailable for whatever reason, I suppose I'll just blog a little.
Mortgage lender Countrywide (CFC) announced a first quarter loss of $893 million. Accepting that they haven't seen the last of delinquencies, foreclosures and dropping home values, Countrywide will increase their residential loan loss provision to $1.5 billion.
The Case-Shiller home price index saw the fastest one month price decline in the history of the index. Home prices dropped 2.6% in 20 key cities between January and February this year. A 12.7% total decrease over the past 12-months.
Foreclosures are up 112% for the year.
Deutsche Bank (DB) reported its first quarterly loss in five years. A first quarter net loss of $131 million Euros, compared to last year's first quarter gain of $2.12-billion.
What can I say? Microsoft sucks.

GTA IV

I've been a big fan of Grand Theft Auto since the very beginning and can't wait for the latest version coming out on Tuesday. Video games sure have come a long way since Pong and Pitfall.

GS Broken Base

GS finally got above $183 and looks like it's determined to work up over the 200EMA.

Base and Break

A stock worth watching for a base breakout above $36.
MCHP

Buy in May and stay 'til Labor Day?

So, the saying goes "Sell in May and Go Away." Well, that wasn't the case last May (the S&P saw a 3+% increase, and the DJIA gained +4%), and currently things are looking like we could have a push higher. The three major indexes had their 20EMA's cross up into their 50's, while the 200EMA is providing some resistance. The U.S.Dollar index had a strong push up, gold is going down, the Fed might be cutting rates again, positive earnings are provoking buyers...I'm almost fooled into thinking May will see bulls making an effort to revamp the technical landscape.
DJIAS&P500Nasdaq

thursday

The day started off messy, but there were some nice moves once everything settled down.
CLF; sold off early on, ascended into a narrowing range triangle before pushing up further.
FSLR; similar situation as CLF. AAPL; Up, Down, Sideways leading to a range breakout.

AAPL Q2

Apple's 2nd Quarter earnings were a record-breaker. Apple "...generated $4 billion in cash flow from operations in the first half of fiscal 2008, yielding an ending cash balance of $19.4 billion... Looking ahead to the third quarter of fiscal 2008, we expect revenue of about $7.2 billion and earnings per diluted share of about $1.00." They also decided to cut out the middleman and buy a boutique chip maker P.A. Semi inc.. Currently shares are down about 3% after-hours, go figure.

triangles

gotta love 'em...
AAPL; 5-min chart of Apple breaking down from a narrowing range consolidation triangle. FSLR: over the last few days FSLR gapped up & trended down before breaking down today.
Here's a closer look at the 5-min chart of FSLR's triangle break-down.

AAPL Cup?

AAPL got hammered today before their Q2 earnings release tomorrow afternoon. A theory I read on the selling says that while their Q2 earnings are expected to be strong, "Apple famously gives very conservative financial forecasts that it usually ends up easily beating. Still, some have a sneaking fear that, this time, low-balling executives will turn out to mean what they say."
Which I suppose means that Apple will show strength in their Q2 numbers but nothing stellar? It seems like pretty drastic selling (compared to Google's price action prior to earnings) which I'm sure scares a lot of people who were looking to go long. It will be curious to see what happens tomorrow (my guess is sideways chop), but I can't wait to see what happens after hours tomorrow.
So, if this chart does reflect a cup w. handle, it can be measured in different ways, one of which would show us just now going into the handle stage of the pattern. It makes my head spin.
So, we could see the whole cup w. handle pattern failing.

Dollar Doldrums

The U.S. Dollar Index settled at an all-time low (on a closing basis) today. Will we see the day when people would rather pick up a penny off the street than a dollar bill? Or maybe history will just refer to our current U.S. period as the second Weimar Republic.

Follow the Leader

Apple and RIMM following the same pattern. If you were alert (I was distracting myself at the time) you could have caught the same set-up within the intra-day time frame today. The profit targets are pretty dramatic (going up to all-time, or nearly all-time, highs) and being that we're in an overall bearish environment it should be interesting to see these two play out.
AAPL daily chart:AAPL 5-min chart:RIMM daily chart:RIMM 5-min chart:

Notable Cups

In lieu of Apple's recent set-up of a cup-with-handle technical pattern, here are a few others I have come across. Buyers of the dip (higher lows) leading us to a bullish run perhaps?
NYX looks sloppy, and hasn't confirmed a move by breaking the rim, but it's worth keeping an eye on.
PCP closed above the cups rim. Looks like some over-head resistance with the 200EMA.PCU presents a cup within a cup. If confirmed (finding support above $120), this stock could run to last year's highs.RIMM; this cup (like Apple's) has been a long time in the making. Again, if confirmed (by finding support above $124) RIMM could go to all-time highs.{update} I have also noticed what could be perceived as C-w.-H patterns in DRYS, ICE, ESI, SPG, & SPWR. If you check 'em out let me know what you think.

Buying Goldman?

GS finally reclaimed its downward trend-line on Friday. Closing above $180 is the line in the sand for now before making a push for the 200EMA at $192.75. All of the shorter time frame charts (from the 1-min. to the 60-min) are suggesting more upside via pennant/triangle formations. We shall see.

Apple's Cup Half Empty?

I'm sure most trader's can identify this stock's chart based solely on its blatant cup-w-handle that's been setting up these past two weeks. The lack 0f volume on the second half seems to urge caution going into next week. Though U-shaped volume isn't a requirement for this pattern it does give more strength to, and confidence in, the move. It also makes me wonder whether a re-test of the $156-range is in the cards. Of course, the majority of counter-trend moves (meaning bullish moves in an overall bearish market) have mostly occurred under relatively light volume. We shall see.

WTF?

How could the Market be "Bullish on Citigroup Despite Big Quarterly Loss."?? They posted a second straight quarterly loss totaling nearly $15-Billion so far. They have also suffered more than $46 billion in "write-downs" since the middle of 2007. They slashed their dividend and raised more than $30 billion in debt, I mean, "capital." Book value per share (assets minus liabilities) fell to $20.73 from $22.74 at year end. Return on equity was negative 18.6 percent! in the quarter. And yet, the "Market" is bullish on Citigroup!? shmucks
Here's a link to a more honest outlook on what the "markets" should keep in mind.

Race- memory

This could be the next gen of flash and hard drive memory, known as "Racetrack" nano-magnetic memory. "In current solid-state memory devices you store and control the flow of electrical charge. Here, we store and control the flow of the spin of an electron...IBM estimates that an iPod using racetrack memory could store 100 times more information."

spaces

Why Microsoft is looking to replace vista with v. 7....Because the competition is already there.

Ne

I'm in the cornhusker state for the next week-and-a-half.

U.S.Dollar

"Foreign private investors sold a net $37.6 billion of U.S. stocks and bonds in the six months ended Jan. 31, the most recent Treasury Department data show. The last time sales exceeded purchases over a six-month period was April 1996."

GS

GS made another attempt to recover its 50-day EMA and ended the day with a high-wave/gravestone doji-type candle (not a positive bias formation). Since price first slid below the 50-EMA (back in November '07) GS has made 7 attempts at reclaiming the downward trend-line. The time-cycle between attempts has shortened though, we've had two attempts in the past 7 trading sessions for both a 50EMA and trend-line take-over. Looks like a test to fill in the gap from Tuesday's session could be next before making another go at the 50EMA.

get it together

Been working on strategy refinement. Starting to like the results. For a while I've been feeling like a beaten dog.