More choppiness?

That's what we feel at this moment.    When we say choppiness, it means the market will behave in a very volatile and adverse way.    We have been saying for a couple of days that we feel sooner than later we may see a big movement out of this market.   It seems that we've been stuck in the same range for too long.   Sure, there have been some good earning surprises and individual action kept us busy during the last little while.   Still, we still have to keep our eyes on the index just to feel if something big may be cooking down the road.     When all things said and done, a big market movement would drag a lot of stocks with it, up or down, regardless the type of stocks.     At this point, we aren't 100% certain about which way the market will lean but it's just hard for us to see a sudden rally into new highs and beyond at this point.    At this point, if it wasn't for some new earning play and couple of story stocks here, the market would actually look down right lousy.   This is what we have to be prepared for, mentally.    We basically have to be prepared for the possibility of a "woosh down".    Believe us, it's much easier to deal with a rally than a sell off.    With a rally, the worst you can do is not to make money!   But with a sell off, you  not only can  lose money, but your confidence as well, and it unbalance your cold emotion as a trader.     Basically for us, it's better to be prepared ahead of time and when the hit comes, we'd know exactly what to do and won't get caught.

So what have been doing now?   Other than getting up early and play some stocks off the news, we are looking at laggards that needed to be reduced and cutting down our # of positions to a manageable level.   Of course, every trader's account is different and this is how we do things when we get cautious.   So what are considered the laggards then?   Basically, those stocks that have released their earning report for a long while and haven't done much of anything, are considered laggards.     We are keeping those earning plays that look technically strong but will keep our sizes at a comfortable level.   Basically, we aren't over betting in any particular play.    Then, we have to keep a note of those stocks that may trade independently of the overall market movement.    Lastly, keep an eye on new 52 week high and to see where people might be stuffing their capital into.     All these may sound a lot but it's actually an ongoing thing for us.    At this moment, we are doing what we can to stay ahead of the game.

ONXX, this little play caught some serious momentum fire today.   The huge gap up is not enough to deter buyers and it inched another 20%+ intraday.   This is not a typical play we'd hold overnight so this is more of an hour by hour thing for us.   Again, if you have fast finger and a suitable appetite for these kind of plays, it does pay to get into it early in the day.   Other than that, your understanding of the news release is as good as ours and we'll just leave it at that. This was simply a headline you cannot pass by early.

BW, speaking of another gap up, this is actually an earning play.   The company guided up for 07 and stock behaved very strongly.   Other than a starter position, we'd have to give this one some more time and room just to see what it's made of.

Okay reversals in USAP, MFW (MDCI continued its bounce) today but not everything reverses.  VARI also did alright but a lot of stuff is lagging any punch.   Watch these 9/14ema levels carefully as we pointed out last night.

Untrustworthy

That's what we think of the index move today.   Of course, if you listened to CNBC all day, this is nothing but another rosy day for this market.    If this is an actual rally, why do we find lack of opportuntities to trade?    Trust our eyes, instead of our ears!    You can trade deaf, but you can't trade blind!   Ok, enough of this corny wisecracks! lol   The truth is, we aren't finding many opportunities to trade today,  so we sat mostly on our hands.  There might not be a load to play, but there sure have some nice points in ONXX BW and CENX the last 2 days here.  Selective is the name of the game, now!  A few things that looked interesting today besides these names..

CENX USAP,   CENX obviously got some bid early on b/c of the Alcoa news, but hey Alcoa was the reason we picked this as the Aluminum play over ERS in small cap land.   Anyway, this is very natural b/c this is how the sympathy plays work and hope some of you played it off the alert, if you already don't have it as a hold.   Last week in the forum, we wondered why CENX was lagging the sec. at $44 off the upgrades of the big aluminum plays.  Today all this paid off as it spiked to $49 in the first 10 minutes.  A day like this sure gets CENX's name out there as a sec play, even though there may be absolutely no chance for CENX to get any kind of benefit from a potential Alcoa takeover.   Ride it while the effect lasts!     USAP may also benefitted a little from the AA news,  so it's not a surprise.  What we're glad to see is that USAP held its 9 ema convincingly.   Lets just cross our fingers and hopefully it gets some good trading from this point on.

OEH, our lux lodging play into EPS put it's first close in over $49 NCH and VE, put its first close over $72 while here at DJIM. Guess, it pays to have some NYSE stocks to follow in the middle of the takeover, record share repurchase blab about the Dow.

EML SYNL, not much to say about these two and we are hoping these can turn into a flag pattern.

CGX, this one really showed what we like and that is immediate strength after it gave up some of the early gains following earning.

Basically, we are biting our time with this market.   It doesn't mean that we are going hibernation but we are simply waiting for something to happen.    Knowing this game, something will always happen sooner or later and they come at a time when you are least expected.

..with Love!... signed FC.B

Who you gonna trust in a untrustworthy market on Valentines Day?.... FC. Bernanke of course!.lol...The man blew a kiss and the market caught it big time..every sector got a big wet one from Fed Chairman today!  We won't bore you with this as we just react around here and let others digest and dissect all of this.  All we know is the contenders come out and play and the pretenders stay pat.  It is days like this that you fully understand if you should cut the laggards ( if you haven't the last few days).  If your stock didn't participate today or even yesterday, you are trailing the market.  Today proved the majority of DJIM stocks have been the right play, many toyed with new highs or just had nice action days.  Here is what was in the Box of Chocolates....the spiked ones first

TRT, well excuse if we didn't have time to wrap this one up..lol...we've talked about the lack of love TRT might experience and the reasons why this time around. This is why we had the starter at 13.50 and said we want confirmation over $14 before adding. Well...things changed a bit today and so did our thinking.  Seemingly no one else was connecting the report of the semi AMAT to TRT.   You know,  if you punch TRT competitors.. AMAT is a name you see.   The thinking was simple.  The semi's gap and TRT is sitting in the mid $13's with 30K volume only after stellar earnings.  HUH?..Just like CENX yesterday to a degree, this was a secondary play today on semi's and it was not participating.  We thought this wouldn't last but we didn't expect the rush of 300k plus shares to come in the last 2 hours..lol.  We added as soon as volume doubled from 30-40k time mention and added all the way up before taking some off end of day.  Considering all the time in the world was had for DJIM members to buy TRT since the report, including today under $14.... we can't say we'll be adding in the morning and maybe you should hold off too.

