Waiting..

An important end-game in trading is not to overthink, contemplate every whipsaw intraday.  This is the ‘space’ we are in (SPX 1260-1280) and a 6bln ES trade that supposedly spooked the market quickly intraday is really just a boring market looking for an ‘excuse’ to sell…”As 1280 invokes ‘R’ for the past week, the market impulsively sells off here and will continue to find an excuse to take some profits”. DJIM#2.   Don’t look too far into reasons for a swing intraday such as today’s unless there is a worthy newsflow headline.   It is what it is….. as seen by the volume decrease from last week and that is a market awaiting earnings and/or a bad sovereign bond auctions coming up (shorts futile hope).    An illiquid market will exaggerate any move, so look at Shadowlist if individual stocks are moving with the SPY/ ES to gauge the significance.  Up or down.   Clearly, today single stocks did not follow the steep drop.   Add the ‘blizzard’ for Wednesday in NY + long weekend ahead and nothing will likely be decided till earnings get rolling post-holiday.

In all,  if some profit taking around 1280 is the game,  get cash ready to use for new earnings plays in the coming weeks instead.  This is also one way to avoid any correction, if one comes in 2H January.

Shadowlist

• Momentum/earnings/“winners of ‘10 –   No noteworthy flow, EQIX  added 2.5 intraday, but a squeeze never materialized.  Action was better on Monday.  Previous DJIM,  ININ  was the notable winner off an earnings guide, but this one has a history of gapping and not doing much for weeks after.
• Commodities-   A thin tape is when a WSJ journal story/ DB group upgrade creates exuberance.  Still, WLT  being DJIM’ fave coal for ages was the biggest beneficiary +6pts, so let it be.. USDA coming up for Ag’s space.
• Consumer-   Retail group still lagging as TIF’s  guide did nothing except get the stock faded off a good open, no follow through…yesterday..(Retail looked better. Our list includes TIF, PVH, FOSL to trade if this has any follow through). LULU  upped  guidance AMC and it will be interesting to see if it holds its gains tomorrow for the whole group.
• Miscellaneous-  a nice guide from a Med-tech HTWR, under consideration to add to list

..hangin' tough

The “Bull” stomped it’s toe early morning to 9ema on the SPX and immediately was helped by dip buyers to get back on it’s course!. The markets resiliency day after day is simply impressive and why shouldn’t it be?.. Just look at today…a strengthening economy as more good Eco data came in, v..good micro # continued, an unwavering Bernanke, a less hawkish Trichet, a surprising consumer who shopped rain or sleet or snow(retail #’s), what more can you ask for?. Okay, just one thing and that is a ‘surprising upbeat NFP# and the market we’ll find itself at pre Lehman Aug ’08 highs.  It will be interesting to see what the market does at this symbolic, if not ironic juncture!

Shadowlist

• Momentum/earnings/“winners of ‘10 –   As discussed , if earnings from “cloud/data..”improve following FFIV’s disappointment, the groups share prices will improve as last Q. FFIV’s past 2-3 days are all you need to see.
• Commodities –  cyclone wavered and commods were hit early, only to make an impressive comeback!. Would not be surprised to see follow through from names like CLF, X (steel linked)
• Consumer – Was today a turning point? If so, we can look at LULU FOSL TIF RL names to trade soon.
• Q4 earnings update –  OPLK, OPNT put in 3-4% days after consolidating post-EPS. AMC, JDSU  put in one of best big beats this season.

..and up it melts

Seemingly after weeks of noting SPX 1307’ish as ‘R” resistance, the market opened firmly on M&A Monday (3 deals) and overshot to 1320 with an eye on 1333 (666X2).  Yep, that’s 2x from what we called the ‘Mark of the beast’ , March 10^th,2009…

”Usually,  we have a case of mouths calling the market bottoms, nobody is doing that now at this level and instead calls for 500-600 gravity pulls are all over the place.    We like this as well for a better chance to get a meaningful bounce from the 'Mark of the Beast' 666 level”.  

A devil of a rally proceeded at that time and after a few hiccups along the way, the market finds itself in a midst of a continuous gradual melt up 2 years later.   The headwinds  of economic data, corporate earnings, money flow away from emerging markets/ bonds, Easy Ben..(Today M&A) outweigh any single ‘day event ‘ tailwind  in the Bulls favour.   There is absolutely no reason for the shorts to step up and risk being thrown under the bus as per recent ‘Egypt’ situation again.  The same premise exists here as it has for months.  As long as this lack of tailwinds persists, any pullback will be shallow as dip buyers will come in.

