road trip

I'm taking a road trip to Northern California with the wife and kids (her father and uncle) for a music festival this weekend. Not sure how much I'll be blogging over the next week. So, for the one or two of you that read this blog, keep in touch! Have a fantastic weekend! I hope not to miss all of the volatility that might be on the horizon.

re-update

For posterity I'm updating the action of AAPL stock so as to follow up from this post and this post. The 30-min chart is a good near-term summary.The weekly isn't broken yet. It will likely be up to the overall strength (or lack of) in the broad markets to determine what will happen here.

The House of Cards...

....comes tumbling down, doo dah doo dah.
Where do we go from here? The path of least resistance tells us...
DJIA - ouch, how low can we go!S&P 500 still got a way to go to truly test those March lows.Same with the Nasdaq...got another 150 points to lose before the March lows are firmly tested.The Russell 2000 as represented by IWM just broke through it's Head and Shoulders top pattern. Broke through the neckline, tested, and may not look back.Now for Gold and Oil. Oil, as represented here by USO, is basing around it's highs. One bad news report could send us to new highs yet again.
Gold, as represented here by the ETF GLD is back up to resistance. Although the near-term trend is down, the momentum divergence is showing a positive slope.
And last but not least, the U.S.Dollar index. It had a run for a few weeks, but looks primed to test the lows it became comfortable with.

da man

He's da man.

SKF overnight hold into a morning full of negative banking news, damn he's good.

update...

After my post about Apple stock yesterday, check out what today's price action did to the charts. It's fighting to stay alive that's for sure.
The 30min chart MACD diverged and went bullish while making a run at the triangles upper trend line.
The daily got support off of the 50EMA (around $174) and the MACD looks poised to cross over.This weekly chart is looking nice if it can accelerate above the handle at $185.

fed day

Nothing going on for me today. The Fed today announced a blah blah blah at 2%. While Bernanke blah blah blah blah blah on inflation, not blah blah rate hike blah blah in August. Don't you just love watching the tape on fed day?

Is Apple Finished?

Apple stock is languishing, along with many big tech names. With three successive lower momentum highs, the stock looks like it could be gearing up to roll over and test the 200EMA back at the $156 level. Perhaps much will depend on what happens in the broad market in the short-term.
The weekly chart demonstrates a steep cup w. handle pattern which could portend higher prices in the weeks/months to come. While on the same weekly chart we see the MACD fast and slow lengths converging. A crossing of these lengths = short bias, should the lengths diverge there could be some bullish optimism.The daily chart seems to have an extended cup w. handle pattern drawn out as well. The negative aspect of it being that the handle has become over-extended which could allude to the stock price rolling over. Looking at an intra-day (30-min) chart we have a MACD about to cross down, along with a triangle/wedge pattern taking shape and resting on support. Perhaps the near-term price of Apple stock will correlate with the Nasdaq and whether we see more selling. But, it's not looking to bullish for Apple at this point.

Head & Shoulders

Three stocks to watch based on a head and shoulders top formation.
SOHU
FCX - perhaps a little less reliable as the left shoulder is higher than the right. But, the momentum highs have been less forecful.And of course there's MA

horrible day

Spent most of the day floundering in PCP. Got out with $47 (of course after I got out of the last bit of shares it ran $0.30). So very frustrating. Lessons learned. Moving on.

1-trade thurs.

There were a few trades I let pass me by today. Not sure why I didn't get into them. I took this trade in ENER later in the afternoon. A base break of $77 which was the opening range high as well as Monday's closing range base.The daily looks pretty healthy. Good volume with a new high.

ENER

After Monday's explosive move for ENER the issue retraced 50% and has set up a bull flag that looks like it may have more momentum behind it to the upside.

SOHU

A potential Head & Shoulders top in the works for SOHU. Short the neckline around $76, look for a retrace back to that area and then double up.

1-trade

Made one trade today in GS.
Below is a 1-minute chart where I shorted a breakdown of the Head & Shoulders pattern. Included in the chart is an indicator that represents the Bid/Ask pressure.

ANR

Think we'll see ANR test $100 tomorrow? It's been unstoppable with tons of momentum behind it.

dull tuesday

One trade in DRYS early in the morning. Long for a point. That's about it. I'd post a chart but it wasn't all too spectacular. Took the move from $82-$83.

dull Monday

Traded:
JASO short - small loss
FCX short - profit
WLT long - profit
turned out positive on the day.

Photog

I saw this link over at BoingBoing and really like this guys work. Alexey Titarenko is a Russian born photographer that makes some awesome images. Most of the images I was checking out seem somewhat emotionally dark (sad even), and some even feel post-apocalyptic. Black and Whites with long exposures to create ghostly and blurred foregrounds. This one kinda reminds me of Seurat's "A Sunday Afternoon..."

trades

Took five trades today, lost on 2.
CSX - long, small loss
CLF - long, gain
DO - long, gain
GS - short. loss
GS - long. gain
The first two trades of the morning were CSX and DO. CSX gapped up, retraced and looked like a bullish flag pattern, so I went long on a break of the flag. It moved slightly in my direction before reversing and I walked away with a $0.15 loss.
DO had a tight base forming this morning that coincided with it's previous day resistance, I went long on a retracement of the breakout.CLF was a base break setup. I missed the Opening Range base break.GS; Initially I took a short position as the general market was looking weak (and SKF was on the run). After the tweezer/rounded bottom (the rounded bottom stands out more on the 15-min chart) I went long based on the guidelines with the Klinger Oscillator.