HRBN was the other stock we noted today at 12.70's made a NCH.  Yep, its the same Herbie we introduced at $10 and the spike to 13.70 the next day.  Well, hopefully it got that exuberance out of its system and can hold its gains.  Whatever the case , the China stocks look better as the FXI stabilizes and so we thought we'd go with the small gap open after yesterdays reversal.  We noted the big bids in alert, either this gets taken up into the conference HRBN is at on the 19th and/ or this bidder turns to seller on any bigger ramp up.  Hey, it's a market!

So those were the sweetest gainers but there was more in the box...

USAP made new highs, we have talked about this all week and today was the result.  MFW which reversed along side USAP the other day also finished well.  ENR BW VE OEH CGX HXM all put on a good show. We released most of our VARI as it seems tired and didn't participate.  A nice run for VARI and we'll be back.  It is best to release into a high quietly, nothing beats it after such a walk up since earnings.   So what you have is a bunch of stocks that performed well in a good environment, if you have ones that didn't...you most likely have a true laggard..a laggard is not ONXX that needed to rest after huge gains but an ALGN which can't bust out in a perfect storm for a stock that had its sight on a break.    Simply, you want to be in strength and not in stocks that make you have sleepy money. 

Seeing is believing...

Basically, when dealing with a market that mocks your intelligence more often than you would ever admit, the only sense that we have to rely on is our eyes.    Throw away any predictions and throw away any bias, what you see is what you get and the best movers may not be the ones we had in our mind sometimes but this is definitely the fundamental concept of stock trading.    Had we predicted with 100% accuracy with 100% correct timing, we probably wouldn't be trading stocks as what is the fun in that? lol     Then what is the important issue here?   In our opinion, the ability to quickly spot the ongoing trend and recognize which plays are working better than the others and act on it with a sensible strategy is the key to survive in this market.     We think the market has definitely got tougher compared to a couple of years ago.    As they say, the tougher it gets, the tough gets going.     Market always behaves in a dynamic environment and our trading minds will somehow adapt to this ever changing environment and trade accordingly.   The worst thing when dealing with a dynamic market is to be stuck in the yesterday's frame of mind.    Plays come and go and change constantly, our methodology will have to be improved all the time to adapt to the newer plays and what's working out there.    Ok, lets tackle some of the working plays here....

CYNO, we noticed this one a couple of days ago off their earning report and wanted it give it a day or two to see how it reacted to the gap up.   Obviously, gap is being held and that's a very good sign.    We looked at it a bit further and realizing this one has a pretty small float and that's another good sign.   After checking the IBD #, with 96, 90 A rating, this further ups our view on this stock.   So the decision was quick and easy and we grabbed a starter in the low 23s and added more as the stock strengthened up.   Cowan raised estimates and WRH is a big fan now as well.

CSV,  DJ news reported a whole bunch of insider buys on Feb. 13th.   We are not sure if they are open buys or not and look as though they are not.   There were a total of 120k shrs bot by 6 different insiders and they were all bought at $6.40/shr.   So one thing we can definitely rule out is that there's won't be much or any of the insider sales anytime soon.    This is just the common sense that if all those insiders were willing to put in their own money into a stock that just made a new 52 week high after an earning report, there's no reason we shouldn't either.    A business is a business and as long as the business is legitimate, we are not going to give anymore thought to that.

MFW, this is one stock which we are officially giving a "kick a$$" title today.    There will be sometime before they report so as long as the market is in a neutral to bullish mode, we trade it on the long side.  We've had this core hold and USAP up every night this week as the reversal started.

USAP, a new 52 week high today and only as little as two days ago, this one is fighting off 9 ema.    Strong stock, nothing more to it.

VTRU, we aren't disputing anyone's claim of how much more this thing is worth so we are sticking to "seeing is believing" attitude.  First in the $43's off earning here, we said we'd back. Today the chart cried for a good look.

A few others we reminded to keep watch on today, SSRX from last week, CXW, AVZA made NCH but we'd like to see some more volume to sustain this.   Also, if a stock like EML is to bounce from 9ema levels it doesn't mean it has to touch it...it's just too thin to play that game.  CCOI might be worth a further look as it comes to highs.

We have 3 days off coming up and there will be some profit taking into it, but if that's your worry...you should have been selling into strength these last few days.  After a week like this, dip buyers will be waiting for your shares tomorrow.

SYNL Synalloy Corporation / EML Eastern Company

Looking to find the next gem to put under your pillow?.  SYNL was first on DJIM at the open at $16 last Q, now it is trading at $26.40 with IBD #'s of 99 97 and more than 60% higher than that day in October.  In October, we also profiled another undiscovered stock by the name of EML at around $18.  This Q it reported breakout earnings and has traded to almost $28.  Up over 50% since DJIM first covered the company.  These are a few examples of companies we like to call undiscovered crawlers, but this is just one facet of DJIM trading/investing which includes almost daily alerts on the days next possible fast mover.  Also because we follow these companies closely,  it allowed DJIM readers to be right there in the early action on the most recent earnings releases.  For a complete list of winners from the 2nd half of 2006,  visit our preview section in the navigation bar. Scroll down to see some of the catches of 2007!.

Monday, October 23, 2006 at 09:30AM-  SYNL, Excellent Q from this very thin traded, low float stock (5mln). Anything to do with pipes and chemicals we usually like...As usual we don't chase and end up holding the top, watch reaction..volume etc for a possible entry as we always say. .39 vs. 09EPS for Q (2.4mln vs.525k Net.one time small gain in there it seems...still this look good with eps in the .30's., backlog sweet

Monday, October 2, 2006 at 12:50PM-  EML was developing a latch for Humvees in '05, last week was the pay off as they received a first order and then a second from Armor Holdings (AH) to retrofit humvees. The 2 contracts worth "31 mln" will be split between the next 2 Q's (sales to hit between SEPT-MAR).. Eastern makes about 100mln in Revenue a year....hmmm nice bump coming as soon as next report.  The stock is extremely thin but moved nicely late last week due to a 3/2 split announced. The real news is the contracts that were not released in a official PR but sit quietly in the sec. filings. The chart is nice, the split works and the potential for thousands of more HV's to be retro-fitted and therefore revenues climbing. Added to DJIM holds....wanted to intro this on a dip but now not sure that will come soon enough.

