Good morning. Happy Wednesday.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed mixed…only China (down 1.4%) moved more than 1%. Europe is currently mixed…there are no 1% movers. Futures here in the States point towards a slight positive open for the cash market.
I don’t have much to say. The trend is up, so my bias is of course to the upside, but little by little I’m seeing hints the market wants to correct…not come down hard, just correct for a week to allow the charts to re-set.
Yesterday was typical of what’s been going on lately…across-the-board gains, but the closes were below the opens. To the casual observer, the closing numbers weren’t bad, but the intraday movement wasn’t extremely encouraging.
The market keeps chugging along…that’s the best I can describe the recent action. Dips get bought. Gap downs get bought. The S&P has moved up 16 of 21 days, and yesterday it took out its October high. The intraday movement hasn’t always offered evidence of a strong market, but gains are gains. Many people have lost alot money being in denial or taking positions based on what *should happen rather than what was happening. Don’t be one of those people.
My downside targets remain the same for the S&P…1270 and 1250. And regardless of whether they get hit or not, I believe my upside target will get hit eventually…1350.
The conclusion to my monthly open-interest report was…I couldn’t draw a conclusion. The numbers were mixed.
That’s all for now. I’ll have more to say after the open. I’m cautiously long. That means I’m long but I’m getting more cautious and am not eager to enter new positions.
headlines at Yahoo Finance
headlines at MarketWatch
today’s upgrades/downgrades
this week’s Earnings
this week’s Economic Numbers
0 thoughts on “Before the Open (Jan 18)”
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Yup, frustrating AAPL running away on me only 1/4 position left.
Some new leaders perking up again
Mathamaticly we have a mature top heavy sideways bull in labour from extensive distribution
Practically we have resilient old leaders and more and more fresh leaders. China seems to be waking up. But markets and stocks do not go straight up.
When markets move sideways I look for Darvas stocks – N Darvas
I never made any money following the indices – D Zanger
Re: Darvas Box
Have you done any other volume studies?
No I have not and I do not use the darvas box. I sorta use the modern equivalent of the darvas box which is O’Neil’s CANSLIM but I don’t listen to nor follow any of the eIBD mentors or commentators. I think they are all mostly sales, not traders with an performance.
As for volume analysis I’ve read and tried a lot of ‘systems’ like Pascal Willian’s work. But after a lot of struggle I’ve reverted to the Seykota / Covel philosophy of price action without volume. HFT, manipulation etc (think of your favourite conspiracy theory) makes it difficult to analyse selling / buying volume though I will look at 30m daily and esp wkly volume action on specific stocks I am stalking or have in play.
Basically I am a user, everything is a utensil, if it doesn’t make sense, doesn’t make money I turf it.
For example the big wkly vol spike in BIDU in jan 2010 was interpreted as blow off volume and I was shaken out after a multi month run. Looking at upward price action and not listening to the ‘we are doomed’ cycle and media idiots I realized that was a fake out and actually buying / short squeeze and I was able to take several more multi month and multi week swings for very nice profit.
Recent examples are the big weekly spikes with follow on fake out and +ve price action in FTK LULU TSL (& other solars) backed by past and current fundamentals attracted to me to those plays.
We can conjecture about lots of reasons why indices move with or without volume but the observations by the great traders past and present still ring true. The indices are loaded with fat has beens while underneath new (& resilient old) strong blood moves and moves with thrust.
Thats why trading, finding the alpha stocks and ETFs is so hard, takes work. Yes relative and absolute strength, key fundamentals and volume signatures help but the market is set up to bleep us up our portfolios not make it logical nor easy for us to make money ;).
I’m looking a Tradeguiders VSA. Seems volume is the trigger and resultant price action is the tell.
i pick now as the exact top
when old leaders move up plus junk stocks and the vix dosnt confirm
It’s more like now, the volume’s increased.
From an EW perspective, we may be completing wave 3 of C of and ending diagonal somewhere in here between SPX 1306 -1310. If it is an ending diagonal in progress, I’d look for a reversal to be followed by a move down below 1267 before a final rally to 1325 +/- 5 pts. If this current move gets beyond 1310 without a correction, SPX 1370 would be the target.