..now just repeat

As if on cue (DJIM's ;), despite a very ordinary flat open,  the market roared soon afterwards for the first hour…”we may have some follow through with risk assets (commodity linked stocks, growth stocks) playing some catch up.”. After days of underperformance, it was the RUT~2%, not the DJIA that pushed the market to SPX 1300 as ‘ dead cat bounces’ just discussed in our ‘momentum and commodities' section updates ensued.  Rotation occurred as the materials/ tech(momo) led the way.   All in,  the RUT excelled, but this is only a dead cat bounce until it at least makes it back into the Sept – Jan channel (closed at ‘R’).   The NAZ faces the same 'R' in its chart and both are hovering around 20ma.  It was nice to see short covering (mostly) in the first hour come into ‘indvidual stocks’,  but the lack of conviction for further gains is still evident as the market flaltlines rest of the day.  On the SPX look to 1307’ish for “R”, not 1300 as an Initial claims under 400k should spur a move.

Shadowlist

• Momentum/earnings/“winners of ‘10 –  The flyers, CRM RVBD NVDA RHT etc.’ finally caught a bid due to…”positive takeaway it was FFIV’s reversal from $102 -$107 in the green. ….Earnings positive was an upbeat JNPR”.   JNPR, ^1.50 /4% off premarket price after a subtle earnings reaction, it speaks volumes for many techs’/ clouds so it definitely helped the sector mood. 
• Q4 earnings update - we’ve been anticipating better EPS reactions post FFIV AAPL GOOG due to bar being lowered and today small caps were prime examples of this occurring from JNPR, FNET, MSTR, KEYN.   AMC, NFLX  fits into this premise as do a bunch of strong tech earnings with favourable reactions. (QCOM TER etc.)
• Commodities –  Materials, one of the top sectors today climbing ~2%.  Steels, (X)  led early, related name CLF  and WLT  joined in with nice days.

Shake, Rattle and Roll on..

Considering the market just rebounded from SPX1250 to nearly year’s highs after an Earthquake, Tsunami, Nuclear fears, you have to believe a 7pt something magnitude quake will only Shake, Rattle and Roll the market back to it's early morning fault line.   This morning’s slide was pure ES/ SPY stuff with little reaction on individual stocks.  Stocks that fell through the crack did so on small volume as bids naturally disappear and scary pants will sell at any level to exit.  As traders, we've lived through enough turbulent moments the last few year’s to know being spooked out of positions is no way to go.  As soon as rationale set in, the market rebounded and was back to the same trends expected here entering the week (waiting on earnings to kick off).  Give shorts some credit for not laying out some conviction by pressing the market off another quake headline.

All in, not a bad day considering Financials only traded inline / SOX succumbed to a little profit taking following Samsung’s report on NAND specifiaclly that hit semi-equip linked stocks, yet SPX posted only an incremental loss.

Shadowlist

■Financials  - Not the best day for rotation to exhibit itself due to newsflow. GS  edged over 50ma as sector heads into it’s earnings. Last few Q’s it’s moved into the reports.

■Momentum/ earnings/ winners of ’10 –  TDSC,KEYN, finally broke out to NCH

”..there is plenty of money to be taken from other sectors and so it may not last long in high beta momentum because earnings are around the corner. Still, it’s best to be prudent if trying to find a buy point as money comes out faster on the way down then up in this group”.  At least it was good see a few momo names snap back, SINA, SOHU.  MCP , did as well but it was purely on newsflow (congress bill)

DJIM #16 2011

Heading into DJIM #15 week, it was noted the market didn’t really know what's going on the corporate front (earnings) from recent indicators (Japan impact/ some smaller co’s earnings/ data points).  

A week later and disappointments from AA JPM GOOG BACK INFY , hardly resolved anything, although just looking back at those pretty big names covering a broad view of sectors, many are left scratching their heads as to how the market didn’t resolve itself more than .5% to the downside by week close. (Unfortunately, single stocks didn’t find ‘elusive bid’ to close above 1321 as per follow up Fri.morning comment).  

Add, big Washington question marks (debt ceiling), Euro debt déjà vu and Bears must be thinking what's it going to take to get longs to sell holdings?.  They already know their comrades are incapable of pressing as the market just tested a cluster of support this week and instead bounced.  Also for good measure, let’s note the fact 4 of above corporations announced just in the last 24 trading hours and the market still managed to rally some ~12 SPX pts from overnight lows.  Okay, let’s also add ‘safety' sectors outperforming and most likely go ‘Huh’?. 

Is it just the same Bull market resiliency we’ve discussed for 2 years now or is this market just waiting to reach a crescendo of headwinds and buckle its knees in a late April correction (..As said last week, investors need to see value in stocks to keep the trend in tact for Q2 or market risks a correction later this month, earnings are the big key to that”,  early April.  Also, recall, post- Japan/surging oil, Global ISM’s pleasantly held up, but it was noted here they could just be delayed and be terrible once April #’s released.  Question is, what if they aren’t terrible?. What if Washington makes headway during it’s recess on debt ceiling legislation? (which it still can prior to May 1).  What if earnings/outlooks start to come through as we hit the majority of SP500 co’s in the next 2 weeks?.   Well, folks..'what if's' in this business is called “UPSIDE RISK”.  Shorts fear it and the big money knows it can rally the market, so they wait on the sidelines for any of these potential catalytic events.  