DJIM #8 2007

Three days off from the markets almost makes you forget what a happy little place you were at!.  That is until you look at your trading account gain over the previous weeks or the charts of DJIM's closely followed that we/you own to put yourself in that happy space again.   You see there is no excuse to be stuck in the mud after the last 5-6..trading days.  Opportunities have been a plenty and the market has been with you.  If you are not ahead in the game, you are not taking advantage of what DJIM provides for the day tripper or for the investor.  What opportunities?.  Well..lets go to the alert-forum pages and see what was there.  A week ago Friday, there was...

CSV at the open and $5.50, we said to look for confirmation at $6 for interest....it was there and it has touched $6.80...

ONXX buy in premkt on forum when the phase 3 was released just below $20 and now it sits just off $28.

The same day we mentioned the stellar earnings of BW around $41 and the buy of a starter that night, it has traded to $46 since.  Then there was the sooo timely mid week note on TRT lagging the field when it shouldn't have and the kick ass move to nearly $16 in less than 2 hrs on rally day.  This is one example of not chasing the 30% gap on earnings and instead waiting for another entry.   If that wasn't enough, we introduced CYNO low $23's...now almost 10% higher and IBD #28 by the weekend.   Friday's seem to be made for small cap earning and last week didn't disappoint as HURC released their earning.  We alerted we'd be buying early and another 10% was available after the gap open as the stock ran from $39's to $44. If we started the day on a good note, we might as well end it on a good note.  KRSL on the reversal and an alert just under $18 for a potential kick come Tuesday was the trader alert.  Well, it looks like it came in the last 20min and AH's.  Again, this is an example of not chasing if you miss a early entry off earning on a small cap/float stock and instead waiting for the next entry a few days later.  Last ...we checked this was trading over $20 AH's on Friday.  So, this was just the new plays last week, we can't forget the steady climbs on most DJIM's holds to new highs all week.   The long term holders should be happy with DJIM steel, aluminum, lodging, Internet plays...USAP CENX OEH VTRU and even our Euro play in VE, now from low $68's to $74.  Hey even a licorice/banking stock in MFW.   There is a mix on DJIM for any type of trader/investor.  You're not expected to catch all of these plays from last week as there are many factors involved, including size of account...but you should be sticking a few of these trades hard last week.  This is NOT about selling you that DJIM works, you are already here and so the only purpose of regurgitating last week is for ' hopefully ' not many of you to see the potential you are maybe missing and figure out why!!.  We simply want everyone to enjoy the same success.   So,  if you were not in a happy place late last week,  it's time to re- evaluate your strategy as we said last weekend and send us your recent trades and confess to your bad habits.   A very few have done so and hopefully last week they exercised what we discussed and profited.  Count how many of these DJIM plays mentioned today you hold this weekend or traded last week,  this could be a simple test to know why you are not ahead of the game.

HURC, this opened nicely with not a lot of fanfare as the volume indicated. This provided some early entries at a decent and not runaway price.  Soon you saw the potential in how fast this stock can move.  We touched on what we like about HURC in alerts. There is nice growth of 14mln yoy in revenue plus over 2mln in net.  The estimates were beaten and sequentially there was some growth which we like to see.  Considering 2006/2005 yoy Q was flat last year, this is impressive considering they did .84 v.48c.  Seems like they are back on track with operations in China to take hold in 2007.

KRSL, seems every Q we go through the KRSL hype off earning and most of the time it does not last.  The 775K float is always advertised as the the holy grail on this stock.  You see it has been beating YOY numbers Q over Q for the longest time and the same story starts.  This time many will put their EFUT in their mouth and say this will become such...Hey,  weren't they just saying that with FFHL and the happy smiley price targets on it.   Simply, the numbers are good but there is nothing tremendous about them.  But that is not the point here,  it is only about how much the traders want to play and drive something higher.  It depends on the mood and right now its seems to be craving a runaway, just a feelin'.  The volume the first day makes us think this might have a longer life span this time around.  This is for traders unless you want to take a $2 dollar lotto ticket on it.  You can see the drop to 15's and the pop to 20's as to the volatility.  Anyways, we got our trading boots on with this one and will trade accordingly.

With over 90% of the SPX probably reporting already, you might think it's the end of earning season.  In reality, this is when the small / micro caps quietly start sneaking in with reports, so this hardly the time to get complacent and tie up cash in laggards.  It is always good to have cash ready and not be anything close to 100% invested as you don't want to be selling something in order to get at another.  First, you will never get the price you dreamed of for the one you've been holding and by selling you won't be getting the new buy at the price you wanted if it runs quickly anyway.   Still, this has been a very productive earning season so far as we conclude week #8 of DJIM weekend updates.    To name a few nice ones from this Q, we need to start with USAP as the big winner from $36's.  CCF VARI VTRU ENR AVZA MTRX, a few quick 20% runs in the cheapies like TGX TRCR and some that are fresh like SYNL CGX  CYNO etc. that we are looking and hoping for more out of.  The charts paint a good picture of the recent DJIM closely followed,  nothing we can really add than what you see from last weeks Journal, Alert follow ups and Forum notes.

Happy trading and a Happy Chinese New Year to our DJIM friends...

Year of the Pig!

We are definitely enjoying this first trading day of the Pig year.    Of course, the word Pig in Chinese is usually associated with prosperity as opposed to our association of greed.    But today, we are just enjoying being a pig, in either association. lol      Action is pretty broad across the DJIM land and many stocks gained momentum as the index crossed into the green territory.      Here are some highlights...

