Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Today on the Marketbeat: Bringing back the Woodshed



Market Numbers @ Close:

DOW: -514 to 8,519
S&P: -65 to 889
NASDAQ: -81 to 1615
RUS2K: -30 to 500
TSX/S&P: -535 to 9,260
VIX: +

Internals:

Core Sector List: 16/0, gold down 30 an oz. Many down 4-5 % or more

NYSE
TRIN: 0.5
A/D Line:2175
Breadth: 27/1 Negative

NASDAQ:
TRIN: 1.17
A/D Line:2060
Breadth: 21/1 Negative

Today on the Marketbeat: Bringing back the woodshed

The day began with an ominous gap below the second pivots point on the ES and YM. With such a big drop to begin the day, we as traders can pretty much tell this gap wasn't gonna fill, ie: professional runaway gap. One thing we can keep in our minds is to watch the point of the gap in the case that we see a bullish bounce in the near future, for if the price action gets close to it, it should fill relatively easy, of course this is assuming that the bullish action will come in the near future. But with internal readings and a a down +500[Dow]/65[s&p] day, one could assume to see a fair amount of continued volatility and bearishness as this crisis is far from being over.

Internals (Click to enlarge):
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Under the hood as mentioned prior, the internals were extremely bearish today, even when the price action was confined in a decent channel most of intraday, they still were overly bearish. But as with the neutral to bullish early week, one could imagine we would be seeing a bearish flush in the near future. An overview of the market internals reads like this : the Breadth closed in at 27/1 on the NYSE and 22/1 on the NASDAQ. The TICK spent essentially the whole day below zero, giving traders an idea to stay short unless looking at inverse stocks. And the A/D lines tacked on -2175 and 2060 ticks to the downside today. 

All together, today's price action although bearish was essentially contained between pivots S2 and S3, that is until the heavy sell off towards the end of the day, which was quickly rebounded from the short sellers taking some profits. We remain bearish, with caution as we all know the equity markets today are a minefield at best. 


Starting From Scratch:

Today I wish to speak about fundamentals on stocks. Now Id be the first to admit that I have more of a technical approach tot he markets, but I do account some macro aspects when in more of a defined bullish market. Id like to run through some of the fundamentals I might look at on a stock I'm looking to go long on, whether with options or just the stock, if I'm going long for a swing trade, its good to know that the company has solid fundamentals to back up the trends, like taking a car for a ride, if your going across the country your gonna make sure its running
 smooth, but even if your only going to the supermarket down the street, you want a car that isn't gonna die at the first sign of a problem...the same goes for stocks and fundamentals....technical signs are great for entry and exits ideas, but the fundamentals tell you if its worth looking at it. 

1) The first thing I'm looking at is the chart, to see if there is a clear trend, after finding a stock with a clear established trend, Ill check out how it places in relation to its industry group and how does it stack up against it, this can be done with most stock sites by doing a comparison graph (shown below)

Comparison Graph

2) Secondly, I'm looking at the fundamentals for the stock itself, which most stock chart/quote services should have access to, I use Investools for this as they have all the Fundamentals lined up in a box for easy viewing. The key aspects in this that I'm looking at are: Acc Dist Current, and for this I'm looking for a reading above 70, to show that the money is coming into this stock, If you perhaps see a growth in acc dist and no price correlation keep you eyes peeled because you might see the price action catch up.

3) Next I'm looking at Phase 2 numbers, for this you generally wanna see decent numbers, over 3.25 for F/E Score, over 2.5 for price pattern, these are just scores that crunch all the numbers and give you a score based on 4. Volatility is a personal thing, if you are comfortable with a volatile stock then use discretion

4) The last thing I might look for is any recent news that could be affecting the stock, If you don't see any then that's OK, however, if you do then try to see if/how that news impacted the stock, if it did was it in favor or against the trend? 

There are of course numerous other ways to scope out fundamentals, these are just what I have been trained to watch out for, I don't spend too much time on these, however if I'm going long then i wanna have a good idea of what I'm getting into, other good things to watch for are P/E Ratio and group rank. Try it out and develop your own ways of watching fundamentals. 

