ONE-TWENTY TWO: Trading Financial Markets
Exploring the poetry in financial markets for students of money and economy since the year 2000.
On Friday, May 4, Apple (AAPL) dropped 2.9% in price and came within 5 points (0.9%) of closing its entire post-earnings gap up from April 25. During Monday’s trading, Apple’s low (at the open) brought the stock within one point of closing the gap. Click image for a larger view… Source: FreeStockCharts.com The post-earnings gap … Read more
When Shutterfly (SFLY) reported earnings on April 30th, the company provided guidance for a larger Q2 loss than analyst expectations. Despite this disappointment, the stock opened the next day with an amazing 9% gain. Unfortunately, trading has been all downhill from there. SFLY closed the day losing all its gains, and it was even trading … Read more
Two weeks ago, Yelp.com (YELP) confirmed its blow-off top with a break of critical support (see “Chart Review: Yelp.com Confirms Blow-Off Top With A Break Of Support“). That support immediately turned into resistance. After dropping close to post-IPO lows, YELP bounced, only to stop cold at resistance. After reporting earnings, YELP dropped 12% directly from … Read more
(This is an excerpt from an article I originally published on Seeking Alpha on April 27, 2012. Click here to read the entire piece.) After Amazon.com’s (AMZN) last earnings at the end of January, I recommended buying the stock (or call options) right at the open based on historical trading patterns (see “Why Amazon.com Was … Read more
(This is an excerpt from an article I originally published on Seeking Alpha on April 27, 2012. Click here to read the entire piece.) Ahead of Apple’s (AAPL) earnings on Tuesday, April 24, I wrote the following {snip} I went on to demonstrate the strong relationship between Apple’s average price change two weeks ahead of … Read more
(This is an excerpt from an article I originally published on Seeking Alpha on April 24, 2012. Click here to read the entire piece.) This post is a follow-up to one I wrote last week titled “Time to Buy Zynga Ahead of the Facebook IPO.” In that post, I provided a very rough upside price … Read more
(This is an excerpt from an article I originally published on Seeking Alpha on April 23, 2012. Click here to read the entire piece.) If recent history has any relevance to the upcoming (and much anticipated) earnings announcement on April 24th from Apple (AAPL), odds favor a very positive reaction the following day. I generally … Read more
With each passing day in the April downtrend, Apple’s stock chart gets more and more interesting. Today, Apple (APPL) almost pounded out a hammer. Given the final resting point on the 50-day moving average (DMA), I would throw caution to the wind and call today’s pattern a hammer, but I am showing some deference to … Read more
One month ago, Polycom (PLCM) dropped 10% seemingly out of nowhere on relatively high volume. On April 5, PLCM dropped 20% in the wake of an earnings warning in which the company stated their “…growth rate was below our overall expectations, driven primarily by shortfalls in Asia Pacific and North America.” On a GAAP basis, … Read more
(This is an excerpt from an article I originally published on Seeking Alpha on March 30, 2012. Click here to read the entire piece.) After traders packed up for the weekend, Groupon (GRPN) issued two warnings during the evening of March 30th. First, Groupon discovered it under-estimated its refund rate for the previous quarter. As … Read more