KRSL, we highlighted this one late Friday and suggested a possible gap up today.   Well we got a gap up and the stock spent plenty of time above $22 today.   That's almost five point play from where we alerted.    We aren't being greedy here and sold most of the trading positions and left with a small trading position.   If this thing gets further momentum tomorrow, we'll definitely chase it but with a controlled pace.  The play as noted was to take advantage of a potential gap we thought we could already see in the $17's Friday being formed....How?...big fat crystal ball!..lol...okay more like a gut of experience.  We did give out the same trade in EFUT, FFHL for gap po'!.  Sometimes its not the length of stay but what you get of it.  If you can get 3-5 pts in 1 day of trading, you're not going to risk it the next day(s).

KBW, we were also surprised by its earning and thought it just seemed to good to be true.   This financial company IPO'ed not too long ago and currently have 4 analysts rate it as a hold with low estimate going forward.   This in our opinion will sure change as analysts will have to raise their estimate based on its report today.   The stock also has a very small float and financial stock in this market cap range always look attractive to us.   We are gonna be trading this one higher.

HURC SYNL CGX BW TRT,  all these recent earnings play have enjoyed some nice follow through and made new closing highs.  FSLR FCN are two more we are trading but have run out of space to discuss lately.

EDU, this familiar one which priced its secondary has broken out today on pretty good volume.    We chased some and are keeping a close eye on any further strength.  If this wasn't enough, recent Russian DJIM stocks made NCH's VIP MBT and GLDN is right there.  This is why we started a hit/hold list so your list starts to resemble ours and we all recycle when the time is right.   At this point the lineup at DJIM closely followed is a World Series lineup and there is just no reason to alert/ forum recent DJIM plays like these.  Hopefully you've listed them to trade or still have them in your books as holds. 

ONXX MFW USAP CSV SNCR, these familiar DJIM stocks all have enjoyed some nice gains and we added appropriately with some of them.

The bottom line is, if any stock did not go up in the DJIM land, then it's really considered as a laggard and we are better off just cutting them lose.   Today was not the day to play a 9ema level bounce. When the market is this rosy and most things seem to work, the trading strategy should be focused on "making most bang out of a buck" and we gotta hammer those stocks with the highest momentum.     We are looking forward to trading tomorrow.    A nice reversal of 35pts on the Nasdaq today and the close over 2500.  Now, let's just stick it!

Expectation!

We are almost two months into the new year and many of us have been asking the same question.   Is this the kind of market we have been expecting?   The truth is, nobody can really answer this question.    Just like an individual stock, the overall market would spend most of its time in the consolidation mode.    It seems we have been stuck in this mode for the longest time.    Unfortunately, there's really not much we can do about this and we can only do our best to cope with this situation.     Today it started off as if the market wants to go down hard but it ended up in a meaningless way.    Our DJIM stocks have fared better than most in this market environment and this is the exact sort of things we liked to see to end our trading day.      Here are some highlights...

FSLR TSL JASO, even though we are grouping these three together since they are all solar plays, we do have to point out that FSLR is the only one that we have considered as an earning plays.    Solar plays are hot and there's no doubt about that.   We think these three represent the best in the solar trading world where both the liquidity and technical signs are top rated.

CSV, this little funeral service stock broke out today on pretty convincing volume.   We didn't think those insider buying was meaningless so we added then and again some today.    It's hard to speculate how high the institutions will take this one up to but one thing we can all agree about its business is that "it's just a proven business".

BW OEH VTRU HURC TRT CGX,  again we are grouping these together b/c these are familiar names that always seem to outperform the rest of the market.    Steady as she goes!    It's nice to have a 20%+ mover in your portfolio but it's the steadiness of some of our stocks that make our portfolio really shine.  All these have been early earning buys this Q at DJIM and OEH, is a sec play on other hotel earnings plays that came out with nice reports.  Now, it gets some takeover speculation with the CEO departure. We thought this speculation was already underway due to industry conditions and company internals, today Bear Stearns added some fuel to it.

CENX survived earning with a NCH to boot and shows this aluminum play is looking for its 52 wk highs down the road.  A couple of recent faves CCF, HMIN are now over 9ema and back on close watch.

Things are definitely looking pretty rosy at this moment and we have seen no shortage of leaders among the stocks on our watchlist on a daily basis.    Does this mean that we are committing heavily into this market?    At this point, we feel we are committing more capital but only on a selective basis.    Things can get out of hand when you add too many positions and it's easy to lose track of things.     A good strategy is to limit our portfolio to a certain number of positions.     For example, when we get to near the close of the trading day, we always ask ourselves a question, "are we going to be holding the best 10 stocks on my screen overnight?"   If things do check out then we can end the day happy but if one or two stocks seem like a laggard then we just cut them lose or replace them as in a CXW yesterday.    This is of course assuming the market is still in a pretty good stand and there are stocks on our watchlist that are outperforming.     Basically the point is that we are always extremely picky about what we hold in our portfolio and this means ...yep, we'll say it again thanks to MFW finance biz...no holding into earning. 

Boring but still productive!

Market exhibited another lackluster day as two major indices went opposite of each other.    Like many traders, we are also pondering on whether we'd be seeing a big move from this market.    While we ponder our thoughts, we are also busy trading those that are exhibiting superior strength in this market.   Again, there's no shortage of stocks to trade today as it's becoming a trend lately.    In all honesty, as long as there are tradable opportunities for us to get our hands on...Is it even relevant which direction this market is going?    We never believe that anyone can be tied down by the market or a particular stock.    When it's time to move on and cut a position,  one shouldn't think twice to do so.    Liquidity in our opinion is retail trader's greatest assets.    Here are a couple of plays worth noting...

HDNG, yes it's another one of those thin floaters.  lol  Actually we have been trading all kinds of EPS movers this earning season so far.    The stock came to us when it gapped up in a volatile fashion.    The company reported a very decent number and the only concern we had is not knowing how this stock will react based on a heavy institutional presence.    Believe it or not, this one still trades like it only has one million float when in fact there are quite a few  institutions holding over 6 mill shrs combined.   However, there's still no analyst coverage on this one.   What we are looking for is more exposure and coverage.    We had CCF, EML, SYNL and now it's HDNG's turn to show us what it's made of.   One thing is for sure, its earning number doesn't lie.   Oh and it looks like IBD raised its number to 98 94 A after the close, not bad at all.