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Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Today on the Marketbeat: Another inside day



Market Numbers @ Close:

DOW: -230
S&P: -30
NASDAQ: -73
RUS2K: -16
TSX/S&P: -413
VIX: +0.56


Internals:

Core Sector List:  16/0  to the Bears

NYSE
Breadth: 4/1 Negative
Trin: 1.52
A/D Line: -1200

NASDAQ
Breadth: 7.5/1 Negative
Trin: 3
A/D Line: -1200
 

Today on the Marketbeat: Another inside day

The day started off right near the daily pivot (970 on the ES) and quickly pushed up to the mid pivot between R1 and the Pivot point. This would turn out to be the high for the day as it turned around near the 10:15 reversal period and broke through the days pivot point. There was a couple hours of chop before the bulls came charging back after lunch. They made a valid push back towards the days highs but fell short and turned back down in the last hour of trading, making new lows for the day, and an overall volatile trading session. 

Under the hood, the internals were neutral to bearish up until the last push down in the last hour of trading. The Breadth(s) made a hard push to break even but fell short; leading to the big bear move at the end of the day. The Tick spent a good part of the morning and afternoon in bearish territory and the A/D Lines tacked on some more losses. There is one bullish sign amidst all this bearishness in today's price action, we held 950 today and although the day was bearish, were basically trading a wide channel. 

You can see this channel in the Thumbnail of the /ES E-mini futures chart here (click to enlarge)
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Notice how we've been contained in the pivots. 
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Starting from Scratch:

Today Id like to discuss top down analysis, and how I use it to help me find market sentiment and direction. This is a helpful tool for any time frame trader, and especially in this type of volatile market, its a tool that can mean profit or loss. 

1) I usually do this by starting with a long term chart of the broad markets (Dow or S&P, mostly the S&P). I set up a 10 or 15 year, monthly chart. and get an idea of the highs and lows, given the type of market you are currently experiencing. 

2) Next, after I have established long term highs lows and trend lines, Ill switch to a shorter long term view, maybe a 1 year weekly. This gives me a closer, but still macro view of whats going on. 

3) Now that the big pictures are known, its time to break it down shorter term, and this is where your trading personality and style come in. If you don't day trade then looking at day charts can be useful, but try not to make entry exits off them. This is a overall view of the markets after all. I personally break it down to a 3 month daily, and a 10 day 15 minute chart. 

4) Now that I have the long to short term view of the markets, another good place to look for a top down analysis is looking at a big chart of the sectors, listing them from strongest to weakest. This gives you an idea of which sectors are leading the markets, and which are dragging it down - after you get the overall view, you can dissect it to find plays within those sectors. 

5) Lastly, I like to go over the last weeks action and where we currently stand in relation to the big picture. This is something good to do on weekends, when you have some time on your hands. 

Monday, October 20, 2008

Today on the Marketbeat: Step 1 - Building a Bottom



Closing #'s 

DOW: +411 to 9,263
S&P: +44 to 985
NASDAQ: +40 to 1,751
RUS2K: +14 to 540
TSX/S&P: +594 to 10,156
VIX: -17 to 53.31


INTERNALS:

Core Sector List: 16/0 to the Bulls - oil, oil services big movers

NYSE
Trin: 0.87
Breadth: 6.5/1 - Positive
A/D Line: +2100

NASDAQ
Trin: 0.5
Breadth: 5.6/1 - Positive
A/D Line: +1400


Today on the Marketbeat: Step 1 - Building a Bottom

Chart of /ES Futures (Click 2 enlarge):
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After a volatile week, traders breathed a sigh of relief going into the weekend. Finally the falling has for at least for a moment ceased, and the volatility is dropping, at least for the short term. This doesn't mean the market isn't still to be approached carefully, it always should be approached carefully. What it does mean, at least for the short term is that the bears are running short on bullet, giving the bulls a chance to regain some of the massive %'s lost on the major exchanges. Today's price action was contained between the Pivot Point and R1 (Resistance Point 1). Towards the end of the day the Futures screamed out past R1 and ripped up a bit into the close. The mark for the day was 955, aka the area of the high b4 Fridays close, and seeing how the ES E-mini Futures closed a good 35 points up on that, the bias is still short term bullish, with caution.

Chart of Internals & Futures (Click to enlarge)
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Under the hood, the market internals painted a great picture for short term traders to guide through the rough waters. The breadth was bullish all day on both the NASDAQ & NYSE respectively. The TICK spent a good portion of the day above zero, giving us the heads up to focus on bullish setups, while the A/D lines picked up some good tick gains.

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