Dollar Index

The U.S. Dollar Index broke through some major resistance. It has a way to go before working off the technical damage done to it, but it is showing signs of recovery.

Klinger Oscillator

I've been using the Klinger Oscillator lately and find it to be very helpful. This oscillator is a construct of volume and used to determine whether it (volume) is confirming price changes. I just haven't been satisfied trying to read volume bars, OBV, or up/down volume so I trolled through the Tradestation forums and dug this out.
The Klinger Oscillator (KO) uses the high-low price range (movement), volume (force), and Accumulation (sum of the bar's high+low+close = greater than the previous bar)/Distribution (H+L+C = less than previous bar). When the sums are equal the trend is maintained.
Volume force is converted into an oscialltor that represents the difference between a 34- & 55-period exponential moving average and uses a 13-period trigger.
From what I have read, the KO works well when going with the trend, but not as effective going against it. When the KO diverges with the price action, especially on new highs/lows in overbought/oversold territory.
So, on the short time-frame (5-min. chart) we use an 89- or 100- EMA to determine our trend. If price is greater than the 100-EMA the trend is up, vice versa when price is below the 100-EMA. If the trend is up you look for the KO to dip deep under the zero line and a cross of the trigger would be a buy signal. If the trend is down, look for the KO to rise up above the zero-line and a crossing of the trigger is a short signal.
Scalping can be accomplished with confirmation of overbought/oversold price conditions and a crossing of the trigger lines.
Here are two examples I just pulled of today's price activity in AAPL & FSLR.

Books

I read this book over the weekend. It's a quick and classic read. All-in-all it was disappointing. I love reading about windfall profits just as much as the next guy, but I was hoping it would go more in depth regarding his technical approach.

Some good points:

-Stick to your plan.
-Don't listen to hype or doom & gloom.
-Price action and volume is king.

What I didn't like:

-The technique behind Darvas boxes?!? WTF, throw a dog a bone! Thank goodness for the internet.

Technical Difficulties

At the moment I'm still trying to resolve Tradestation issues that have been going on all day long. A bummer. Looked like a dull market overall today anyhow.

3G

Apple's WWDC (WorldWide Developer's Conference) starts on Monday. Expectations over which include the 3rdGen iPhone. The new version is likely to include:
-GPS services-Thinner casing
-Improved virtual keyboard
-And, hopefully, a reduced pricetag.
From PC World online: "AT&T is readying its 3G network to handle potential traffic from the iPhone. AT&T this week announced that it had upgraded its 3G wireless network to reach downlink speeds of up to 1.7M bps, a 20 percent increase over previous speeds."
Apple estimates shipping 10 million iPhones in calendar 2008 (10 million x $400each = mo money).
"A number of network providers worldwide recently signed deals with Apple to offer iPhones, including Softbank in Japan, Telefonica in Spain, and Telecom Italia.The company hopes to boost iPhone adoption through iPhone 2.0, the phone's software platform that Apple might announce at WWDC. During an earnings call in April, Apple officials said the company plans to deliver iPhone 2.0 software as a free download in late June.The iPhone 2.0 includes an SDK (software developer kit) that allows developers to write applications for the iPhone, including push e-mail support through the Microsoft Exchange mail server."

DOWn 4hundy

What a tumultuous day! The DOW down nearly 400, Nasdaq down 75! and the S&P off over 43. Crude's going nuts (so much for profit taking). The dollar got hammered (just when the pundits were talking recovery, hahaha, fools). And, the jobless numbers out this morning show a 5.5% rise in May, the biggest increase since 1975!!!
I've been working on (and getting help writing the code for) an indicator and alert for Tradestation all this week. It's finally finished, and I got to play around with it today for some profitable trades. Very exciting. I plan on sharing, of course, once it's perfected and I can show a track record with it.
Here's a chart of our U.S.DollarIndex

SQM

SQM - Chemical Manufacturing. Perhaps we'll have some follow-through on this one over the next few trading days (closed $0.05 off of the HOD).

MOS

MOS basing around $132 perhaps setting up a test of previous highs in the $140 range.

FWLT

FWLT has a little cup-w-handle pattern going. A measured move would put it at a high not seen since '02.

BEN

BEN is slowly making it's way back up to the $105 resistance.

LEAP

Ive had LEAP on my watchlist after it broke over it's $55.75 base. It's former resistance is now acting as support while it's 50-, 100-, 200-EMA's undergo a crossover.

nice