KBW, this one just didn't take long at all and we added with today's strength after consolidating just over $36.   We knew that a financial company in this market cap range is always sexy and attractive to institutional investors.   Why?   They are always potential takeover target for those big and hungry financial outfit.

USAP HURC GLDN FCN JASO ,  all these made new closing highs and we are being extremely grateful of USAP.   We feel that HURC has a pretty good chance of pulling a USAP move. It seems HURC has more staying power than its previous earning reactions.  Basically, it's acting different with sustained strength.

January was a bit slow for us in terms of earnings report but February seems to be full of good surprises.    This seems always to be the trend for us as we are getting more and more opportunities toward the latter half of the earning season.    The only thing we want to say at this moment is "keep'em coming!".  Friday has a way of throwing out a new play lately, so be ready.

DJIM #9 2007

What was a 4 day shortened week felt anything but as trading seemed to have come to a stall by weeks close.  The week definitely got started on a bang but by weeks end the buyers seemed exhausted and/or just not interested.   So what do you do?.   Well, if you can't buy anything with potential it gives you time to evaluate your holds and maybe sell some into the 'Green'.  It is not the time to get nutty and turn away from what has been working by chasing something just to make a trade.  It is always better to draw down you positions into the green then having to hastily sell if this lacklustre tone continues and we really have an exhaustion day when the selling hits hard.   What the week provided was for some orderly profit taking and by looking at performance of some DJIM's closely followed in the past 5 trading days, so it was not such bad thing or idea to scale down or add to a strong one or two like CSV.

KRSL 28% SYNL 13%  ONXX 12.1  CSV 8.7  TRT 7.3  BW 6.5  CGX 5.9  USAP 4.0 CCOI 4.2 OEH 3.4 GLDN 3.1..and HURC at its highs was up 15% since alert buy in.  Taking into consideration the last few days, these returns at the end of 5 days of trading is nothing to sneeze at.   The week was not all pairing down positions,  there was some buying and adding to these percentage gains in the likes of KBW and to a lesser extend HDNG.   The only one that got away was CYNO, it looks the Directors got a hold of the hacked version IBD too and decided to sell in bunches this week.   Actually this looks like planned selling again and it has never stopped CYNO before from moving upwards, so we expect this to be a hiccup as well.  You could plug your nose and hold your breath till it goes away or you could just sell when a stock is feeling pressure such as this.  We prefer to sell and not feel the pressure possibly take down a stock of ours.  The stocks above are the primary hit/ hold list for DJIM, we might have reduced exposure in some like BW after a big run but these are also the first we'd be looking to throw money back at in the upcoming trading week.

What probably got us through the week was the continuation of the solar plays. Right now, JASO FSLR TSL are providing more than ample opportunity to swing a trade. The good thing is seemingly there is always one moving, so at this point we are hitching a ride here and there and not asking for names.  VTRU VARI , we are waiting on patiently to make a drive for new highs and jump in with some enthusiasm.  The problem is the techs just don't want to lead this NASD to higher ground. 

So...despite the selling in most sectors for 3 out of the 4 days, the NASD and Russell finshed the week up about 1 %.  The Bull/ Bear fight in full force, except the fighting ain't that strong in either direction.  Hope this week is a little more interesting and some conviction comes back.  In the meantime, DJIM will be stay in its own ring and will be after new earning stocks to punch out some profits with. 

Solar...Solar

Now only if our entire portfolio is made up of these solar plays, then we wouldn't be worrying about the choppiness of this market.   The truth of the matter is, when you have become a mature trader, it's just hard to dedicate a meaningful percentage of your portfolio to plays like these.   We have been playing these solar plays for a while now but results are definitely not the same as the stock's performance suggests.    Well, this is part of the game and we just have to weigh in and balance out different plays with different kind of risk/reward ratios.    The market looked a little worrisome intraday and despite a late pick up in the market indices, many of the most recent strong stocks we follow still ended up in red.     Unfortunately, when the only group of stocks you are trading are the ones that are near 52 week high, this sort of behaviour is common when they lose a little steam.    We reduced some exposure today and we are still going home with a cautionary note.     At this point, we have no bias on the overall market and we are certainly not sticking our necks out to see which way the wind is blowing.     We are taking some of the trading opportunities from some hot sector and some story stocks to make our trading days a little more meaningful.

TSL,  yes it looks like one of our members gave it a royal pom pom blessing and it closed at the high today.   The momentum certainly looks strong and it feels like there is more upside to come.   Right now, this play is really beyond the eps/outlook but rather it's more momentum based as we've said before.   What you see is what you get and it's a little pointless taking the fundamental into the account when the daily swing is 10%+.    We have been busy trading this one on the long side but we are taking this play as is.   We do want to caution that when this one does pull back, don't expect just a one or two point pullback, be prepared for some dramatic movement. In the meantime, even a technical newsletter bull on SOLF can bring the others into play once again.  It could also work the other way, so be on guard and don't get carried away.

FSLR, we don't know if this one is following TSL or the other way around but the end result is similar.   This one also closed pretty good and pace seems a bit controlled compare to TSL.    Even though FSLR's gain is conservative compare to TSL, we feel it's also way less risky when it comes to actual trading.    Again, it's really up to an individual to decide which one he/she is more comfortable with.  But as we said yesterday, we are more concerned with the strongest at a particular time...hitching a ride and not asking for names.

EML, yes volume is really laughable in this one today but it's only a buck or two off the all time high.   Keep an eye on this one as this is back in play in our book and watch for further volume increase to look for trading opportunities.

MFW, nice rebound so far. The best way to trade this is go with the flow as the institutions will do the calculating on the debt of one part of the company and the value of the licorice biz etc..  We are not about to crunch the numbers,  it's easier to go with the flow. If this continues it should top the recent top going into MFW's full earnings which appear to be in mid March.  Plenty of time to catch on,  if we get a continuation of the big run recently.