All in, murky broad market waters, but DJIM emphasis has always been on single stock selection linked to earnings and as we head into the eye of earnings season, we’ll concentrate on building on fresh and/or re- initiations of successful Q1 names off earnings and not worry so much about the big picture, ie,  TDSC  CRR  IPGP  MSTR  WTW TBL /  http://www.djimstocks.com/1st-q-2011/2011/4/5/djim-plays-1st-q-spx-1250-call-mcp-soda-tdsc-crr-ipgp-tbl-ms.html 

..and others like, GTLS SXCI SFLY WFMI ININ OPNT KEYN  (you can click highlighted symbol on site for charts)

NCH-new closing highs: WTW SFLY WYNN  MCP SINA  KEYN (Shadowlisted)

Update on Monday, April 18, 2011 at 09:47AM by Demi/ YourPersonalTrader

TITN , Titan Machinery, Inc.

blow out EPS, will get a look back to Ag' -equip sec', VMI strong EPS outlook last week.

ie LNN AGU POT MOS

SPX , approx.~1295 off SP downgrade news likely a buy.

Not everything a drift...

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Late weekend newsflow out of China,’China to switch some FX into precious metals and energy’, had the PM bugs touting the end of USD.   An hour into the open, the herd jumping on this wire fell off as the trade backfired in most hard commodities with USD, even treasuries lifting.   A symptom of Europe closed for business equals an illiquid FX market, add the fact commodity linked stocks were off very little signalled the markets are really waiting for Bernanke on Wednesday (the decision will hit at 12:30pm/Bernanke hosts a press conf. at 2:15pm). That was the first hour and nothing changed by close, including shares not changing hands.

Consolidation was what we were looking for heading into the mid-week and this was just some of it playing out today with no hard eco’data and earnings taking a backseat to Bernanke.  Tuesday will likely be more of the same.

In all, trading days like this you don’t need to peruse the market drift for stocks to trade.  A glimpse onto the Shadowlist  early reveals enough action to possibly trade just off earnings related information.

ALB , initiated last week off earnings popped ~5pts/7%,  SOHU  had good earnings +8pts, SODA  a price target increase  to $50 /+8%, TZOO +7% on momo from earnings and price target increases. 

EPS reports in the next 24hrs off our list include,  APKT,CMI, ININ, UA, KEYN,ILMN

Update on Tuesday, April 26, 2011 at 01:29PM by Demi/ YourPersonalTrader

Messy tape: Looks like the bunch of industrial/material EPS beats/guide ups got some PA going into month end, unfortuantely at the expense of momo's/growth stocks who were used to take profits off on the pop. 

Probably best to look at those hit most %/or pts off ist, (ININ, UA silly off reports), China's, TZOO,PCLN

..is it over yet?

The earnings momentum engine was losing some steam before market open (BMO), but no one noticed luckily as the Bernanke show overshadowed today’s lacklustre earnings. Simply, the very positive results from Tuesday couldn’t be matched, it’s best that earning reports today took a backseat.  As far as the ‘show’, it’s contents minus any potential screw up by Bernanke were released at lunch hour and market responded positively as everything and anything dovish is ‘easy money’ and was ‘confirmed’.  The USD started to get whacked lower at 12:30 and that was the tale to be for rest of day.  As much as this conference was and will remain fodder for debate, the reality is it was a non-event.  If austerity was 2010 word of the year, one of 2011 finalist might be ‘transitory’ after today. Enough said, let's move on, it's over with. 

This week’s enthusiasm for earnings and FED likely gets digested for rest of week after hitting SP 1355 level. Attention should turn to big April eco data/Macro starting next week, including ‘debt ceiling’ noise as recess concludes.

Shadowlist

■Commodities –  The beneficiaries today were clearly the PM’s as they exploded higher.  As far as everything else, Copper was weak and base metal stocks (coals, steels) didn’t participate in the USD plunge and underperformed.  Nobody is talking about the Shanghai now, but the 4-5 consecutive down days and technically negative below 50ma is something to monitor for our markets and commodity groups (possibly more tightening on it’s way)

■Momentum/ earnings/ winners of ’10 –  There is a lot of discrepancies in how tech linked names react to earning, so it’s hard to know what may run or not.  APKT  ran off a disappointing guidance that only matched their 'own' guidance, while a peer ININ  beat Tuesday and gets sold off.  KEYN  is another one that should have done better today as well as BIDU after hours.   AMZN  likely confused a few in it’s impressive comeback. Opticals, JDSU and FNSR  (noted here recently for eyeing gap) outperformed.