Shadowlist

• Momentum/earnings/“winners of ‘10 –   Besides AAPL  making fresh highs, most winners/momo’s couldn’t be found in the top SP tech performers on the day as it’s pretty quiet following a nice week.  As said, CSCO earnings are ahead and are being waited in as are some notable ‘cloud, data center’ names for direction. *SOX was a notable underperformer, it’s been a leader, so it’s lack of participation in market making new highs is some crumbs for the Bears.
• Commodities –  mostly mixed, DJIM oily/energy linked plays  FLS, CRR  are holding up well, (GTLS  got a pump Cramer job), LNN  part of our Ag’/fert rotation play since late Dec hit fresh highs while CLF (steel/coal) keeps hovering around new highs.
• Consumer – Our retailer names  LULU, FOSL, RL  continue to trade well /inline with broader tape. SODA,  a Jan alert preceeding its big day from $33 made NCH >$44(new closing high) on addition to IBD 50.
• Financials–  After flat lining all earnings season was today a wake up? $BKX.   Well, a history of headfakes is in it’s blood, so no telling from one day.  It is European bank reporting time, so they will likely feed of their reports.

..same

Another day, another leech on the back of the Bear!.  If only the trading Bear would do as their namesake and hibernate for the winter to save it’s hide!.   Unfortunately, the Bull is only given incremental up days, one after another as the lack of short exposure doesn’t allow for many ‘big’ up days.  As seen recently (Egypt situation)any short willing to press positions quickly covers at first sign of another failed attempt at downside.   Today, 2 hawkish Fed speaks/ China hike didn’t dampen accumulation of shares in the broad market.  Even though these are not catalysts to us,  it used to be that the market in recent years would gyrate on any small bit of negativity. This just shows the maturity of the market as it’s on one track mind to global economic strength.

Shadowlist

• Momentum/earnings/winners of ‘10 –   The risk in CSCO’s outlook exists following last Q and is keeping the movers at bay.  The only fuel for the Bears this week is the underperformance (2^nd day)of SOX to the tape, but this might be only a condition of some profit taking from the best group so far in ’11.  Air out of the NVDA’s semi types is a good thing.  On the hand, we are seeing  rotation as pointed out in the last few Journals to the consumer sec since late last week and financials as of Monday, which the Bulls can offset with.  As far as the fiber optical plays,  consolidation is continuing after big up day on Friday and so watch for another entry soon if this has any legs as a trade in ‘11
• Commodities –  Under hike cloud today.
• Financials – day 2 of being one of the market leaders.  As per Shadowlist ,we concentrate of GS/JPM and/ or RKH (ETF) for Regionals to trade.  But, honestly with earnings plays this Q and retailers this week the plate is pretty full to get overly involved in a trade here.
• Consumer –  Our retailers/ goods are still moving inline with the tape.  Since pre-Friday trade listed DJIM’s are up 6-9% eg.  LULU  $73 to 80;s, FOSL  73’s to 78’s, RL  108-115’s, PVH  59’s to 63. 
• Q4 earnings update -  this is just a good safe stock that has constantly come across, but because it’s a crawler and unknown it has never been added to trading list.  Until now,  AZPN  is a nice safe stock at 1.3b cap in the software space following a good report.

DJIM #7 2011, Shadowlist update

The trading backdrop remains as we left it last week, except the markets will have a host of eco’ data to deal with this week, focus on ‘inflation’.  The week culminated in a big finish Friday with the ‘Opticals' stealing the show (JDSU, NPTN >12% , FN up ~8%),  a trade we were in front of all week in the Journals along with the ‘Retailers’, 8-12% on the week,(LULU, FOSL, RL).

An updated Shadowlist (below, visit site) is the only place we’ll need to look for the next ‘pocket(s)’ to trade away.  We’ve added many new plays (mostly earnings 10-15) to this year’s first list via mentions on Journal/Alert-comments since Jan 1, while removing winners from '10 eg. MOTR, ROVI in order to narrow the Composite to about 60 stocks to monitor the breath/rotation and individual stock picking. 

..still ignoring negative tilted newsflow

A seemingly directionless (sector wise), a lagging tech/naz trade still had the market surprisingly pushing to last week’s highs in the first hour.  The next few hours were going to rest on tech shoulders for the broad market as it was still .5% off its highs of last week.  You always want lagging indicies to confirm a further move by following. ( ie. follow SPX highs today).  As it played out with tech still the sidelines by midday, it was no surprise to find the tape wavering slowly throughout the day, closing at lows after being stopped at the top of noted cluster of “R”.