UEIC, we added this one to our watchlist on Friday and bought a starter.    We liked its earning number but more importantly its earning reaction.   This one is actually an institution's favourite too as 75% of the float is held by them.   We are definitely keeping a close eye on it to see any further development.

Briefingcom bit, Barron's reports Universal Electronics (UEIC) shareholder Neal Goldman, who runs Goldman Capital, believes shares could appreciate by up to another 50% in 12 to 18 months, based on increasing penetration of the markets for HD TV and digital-video recorders. He's also enthused about new products like Universal's Nevo SL controller that orchestrates everything from HDTV to music stored on a computer and routed through a home-stereo system. "If you take away the $4.50 a share in cash from the [roughly] $25 stock, you are looking at a stock that's trading at a very low multiple of 16 and that can grow at a rate nearly twice that," Goldman maintains. The co's sales and earnings, reported late Thursday, topped Wall Street's consensus estimate, lifting the shares more than 23% Friday alone. Universal also raised its Q1 guidance. DirecTV (DTV) and Comcast (CMCSA), which utilize Universal's technology for their set-top control boxes on an OEM basis, are its biggest customers, providing 19% and 11% of revenue, respectively. The co's technology is also used in DVRs that TiVo (TIVO) and the cable/satellite operators supply to their customers. The real allures, according to Avondale Partners are its intellectual property -- a portfolio of patent-protected technology -- and market position, with 75% market share in providing remote controls to U.S. cable operators," director of research John Bright says. Their library includes more than 260,000 device codes, which allow its devices to plug into more than 2,400 brands worldwide.

We like Avondale..past success with their money

BTJ, IBD's "New America" section gave this one a pop today and this is definitely one of the most interesting oil service plays out there.    Maybe this one is getting the kind of exposure it needs to price it at a relatively higher valuation.   We think once the IBD fever dies down, it'll go back to the old "track the crude price" behaviour.   It's just at this point, it's hard to say how much higher of a price it's going to sustain with this new found IBD exposure. Day to Day with these as before.

All in all, this is mostly a "do nothing" day for us other than a few selective plays.    We are sticking to "play with the flow" strategy and not to lean either way until every signal we see points heavily in one direction.

looks like a damn cricket score... 400-100

What's safe out there?  Cash!   What's not safe out there?  Everything Else!     This is one big whoopass shakedown, breakdown today.   It started with Chinese market getting rocked overnight and spilled over to Europe and now here in North America.     We have long suspected a big move is due and unfortunately it's a down move.  

Don't be fooled by all of the recent strong eps plays. In this sort of market, nothing is really safe.    Human emotion always works in an unpredictable way and it is in our opinion best not to predict, but to react.    Market was down big time today and that's the way it is.   At this point, there's no point even thinking about playing a bounce because you are more than likely being setup to be "sold into" by others.    What we will do at DJIM here is to basically forget about what was working before and start a fresh list of stocks.     In a few days, we should be able to tell which stocks that are going to be standing still and which ones will be faded away.   Perhaps, there might be a new crop of stocks that rise up to get our attention during this major pullback.   For now, we hide in our bunker to watch the fireworks.

Bottom line, protect the capital and don't be a hero!...

If anything today put into perspective of what DJIM is and tries to be.  Of course,  some of you are just riding the next DJIM gainer and not paying as much attention to our Journal as you should.  Tonight, maybe a little homework time and see what you used your speed reading skills on.   Nobody imagined a 1 day scenario like this, but the prospect of a big move up or down has been repeated here over and over again.  Yesterdays market alert...all the recent Journals in cutting them laggards, dwindling positions..little buying were enough of a hint on where we stood.     We admitted last night the gains in solars are not shown in our accounts because of the stance we took..sure we missed a lot of the gains but not being heavily in these or holding them overnight provided good sleep and today the residual of holding and playing these speculative plays hit hard.    Yet, again we sleep tonight with no possible nightmares from what we saw today in this sector.   How many times have you seen us issue an alert in the past 8 months or get so negative on the market that we let you know our feelings...once..twice maybe..Journal or Alert.... Add it to the recent stance we've taken here and it adds up to 'don't hold much'!.   If that's not enough...Women, Children first!...then your book of stocks this morning.   No wait the other way around it will be!.  We can't give a bigger clue to what we see and feel.   We can't be your financial advisors but what can do is give our feelings and what we are doing the past while.  What you do with that and how you decipher the given is strictly up to you.   You must understand.. We can't say buy, we can't say sell one equity or the market.   This is not our gig.    If you have gained trust over the years or have made money on earning stocks with us in 06-07, maybe you came out with nothing more then a bruise because you have taken our lead recently.  So......the point of DJIM is to capitalize on the plays we bring , but is also to preserve capital so there is plenty to go after the next play(s).  Clearly, we are starting with a clean slate until the dust settles.   In a lot of respects it might be a good thing as there have been so many plays materialize over the past 6  months.  Hopefully,  we recently prepared you to some extent for an unfortunate day like today.  Nobody saw a bit of history coming in such a large one day swoop, but the caution cards were laid out if this was to creep into the market on a more spread out course.  Half way through today we started getting how ' bout this 9ema play emails...there is no play, folks!.  Not for us anyway!.   At this point, we do not have any need to play reversals, bounces etc.   We have capitalized on these stocks when it mattered and have no need to gamble now.   We have made our money on them and will look to explore new stocks.  This is not what DJIM recycling program was designed for..a 400-100!...Hell, maybe it was but it's too early to tell.   Shake it off, remember we are retail and should not take the hits the big boyz and girlz did today or need to if this continues in any size.   A bunker padded in cash is not a bad thing till the next play comes around...and it will sooner than you think!.  One piece at a time!

