Hug me...I'm tired

That’s basically all the SPX said to the flatline today as the tape rested after ripping nearly 50 handles in a few hours the past few days.   Surprisingly,  the selling/ profit taking was very orderly,  despite the second day of financials lagging.   After a break of over a week on issuances, the banks- brokers began tossing new supply out due to new rules by Treasury to exit TARP.   Shorts are trying to paint a picture of this lagging group in the advance as a fuse to breakdown,  but it’s not working as the market is saying the banks-brokers got this rally started and it’s healthy that we can move 50 SPX handles and than rest today without their participation. Still, watch carefully if all this new supply and more becomes a noise 'concern'

One of the big leading groups has been the commodity linked stocks as the PMI #’s and a collapsing USD are responsible for the latest advance and the high beta group of stocks we follow surely would be the first to take a breather.   If this is all the breathing space they need today, we’ll ..then we won’t get our welcomed pullback to buy cheaper.  But, we doubt that.   You have to be realistic here, no matter the PMI #’s forward look for the sectors, the USD has sunk about 12% from March highs and unless it’s dropped as the reserve currency overnight the equities can only rip so far before resting.  The USD, strength in it will most likely put pressure on the linked equities, so we’ll wait for such to re-initiate positions.

Some defensive posturing was underway today, but as we said a few weeks ago when those disbelievers tried to get a defensive rotation going,  we’d hang up the phone on you if you tried to request such from us.   Look back now and see what you would have missed if you let Briefingcom and such to your talking for you at that point. “ garbage rally..signs of froth”,  May 12th…The DJIM safety/ defensive trade has been a focus on earnings linked stocks,  you may say.

http://www.djimstocks.com/djim-journal-09/2009/5/13/a-healthy-tape.html

Today gave an opportunity to look around and what we found was quite a few plays, only now possibly setting up for moves such as SAFM, ARUN  that really didn’t participate in this latest rip because they have been consolidating their earning reports.   Both pressed to 2009 NCH at close after notes today. The best rip and right out of the gate today was the 17% shuttle from CVLT ,  last Wednesday we alerted it as DDUP connection and today this was highlighted by a firm and led to the burst.  A 25% move since.   Again, this pinpoints selective stock picking, we think we have accumulated an excellent group in May that has been safe (meaning you’re not losing money holding) and with good pullbacks, they pay back well if you want to book profits.   Of course, most are earning related.

On a group we haven’t covered for awhile is the Haynesville Shale grp, E&P stocks. GDP  had very strong well results Monday night and stock outperformed energy linked stocks.  PVA, last night had v.good drill as well and may react similarly off the bell.   So, we'lll monitor this theme for any further potential in days to come as well.

If today is any indication of the next 2 days leading into the NFP -employment #'s,  we`ll take it, but realistically after this rip we need to digest more than what we saw today and a stronger $USD (commods’) & possible concerns on more supply issuance by banks- brokers may provide such.

Good trend in tact...

Every couple of trading days,  we get a day where the Bears seem to have an upper hand in the early going,  ONLY to give back all their gains in the final hour.    In fact,  this isn't a new episode we witnessed today, but a pretty consistent show that comes every few days for a couple of months now.   Since March,  we’ve been pointing out an underlying bid at 20MA coming in,  now it’s seemingly ~200MA levels  on day 6 over this important technical level.   We were still quite short of the 919SPX present day 200ma (7pts).    Today, overwhelmingly an underlying bid came where the breakout occurred last Monday‘s (200ma level).   Even on those days where the Bears do claim victory, a failed follow through day puts the ball right back into the Bull camp.   It’s never-ending and frustrating to say the least, for those Bears.    If this hasn't been a continuous classical buy on dip kind of rally, we don't know what is!.    In fact,  all these little mini back and forth action simply put this rally in a much healthier state than the Bears would ever hope for as we grind higher.  

Still, as we said 950, even 940+ is quite formidable for the Bulls for now without a positive catalyst.  Also,  putting the move 3pm move into context,  it was following a very low volume day to that point and the ensuing move was purely SPY  and a few other ETF’s related.    You will understand this as you look at your ‘shadow list’ and see little follow through/ little movement in individual stocks/ sectors after 3pm.   One sided move so far,  we would like confirmation by seeing some follow through action in Asian/ FTSE mkts in am before getting too excited for more, just yet.

