ONE-TWENTY TWO: Trading Financial Markets
Exploring the poetry in financial markets for students of money and economy since the year 2000.
(This is an excerpt from an article I originally published on Seeking Alpha. Click here to read the entire piece.) It took a whole month before the dollar finally launched into the relief rally I thought would soon follow the S&P’s downgrade of U.S. government debt. Even after the Swiss franc’s rein as a “safety” … Read more
The trading playbook for Research In Motion’s share buyback is finally unfolding. Last week, Research In Motion (RIMM) broke out, nudging itself over the rapidly declining 50-day moving average (DMA). Today, RIMM finally closed above $30 and punched into June’s post-earnings gap down. *Chart created using TeleChart The September 30/35 call spread I recommended last … Read more
Finally, Research In Motion (RIMM) is performing better than the general market. For the last two weeks, RIMM has trended upward relative to the QQQ (PowerShares QQQTrust for big-cap technology stocks). This has not happened all year. More importantly, the stock has finally jumped above the 50-day moving average (DMA). Granted, such a breakout has … Read more
(T2108 measures the percentage of stocks trading above their respective 40-day moving averages [DMAs]. To learn more about it, see my T2108 Resource Page.) T2108 Status: 58%. VIX Status: 20.2 General (Short-term) Trading Call: Hold. Commentary T2108 dropped slightly to 58%. The S&P 500 also dropped slightly with a 0.4% loss. Most interesting is the … Read more
Apple (AAPL) initially failed a critical technical test at the 200-day moving average (DMA) and even made a new low for 2011, but the stock’s under-performance has finally ended. AAPL has gained over 10% since its 2011 low June 20th. The majority of the gains have come on just 4 days with strong bursts of … Read more
As I watched the U.S. dollar swiftly reverse course after some early post-employment numbers strength, I concluded that this was the final confirmation I needed that the dollar is going much lower from here. I made a point to review my list of commodity charts and then did a quick check of EWZ, the iShares … Read more
The risk of holding TBT, the Pro Shares UltraShort 20+ Year Treasury, rose significantly last week. The sudden surge in oil prices in response to the rebellion in Libya has put the double-dip recession back into play and once again lodged it into the frontal lobes of market players. Recession fears bring fresh affinity for … Read more
When oil is on the move, place bets on oil. This was my advice when waving off the thesis that solar stocks are oil plays. Indeed, over the past two days that oil has surged, most solar stocks have sold off alongside the stock market. And while I sold my latest trading position in USO … Read more
Silver finally hit fresh highs on Thursday, and I am now forced to pull out “Plan B” on re-establishing a position in the precious metal. I had expected the “cooling off” period to end with a retest of the 200-day moving average (DMA) and an opportunity to scale back into silver at my own, leisurely … Read more
While the general stock market just keeps crawling steadily upward, individual stocks continue to produce some very interesting, and very tradable charts. For example, over the past several months, I have been able to identify many valuable breakouts as well as some breakdowns. The three charts in this post are not directly related, but I … Read more