Aftermath

Perhaps today is the day for some to "make some money back", for many others, they are still assessing the consequence of yesterday's carnage.   What's done is done and as far as we are concerned, "it's in the books"!    There's really no point over discussing or analyzing what happened yesterday so we won't get into that.  You probably heard or seen every explanation under the sun in the past 24hrs.  What's more important at issue here is what's going to happen next.   Whether you suffered a lot, or a little or none at all from yesterday's crash, all want to know how the trading environment is going to look like next little while.   We think it'd be volatile, very volatile at least the next little while with the bias is to the downside.    Bounces are nothing more than bounces and we are certainly seeing some bounces today. Today had to happen, if it didn't we'd be in BIG trouble if the market didn't bounce after such a exaggerated move to the downside.   It doesn't mean, however, that we are right back into a frenzy buying mode and in fact we should be the opposite and be distrustful of any upside movement.   Sure, you can probably find some intraday trading opportunities here and there to keep busy and make some change but we still have to be mindful of the overall scope of this market.     Trading intraday within this kind of market environment is difficult, regardless the kind of experienced trader you are.  Despite many bounces, some like HURC, SILC etc moved further to the downside.  This is what we fear in trying to find what looks like an easy reversal play, yet it goes down further the day after the carnage.   As you all know, we DJIM are always looking to make money off "easy trades".   That means finding favourable opportunities in a favourable market environment.       Does this mean that we are going to be going into hiding for long while?   Are you crazy?  This is still in February and market doesn't seem to be in a "done" mode.     We think this is just correction activity that's just long overdue despite the spectacular point decline from just one day.   Is it enough of a correction, we'll see soon enough.   Come to think of it, yesterday's point decline is nothing more than a 4 or 5 days of straight decline, which is not uncommon and we have seen many times in the past.     One thing we have to point out though, in any kind of correction, we are never the ones to go after the bottom.     There will never be an exact bottom point but it's rather a process.    When breadth is improving and when you find more and more tradable opportunities on your screen, chances are, bottom was already formed.

Again, think of this market as an individual stock but of course with a lesser degree of volatility.    What we are doing here is taking a wait and see attitude, constantly check for new 52 week highs.    If there are stocks that are making new highs, it means those are the stocks that can weather the correction and chances are a lot of momentum funds will be gunning for those to make up the performance.   We would also be right there to take advantage if a certain group of stocks or sector shines out.  Today, we got an example of what we'll look for...the buyout of a steel stock (STTX) and the secondary plays that started to move.

This is definitely a good time to cool down and go through your strategy a bit.   Has it worked so far and has it worked well with DJIM stocks.   If not, then look for clues where needs to be improved and make a mental note of it.     Trading is an ongoing learning experience and one day of bad market does not wash away all of the participants.    In most likely scenario, most people won't even be talking about yesterday's crash a month from now.    Finally, yesterday was a long overdue and talked corrective activity, an over reaction caused the ensuing meltdown.  A panic attack of sorts.  Not one event or a single trigger caused such a freak show.  The market showed what it needed to show today and that is there is plenty of bottom fishes that want to buy this market and put in a bottom of support.  Do remember, the fear mongers will try their best to exploit the anxiety most will feel after yesterday...so expect volatility.  Chances are those that didn't bail fast enough yesterday, will be the first out next time if any sign of further downside correction activity is felt.

Bounce in index...

doesn't necessarily mean that there are opportunities in individual stocks.     We are looking at some pretty wild swings in the index's today and this has to be expected given the magnitude of the sell off we had on Tuesday.    There's a camp of participants that just don't believe that the correction is done and refuse to chase any bounce/rally so soon.    Even though we don't have a bias on market direction,  we do maintain a very cautious attitude and refrain ourselves from tip toeing back into the this market other than maybe a quick trade here or there.   Frankly, it's very easy to go back in and start buying and it's just as easy to start losing.   The question is... do we see any opportunities to buy right now given a lot of the "opportunities are abound talk by many of the gurus out there"?    One thing we need to have is trading opportunities WE are most comfortable with and are familiar with.  We just haven't seen it yet!.   For those who have a 3 year or even longer investment horizon, everything may seem like a bargain compared to 3 weeks ago.   For us, we are short term traders and that's what got us to this point and we'll stick to it.   Our discipline saves us from making unnecessary risky calls/trades and that's the way it is.     Come think of it, making good trades in a good market is not that hard of a thing to do,  but not losing a SINGLE penny in a bad market is probably the hardest thing for any trader.     Trading is often like fighting a battle, you only go in when you sense favourable odds on your side.

There are a few facts about this kind of market environment.   Market won't go away, market participants won't go away and we won't go away but the only thing that can go away is your capital if you don't know how to protect it.   Opportunities will come sooner or later and when it comes, your capital better be there to make it good.    Regardless how big your portfolio size is, we just don't believe in buying anything now for better days ahead.    We just don't know how much worse this correction can get and we are definitely not putting our own money in to find out an individual stock we loved a week ago has another 10 or 5% downside left.     Also, when the markets do bounce back meaningfully and resumes its uptrend, how do we ensure that the stocks we buy today are even going to participate in the rally?   At this point, we don't know and we can only wait and see.     Strong EPS plays are only good when the market is in a favourable condition and there is money chasing them.   Take GEF today, we said.. "What the market will do with new earning play possibilities is up in the air as of Tuesday, so we will be cautious and go with what the institutions are doing with this today".   GEF would have been up 10-15% a few weeks ago on the numbers they did.  This morning we dipped in to see if there would be any earning momo as the market started showing signs of a reversal early.  It moved a quick $3 bucks, but that was it.  By the afternoon the market showed it didn't give a damn about NEW earnings plays and this is what we feared in our cautious note on it.   Simply, we followed the institution flow and traded accordingly which included letting the small piece go.  Let time be your friend and not your enemy at this point.  Knowing that we can afford to wait on plays like GEF or any other play is our biggest advantage here.  Now its on radar again and we shouldn't miss a move up if it comes soon.  If there is no momentum shown, what use is it hold and risk downside at this point or just sit in a flat stock.   Perhaps by next week, we may all be in a buying and holding overnight mood but just not today and probably not tomorrow, a Friday.

There were some stocks near(ing) 52 week highs such as CSV ENR ABM,  but in our opinion these are NOT the kind of momentum movers that may benefit once the market does turn around.    Once again today, we mostly sat in front of our screens to watch the volatile action and listen to CNBC to be amused by their guests.     We are simply looking forward to the weekend.

