Bulls keep pushing

Another gap-up day for the market, and this time bulls pushed prices higher until midday. No sell off when the rally ended, just no more buyers it seems. We slowly dropped back, but stayed above the opening-levels. Small caps were outperforming, RUT +2% where most other indices were up less than 1%. Especially the Dow and S&P gave back a lot in the last hour, Nasdaq not so much and small caps even got back up near the highs.

5m-chart SPY:

Daily charts DIA, SPY, QQQ and IWM:

Metals rallied together with stocks, gold and silver at or near new highs, copper is lagging the last couple of days. Oil had a second distribution day, no more news from Iran and prices drop a bit further.
The euro had another shot trying to take out 1.32 but didn't succeed. But still, positive action for this currency.


Trades
I tried a long trade in MCP, it was up a lot in premarket but fell back. At the open, it shot higher like a rocket and I got long (a bit late I guess) under $32. Stopped out just under $31 in less than 15 minutes... ouch! MCP is a very volatile stock and even my wide stop didn't help. It just wanted to go lower.


Articles for tonight:
Foot Back to The Floor
The Flight to Risk
Short Term Moving Averages
When Stocks Declare Their First Dividend - Look Out!
The Basic Maths Behind Stock Market Diamonds
Corp. Earnings Beat Rates Have Been On A 20-Year Upward Trend
Oil Reports May Offer Obama An Out On Iran

Another gap and a trend down day

A rather strange day with stocks as well as gold (minimal), silver and oil declining. So were did the money go then? Well, the dollar keeps on rallying, also meaning the euro really gets hammered lately. Since the last trading day of August, the euro lost about 5%.

We had a trend day down, closing not too far from the low of day and near the bottom of the assumed bearflag. Indices went 2%-3% lower, mostly on Eurozone news and rumors of Greece defaulting. Let's see what the weekend has in store for us.

Trades
I went long the inverse ETF's I was stopped out earlier this week. I got a new buy signal this afternoon while the market was tanking.
BGZ: long 44.42 SL42.00
EDZ: long 23.98 SL22.70
SKF: long 80.45 SL76.70
SPXU: long 19.88 SL18.85
TZA: long 48.61 SL45.45
FAZ: long 63.03 SL58.80
I also bought ES-futures as a hedge against the inverse ETF's, probably just for the weekend.

I was stopped out of the last half of MCP at breakeven (55.51). Still in BAL and SGG, they're still looking ok.

Before the US session opened, there was some important economic data to take into account: ECB left rates unchanged at 1.5%. As a reaction, indices came down about 1% in pre-market.
Jobless claims were weaker than the forecast, not helping the bulls.

Further interesting news comes from OECD Chief Economist Pier Carlo Padoan. He made the following statement: “Growth is turning out to be much slower than we thought three months ago, and the risk of hitting patches of negative growth going forward has gone up.”  In other words, a recession is nearby. Read the entire article here.

The morning open came with a rally towards the overnight highs, which remain resistance for now.
During the session, there were 2 important speeches, one from Obama and a second one from Bernanke.
While Obama suggests payroll tax cuts, Bernanke claims the Fed still has some tools left to save the economy but he admits problems are more than just temporary (and worse than they assumed). After that, the market tanked a quick 6-7 points to the pre-market lows (support). The bounce was rather small and soon we were back at the lows and now breaking them.

Consumer credit was very strong, $11.9 billion beating expectations of $6 billion. No real noticible reaction to the number, indices were still going down, just under the previous mentioned pre-market support. Bulls tried to stage a rally in the last hour, but bears fought back and we ended near the low of the day.

On the SPY-chart, we notice a diamond-top pattern on the 5min-chart:

An update of the DIA-chart, we're basically in the middle of the range.

Big divergences between the indices, small caps were underperforming, NASDAQ doing a bit better than S&P/DJIA.

Gold and silver rallied after yesterday's decline. The dollar is up from it's pullback yesterday, the euro is very weak and dropping further towards the July lows. Under those lows and the euro could travel much lower, possible target 1.30.

Trades
I took partial profits on MCP @56.94 and @58.50 (1R and 2R). Letting half my position run with SL at breakeven. BAL is moving nicely, SGG is holding up ok for now.

Trend day

Today was a nice trend day, with everything lining up: silver and gold down (gold lost big, -3.2%), dollar down, oil up +4% and treasuries down. A good day for the bulls, closing the S&P-futures near 1200, close to the next resistance-level and Friday-gap high. I expect some chopping around this level tomorrow. Interesting to see what happens after that. Here is the SPY 5m-chart:

Trades
As mentioned in the previous post, I got stopped out of the inverse ETF's.
I entered a few new trades:
Long MCP 55.49, SL54.00
Long BAL 68.50, SL65.00
Long SGG 97.20, SL92.00

Missed opportunity: APKT which knew a strong opening and I should've gone long near 48. Keeping my eye on this one in case it gives an opportunity to get in later.

Bounce from support

And a huge one it was! Market bounced from support (100MA) right at the open, to grind higher thru the day and end strong. Crude, gold, silver were all down, and not recovering as much as most stocks.
Dip buyers still come in the market, so no real panic yet it seems. Still, I can't imagine the market going straight up from here, we'll probably see some lower prices in the next few days.

The dollar rallied sharply during the pre-market selloff, but gave back all of its gains once the market started to rise. Even in these circumstances, the dollar can't hold any gains, so what will happen if the markets starts rallying again?!?

Swingtrades
Regarding my remark concerning TZOO in the previous post, I stand corrected, the stock made a new high today!

I covered 1/2 of my positions in SOA, GMO and NUVA, right at the open. I sold the remaining shares of SOA and GMO a little later on. SOA because it looked too strong and GMO cause it almost hit my target and now started going back up. Good thing I sold, both stocks ended the day much higher and closed very strong!
I kept NUVA since it looked weak. It barely bounced, unlike the market. However, I adjusted the stoploss to 25.55, just above the opening range high and nicely 'in the money'.

The results so far this week for my swingtrades aren't staggering, just near breakeven for now;
PAG: -4.05%
PCX: -5.77%
TZOO: -0.20%
SOA: +3.05%
GMO:  +5.61%
NUVA up 3.7% and still holding half my position.

Daytrades
I missed some great buying opportunities in POT, SLB and XHB. They all shot up at the open, not my style to be buying early in the day with so much volatility going on! I prefer seeing an intraday V-shape and than buy when the time has come (judging how extended price is, volume etc). I gave SLB a try but it felt like I was chasing price so the trade was scratched for a very small loss. Ten minutes later a rather small risk entry came by, but I didn't take it. Price went up with the market afterwards, so another missed opportunity.

2 minute chart for SLB:

Other stocks I almost entered were MCP and INFY, both on bounce from support. MCP I saw too late and I didn't want to chase price. It went down fast and on huge volume, a sign the down move was probably coming to an end. The white circle indicates where I was watching.

What I should have done was stalk the stock for another low risk entry!

INFY rather grinded down and wasn't too extended from the moving averages, so I didn't really trusted the action here. Price rested on the 200MA and after a triple bottom, it started moving higher to close near HOD.