In all, no catalyst for morning move higher and no catalyst for late slippage. (a Roubini downside risk update hit wires might have been culprit). 

Shadowlist

• Momentum/ earnings/ winners of ’10-   Spotty mixed performance among networking/equip comm’/ momo’s, some networks linked names like APKT, (around down trendline March break) and ALU were outperforming peers by wide margin.
• Commodities – Once again coals here (WLT CLF)  did well, GS helped with an upgrade of WLT. Intraday, MCP , hit 2 month high, CRR a nch and now up ~25% since a DJIM earning addition in late Jan.  Late day broad market selling took most of the above down to trade more inline w/SP for the day, but overall these names still act well day after day.
• Consumer-  MAR’s #’s weighted on the leisure sector (a upcoming earnings question mark now ) and therefore, no follow through for casinos.  Retail was fine,  LULU  breaking out to a NCH by midday.

leaders 'lead'

One again anything that can be construed as negative tilted news was brushed aside by US markets (globally it wasn’t).  We’ve discussed this since the middle of last week as market turns a blind eye, now it’s continuing the trend at window dress up time and ahead of earnings season.  This is same factor at work as when alerted at SPX1250 and said to watch for negative ‘nuke’ news not get sold off any longer, which would be a positive going forward.  Every bit of negative newsflow is seemingly ignored now as investors tolerance has been built up with Macro global issues.  It's perplexing to many.  It could continue until Friday as investors/traders await all the data/QE2 for that day.

The morning ramp can be attributed in part to nobody finding a catalyst overnight (see yesterday's closing note) to close market below the pivotal SPX 1314.  There was no positive catalyst out there this morning.   It was a matter of Performance Anxiety (PA) setting in as managers went after growth/ momentum names.  Remember, these names didn’t participate in the first leg off 1250SPX and really haven’t played a big part of the ‘missing link’ tech (mostly SOX) rush that ensued afterwards.   Momo-linked stocks like FFIV APKT AMZN SOHU and many more simply caught a bid.  As 2pm approached many probably thought the market may repeat Monday’ s late selling due to no positive newsflow, but ‘leaders’ were at work this time with PA being enough of a catalyst and so chance of sticking the SPX gains was a high possibility unlike Monday.  Technically, it was important to get back over SPX 1314 quickly and the icing is a close of 1319, which could be enough for more points as noted in weekend Journal.

Shadowlist

A stack of DJIM names +>3pts as growth/leaders lead the way today.

• Momentum/ earnings/ winners of ’10-    SOHU +7, PCLN +7, AMZN +5, FFIV +4, (NCH's- SFLY  OTEX)  APKT +3pts  broke trendline.  SOHU, unleashed a huge move, saw no news, only idea of why is…China Unicom's results point to a strong mobile internet ramp in 2011, as BIDU SINA  act well too.
• Commodities – WLT +4pts, MCP +4, CRR nch,
• Consumer-  noted Retail was fine yesterday despite leisure selling,  LULU nch , RL, UA all +3-4pts off recent DJIM PVH +5pt on earnings.

Smells like rotation..

Although, the market only made incremental gains to a close of SPX 1335 “R”, the importance of the day likely lies in DJIM’s morning market update…

“….Hard pullback to note from open-10am on momo', notably internet linked names with mkt green.  Some kind of profit taking or/and rotation?..Financials JPM bid, Semi's trough?....we'll see….SINA SOHU BIDU TZOO PCLN APKT NFLX AMZN OPEN LULU  all over~5-10pts down reversals”.  

Strong names of late like MCP PANL CTXS  joined the selling parade after hitting fresh highs off the open. The afternoon and close did nothing to alleviate pressure as most names finished near lows of days.  It would be a mistake to see only marginal losses from previous day's close and not see the losses made in first 30 minutes off highs..

As the day progressed, evidence of potential rotation was becoming more evident.  Money wasn’t only coming out of earnings/ momo’ names, but also out of energy and a few other recent leading sec’s.  More proof was the late push in XLF and JPM,GS closing near highs of day and SOX outperforming the comp/NDX, 5:1 .  Throw in some Dow 30 mega’s like  CSCO >5%, HPQ AXP JPM, MSFT outperformance and the day’s puzzle  starts to come together.

Only yesterday, we discussed…..”The market needs leadership and if a trough is around the corner for the semi’s, it might get some money off the bench and a follow through to chase higher beta growth would likely follow”.  Well, not only did leadership come from SOX , we also saw money come off the bench/ profit taking from momo’earning names into the Financials  (other big leadership group investors like to see).  Played out a little differently, but nonetheless we saw fresh buying, likey the bigger $$ flow we've noted as the lacking buy conviction.