DJIMstocks.com - specializing in small caps, momentum/ IBD/ EPS stocks- Corrective activity in the markets

Over the past 7 months or so, DJIMstocks.com has been relentless in buying and discovering new momentum stocks without taking a negative stance on the market more than maybe once for a 24hr period.   Well..that all changed this week starting Monday and then Tuesday before the open.   DJIM Alerts are for stocks and we have had a big crop of winners in '06 and so far in '07, yet this is the first time in months we issued a MARKET alert headline, not once but twice.   In DJIM land this was not just an overnight anomaly,  we have been cutting positions left right and center the previous week into a strong market and kept away from any serious buying as the market felt exhausted and could not push higher.  Below are some excerpts from DJIMstocks.com, starting with selling into the previous weeks strength shown in DJIM stocks and cutting anything lagging before the corrective activity. What follows is our methodology during the week that kept us and our readers from any further risk or loss as the market indexes finished the week at its lows. 

Thursday, March 1, 2007 at 08:35PM - NIGHTLY JOURNAL-.......   we do maintain a very cautious attitude and refrain ourselves from tip toeing back into the this market other than maybe a quick trade here or there.   Frankly, it's very easy to go back in and start buying and it's just as easy to start losing.   The question is... do we see any opportunities to buy right now given a lot of the "opportunities are abound talk by many of the gurus out there"?    One thing we need to have is trading opportunities WE are most comfortable with and are familiar with.  We just haven't seen it yet!....  Opportunities will come sooner or later and when it comes, your capital better be there to make it good.    Regardless how big your portfolio size is, we just don't believe in buying anything now for better days ahead.    We just don't know how much worse this correction can get and we are definitely not putting our own money in to find out an individual stock we loved a week ago has another 10 or 5% downside left ......Also, when the markets do bounce back meaningfully and resumes its uptrend, how do we ensure that the stocks we buy today are even going to participate in the rally?   At this point, we don't know and we can only wait and see.     Strong EPS plays are only good when the market is in a favourable condition and there is money chasing them.......If there is no momentum shown, what use is it hold and risk downside at this point or just sit in a flat stock.   Perhaps by next week, we may all be in a buying and holding overnight mood but just not today and probably not tomorrow, a Friday...... We are simply looking forward to the weekend.

Wednesday, February 28, 2007 at 08:49PM - NIGHTLY JOURNAL- AFTERMATH-   ...   Bounces are nothing more than bounces and we are certainly seeing some bounces today. Today had to happen, if it didn't we'd be in BIG trouble if the market didn't bounce after such a exaggerated move to the downside.   It doesn't mean, however, that we are right back into a frenzy buying mode and in fact we should be the opposite and be distrustful of any upside movement......Do remember, the fear mongers will try their best to exploit the anxiety most will feel after yesterday...so expect volatility.  Chances are those that didn't bail fast enough yesterday, will be the first out next time if any sign of further downside correction activity is felt".  

Tuesday, February 27, 2007 at 08:24PM - NIGHTLY JOURNAL- What's safe out there?  Cash!   What's not safe out there?  Everything Else!.........Don't be fooled by all of the recent strong eps plays. In this sort of market, nothing is really safe.    Human emotion always works in an unpredictable way and it is in our opinion best not to predict, but to react.    Market was down big time today and that's the way it is.   At this point, there's no point even thinking about playing a bounce because you are more than likely being setup to be "sold into" by others. ...............For now, we hide in our bunker to watch the fireworks. Bottom line, protect the capital and don't be a hero!...Nobody imagined a 1 day scenario like this, but the prospect of a big move up or down has been repeated here over and over again.  Yesterdays market alert...all the recent Journals in cutting them laggards, dwindling positions..little buying were enough of a hint on where we stood....  Clearly, we are starting with a clean slate until the dust settles.   In a lot of respects it might be a good thing as there have been so many plays materialize over the past 6  months.  Hopefully,  we recently prepared you to some extent for an unfortunate day like today.  Nobody saw a bit of history coming in such a large one day swoop....At this point, we do not have any need to play reversals, bounces etc.   We have capitalized on these stocks when it mattered and have no need to gamble now.   We have made our money on them and will look to explore new stocks. 

Tuesday, February 27, 2007 at 09:23AM- MARKET Alert- Women and children first.....and then your book of stocks....unfortunately, it will be the other way around today.  The year of the Pig has had it's speculative bubble on its butt popped even if this was already talked about a month ago.  If you've followed the tone of the DJIM journal, your book of stocks should be quite light and minimal damage will be sustained today.  The morning will be the exhaustion day we feared in this weekends DJIM #9 as the selling hits hard....

Monday, February 26, 2007 at 12:55PM -MARKET Alert- We always get an automatic cautionary flag up when Naz is down 20 or so.    We are not chasing anything now and are reducing some exposure in laggards...

Sunday, February 25, 2007 at 12:11AM- DJIM #9. Weekend Journal updates for week ahead.    "What was a 4 day shortened week felt anything but as trading seemed to have come to a stall by weeks close.  The week definitely got started on a bang but by weeks end the buyers seemed exhausted and/or just not interested.   So what do you do?.   Well, if you can't buy anything with potential it gives you time to evaluate your holds and maybe sell some into the 'Green'.  It is not the time to get nutty and turn away from what has been working by chasing something just to make a trade.  It is always better to draw down you positions into the green then having to hastily sell if this lacklustre tone continues and we really have an exhaustion day when the selling hits hard.   What the week provided was for some orderly profit taking by looking at performance of some DJIM's closely followed in the past 5 trading days"......28%  13%  12.1   8.7  7.3   6.5   5.9   4.0   4.2  3.4  3.1%..and ???? at its highs was up 15% since alert buy in.            "The problem is the techs just don't want to lead this NASD to higher ground."....."One look at the DJIA explains how we felt the last few days and that is no enthusiasm to buy.  We only did 2-3 buys late in the week and the chart clearly shows the buyers were not there.  We did clear the psych level of 2500 on the NASD, but it is clear we need participation the bellweathers to kick this higher......"

DJIMSTOCKS.COM