This is, in fact, is a Bull run that gives us plenty of opportunities.   As long as you trade with the trend, not with your feeling, and not with your disagreement with the state of the economy or policy makers, you'd be doing fine so far.    Is there manipulation in this market by the market makers eg. JPM, GS or policy makers as cried by the Bears?   So what if there is!!   If you are a trader and consumed by visiting blogs to clog your mind,"blogs that clog",  you will see these useless cries.   Think about for a second,  if you have another gig to worry about other than trading and come home in the evening, what do you see?.    You see a market going up and up,  that’s all !!.  Sonner than later, you call your broker to buy!.   If you read the WSJ, your local financial print or just tune into CNBC,  you don’t hear this manipulation noise.    We are simply here to trade with the majority (trend), regardless of what the minority opinion is on the 'net'.   The most ridiculous aspect of these ‘conspiracy’ theorists,  is if they believe it sooooo’ much and are so sure it is pushing this market higher for weeks now …why do they not just trade this trend up and make money off it!.     It's a daily laughing matter to us to visit these characters when we don't have nothing better to do sitting in front our platforms for hours on in daily.  

In this market, it's not our personal opinion that matters on the bigger picture,  it's the majority of everyone else' opinion (money) that matter. 

As far as individual stock action goes, we are still finding a lot of good dip opportunities from our earnings plays.   SAFM ARUN STEC BWY GMCR.. all were making fresh highs today, some dip a little, some don‘t.   Most of the Chinese plays look buyable too on dips.   If you are uncomfortable or unsure about some of the commodity dips, then it's ok not to buy them.    After a few days of strong $USD ruckus,  we may have a good commodity linked trade back very soon.  Not counting Oil/energy plays related to(if) higher crude prices,  we'd stick to 'steels' over the other linked commod' groups.    In the meantime,  we have plenty of "sure" plays on our list that can be justified as safe dip buys, only problem is some don't dip and that's why it's essential to do quality 'stock picking' early to make the bigger dollars as has been the case with our small cap 'earnings' plays this Q.

In AMC newsflow, TXN  guided higher on a optimistic call.    We are wondering if this is a sign to come for many tech' companies.   After all, if there's some growth business segments from a big one like TXN, it has to be the same case for many other smaller players.    Basically, we don't expect TXN to be the last one to pre-announce good guidance, we already had CREE  be the first recently.   Bottom line,  the ball is seemingly never in Bears' court for long.   It’s hard to press new shorts lower and lower because it's hard to get their brothers and sisters to do so when the declines only last a few hours, or a day.   As we said, the volume is light across the tape today indicating the shorts are not confident to press new positions even when down big for a few hours.    We are hoping for some more grinding action in order to set up a more powerful leg up down the road.   Yup, still...that's our 'bullish' plan.

...hit the road, Jack!

...but, do come back!...

Nowhere does it say the first trading day of 2H is like a change of seasons in the traders almanac.  Today was just more of the same anemic volume grind,  a day which probably sucked a few in the morning expecting something more than just a market that slowly rolled over by it's close.    If you’re following the script here this week,  you knew the day was probably done by 10:30.   Firstly,  we had a good China PMI overnight that erased all the previous days CCI# losses by premkt/ open as proposed yesterday.   A decent ISM # that continues to show a bottom in manufacturing followed and we came up to our interim top levels of 930-935  quite quickly,  a level that resembled the 4,000 mile long Great Wall as the market stretched along it all day and eventually rolled from it.  Interestingly, the market push to 930 was not accompanied by the commodity linked stocks as is the case most often.  What we had was a decoupled trade with the PMI- sectors that progressed into a bigger one as the USD rolled over later in the day.  Our hesitation to enter a trade due to inactivity of the commodity stocks into the previous days close was not in vain.  

The only stock(s) that garnered our attention was STEC  as it lit up our shadow list/ platforms from the bell, the other was the SAFM  for an 8% bounce from alert yesterday.

So,  we didn’t muster enough strength to push through 930-935 today and putting all weight on NFP tomorrow to do so is seemingly a lost cause following ADP release today.   Seemingly,  the only probability is some disappointment,  so you might as well hit the road now to avoid traffic out of the city!.   Whatever you’re doing this holiday weekend, enjoy and play safe!.   Oh yeah, speaking of play safe.   You know our number #1 rule since day 1,  we don’t hold stock into earnings!.    As shown this past earnings season,  you can make plenty of money after the release or pre-announcement of a report even after a gap up ..eg. STEC , DDRX,  ARUN…and so on.    You don’t need to gamble for a gap up by holding.   If the last few days are a prelude of things to come,  you are going to be sitting on a potential firecracker malfunction into the ground !….MYGN, BEAT. ILMN SCHN.   Yes, a couple of these are pre-announcements/ one sector and you can’t do anything if you‘re unlucky to be caught in a pre-announcement,  but, believe us!!…this is a sign of things to come if companies disappoint this Q.   You will see huge 20%+ losers all over the place this upcoming Q.