All in, it almost seems too perfect if we get this rotation coinciding at these technical levels, so you have to be prepared for all trading possibilites..up or down.

Global Central banks in focus Thursday, notably ECB and what Trichet’s commentary will expose on pace of further hikes after iniital .25bps tomorrow.

Shadowlist

■Financials  - RKH, regional bank ETF usually works well if this to continue, better than trading XLF.  GS, JPM.

■Momentum/ earnings/ winners of ’10 – Last week cited Opticals/fibre had that bottoming feeling until EXFO earnings.  Now, OCLR report wasn’t any better, but analysts suggest growth will resume 2H.  FNSR  OPLK  JSDU >4%-9% in the first hour and held up to close.  The reaction was typical ‘baked in’ as the stocks followed a different road post SANM EXFO earnings.  As far as profit taking in momentum names…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 bottom point as money comes out faster on the way down then up in this group.

■Consumer – retail numbers on deck Thursday morning. ANF and BBBY tonight provide a nice floor so far.  WYNN, LVS  should not fall into any further momo’ selling as the picture here has turned more fundamental since Macau report.

..real buyers still absent

A negative ‘Greek’ tone over the weekend carried into European bourses down >1% and US open.  Numerous wire hits related to European sovereign issues started to peter out early morning (some positives on Ireland/ Greece /Italy ) and European markets reversed/ Euro rallied and US market followed to day highs by lunch hour.   Simply…that’s all folks!.  Nothing else and nothing more.  Although, wires headlines were positive, there was nothing substantial in respect to Tuesday’s ‘vote’ or anything new and/or significant on bailout package. Market traded sideways once Europe was closed.

All in, the same trends exist  - buyers are not going to work (volume was ‘holiday’ like )and market couldn’t push to day highs by close showing single stocks are still not of interest.   Still, some nibbling is taking place 1279-1249, so a constructive bottoming process continues seemingly.

It seems there is always something curtailing a broad sector move, today it was tech (SOX) related as far as important leadership sectors go.  DJIM’s 20% +EPS growth retail plays ( LULU, UA, FOSL>4-5%) were outperformers.

If market gets through Greek ‘vote’ safely (optimisim grew today/ PM securing support), focus hopefully will turn to FOMC /Bernanke press conference and afterwards a kick off to some earnings (FDX, ORCL types) to monitor corporate America for a change.

'Hope' rally

As been repeated for weeks, the market is a headline watching match for the fast traders.  At least this time it favoured trading to upside on what was really ‘empty’ macro headlines with some micro page turning.

It all started with Europe in the morning with some finance ministers ‘opinions’ (nothing more) raising optimism towards an agreement at the summit (July 20-21).  This enthusiasm was surely to be curbed by Merkel’s comments at the US market open, but market stayed giddy with Housing sale # surprise . In the afternoon another upside leg ensued as “Gang of 6’ debt ceiling proposal made the rounds. Once again, empty headlines with nothing concrete and possibly just more proposals amounting to nothing as usual.  All in, market ran on Macro ‘hope’, but likely rekindled some on earnings follow through from IBM, WYNN last night into the morning with PII,HOGS (disc. spending),OMC,KO and Hermes in Europe. 

In all, nothing macro resolved, but market tested the important 1295 successfully and it coincided with a better earnings picture emerging pushing market back over 20ma benchmark.  It’s too early to draw conclusions on earnings and/or turning away from political ‘macro’, but a rally is a rally and we’ll take it. Another hope is that many were flat footed today and come out to chase despite uncertainty abound. Remember, first leg is always short covering, especially as seen in SOX components today after just hitting fresh lows.

Shadowlist

Consumer - As alerted in morning for TIF FOSL LULU UA  all NCH’s, Hermes earnings put bid on high end, Adidas comments and potential end to NFL strike helped out UA. 

Earnings Q3 linked-   WYNN  post earnings succumbed to profit taking in regular trading hours, but it’s not going off list and will be a buy again.  This sell off possibility was noted to watch following EDU.  PII  added late June at 109 before running 11% to $122, once again put in a very healthy Q   (SHS  ran up as high 23%. Since pulled back, so keep eye out for EPS date).  http://www.djimstocks.com/djim-journal-1h-2011/a-few-names-to-list-into-q3piishsplcm.html.

IBM big catalyst earnings put bid on Mega caps, but also software Shadowlisted CRM  MSTR  to NCHs.

AMC, FTNT, RVBD  demonstrated high beta stocks ran or are running into earnings calls and if expectations are not handily beaten, you’ll be slapped down.