DJIM 1st Edition, 2007

First of all, we'd like to wish every one of our DJIM members a Happy New Year.     As we are kicking off this new year with our first DJIM weekend edition, we'd also like to thank each one of our members for their continued support of DJIM and making it a very unique and special place to be.

Toward the end of last week, we had a little pullback from some of the momentum favourites from the early part of the week, especially Friday from Thursdays runners. We'd think it has had a lot to do with the fact we were heading into this weekend with a 4 day rest, and also the fact that some of those runners just had a way too big of a run-up in such a short period of time.  This was actually widespread come Friday in the markets.   As you are familiar with us, you know we've been very vocal and adamant about taking profits. This is especially true starting off the year, as it is now about 'new' points and adding them up through 2007.   Some of these plays such as FFHL GROW, just cannot continue their run-up without pauses, assuming they are still in play.    Nothing goes straight up, so bear that in mind, we take profits as the play pauses.     If we don't take profits when they pause, we might be looking at a 10 to 15% pullback and a very useless alert that was once very profitable.  This is very common when dealing with small caps and momentum plays.    Because we never assign any artificial price target or predict long term direction, we never have to worry about catching the top, nor we have to worry about making a perfect trade.    What we are really trying to achieve here,  is to capture every trading opportunity that is presented to us, early, and sometimes very very early!     When you start trading those potential 25%+ gainers early, you are almost ensured some good gains even if your trading skill isn't as experienced as some of the others.   In time though, the more trading you do, a more improved trader you'll  become and better you'd be at mastering this game.

here are some stocks of interest from last week.....

FFHL, in our opinion, this play last week really highlighted what DJIM is sometimes all about, catching the momo early and often.  Most of you have seen it through 2004-2006.  A couple of these plays a year, if attacked properly can make your entire year or at least give you a nice cushion to trade/invest off.    This is not saying that we'd be getting a play like this every week, but when it comes, we'd be there first to give members a heads up.    From the look of its action near the end of the week, we'd be looking for another entry point next week.   At this point, we are looking for $17.50 as potential b/o point with good volume for a possible entry.   So you'd ask why not buy it now if we think it's gonna go back to mid $17s?   The point is, we don't know when it'll happen or if it's going to happen.  Last week, we couldn't wait for the entry we were looking for as all the stars lined up at a lower price.   We just want to make sure when it happens, with a crystal clear sign, we'd be there and play it again.   Judging by its prior move, when it moves, it just doesn't settle for a buck or two.     At this point, we don't want to risk anything and only want to play the "sure" or "high probability" money.   This can be either viewed as stubbornness or discipline, but we just like to think of it as a smart way to play these momo stocks.

HMIN, this one gave us a good pop last week and it looks like it wants to consolidate for a bit.   Unlike FFHL, we think HMIN is definitely a more legit play which has alot more staying power.    You can say that HMIN is a pure China economy play and we like the sound of it.   As long as the trend is pointing up and shows no sign of reversing, we'd be buying on dips.

The Asian markets, ones that are open today were hitting new highs today. The Shanghai(China) is closed but the chance it might play a little catch up is probable when it opens. In this case, DJIMS Pacific-Asia stocks like the above and JST, MR, EDU still might catch a bid early tomorrow.

FSYS, the increase in volume last week, and with corresponding price action, caught us with a slight surprise and we are definitely giving it more attention in the coming days.  

Most DJIM stocks you can review in charts are in the 'hub', they've flown long haul and now are back on the ground waiting for a flight plan to continue on. Basically, most have seen some distribution, profit taking yet look no worse off as most are near their highs.  It is best we let the market find a remedy for the hangover from late 2006.  In the meantime, we will seek out new plays if these are not ready to lift off again.

A sign of things to come?...

First trading day of the year, it sure was rocky, to say the least.    What began as a all out rosy day turned into a scary moment in the afternoon but only to be saved by an uptick during the last half hour.    Volatility is in the air and we can smell it.   Some of the momentum stocks reversed intraday and got hit hard and some struggled hard to hold their ground.    Boys and girls, welcome to the new year!   One thing that we are sure of, regardless which sector is working today and which sector is not, the action we've seen from the market today is caused by the exact same players that were playing these same sectors a few days ago, or a few weeks ago, or a few months ago.    Blame on the Fed Minute, blame on the oil, or we can simply blame ourselves for creating such big volatility.

When it comes to trading stocks, what we are really doing is not trading the stocks themselves, but rather we are trading against the people behind those stocks.   It's a competition and it's a game and majority ALWAYS have the right saying in a stock.   We have to accept it.    So when the market turns intraday today and even the mighty FXI could not hold its ground,  we have to accept the fact of what's happening and act accordingly.  SELL..   How many times have we seen a +100 Dow day reversed into a -40?   Not many times!   This of course raises our caution level considerably and therefore we have to act accordingly.    There's no pride in this game, it's just about survival.   When you can actively survive in this game for a long time, it means that you have done something right and it also means you probably have won a lot.  Ok enough of this philosophical crap and lets move on to some real actions... lol

China stocks, namely the ones we track, HMIN EDU MR and BIDU (more for the trader) all had a relatively good day.    Even though MR and HMIN did not finish near their high of the day but given how bullish we were on those stocks last week, we all should have had some to lock in for some profit and /or if you played our idea off yesterdays Journal that these might catch a bid, especially with the FXI gapping up 3+ points premarket and these not far off Fridays close.  EDU was still left behind 15 minutes into the trading day and so we tossed out this idea at $34.20's.  We still like HMIN alot and think this one is definitely in play, given the recent surge in volume.    We are very much in the camp of buying aggressively on dips for HMIN while adding lightly on strength.   Why?  Well it seems this is how this thing has been rewarding us so far and there's no reason to change the strategy.    MR, some dude's been putting an iron lid  on this thing at $26.    When so much firepower has been absorbed at $26 and stock wouldn't go any higher, we think it would've dropped even without the index help.    Give it some more room to work, buying dip also works well with this one.   Both EDU and BIDU looked pretty good at the close and both showed that they are busting their respective downtrend.   We are definitely keeping a close  eye on all these four stocks and looking for opportunity to add.     One word of caution though, we are only playing the quality China stocks at this point and there's really no need to spend our time or capital onto other " wannabe runners".    We do make FFHL as an exception since we are familiar with its play and it's also very much in play still.

One thing you might use now is the FXI, today you saw how hand in hand this acted with our quality china stocks..just look at 10min chart comparison.  It reversed...it played with the gap, it turned and DJIM's followed the whole way!

ATNI, this one for some reason had a late push and we alerted all our readers on its break out.    We don't know what caused the surge but we were following the action.    The volume is very good on the breakout and this one has had a pretty strong basing action last little while.   If this one follows up, we are likely to add more.  See the chart up that showed this was not far from breaking out and should have been on radar.

POWL, we alerted this one earlier also and thought it had a chance to breakout.   Unfortunately it suffered a reversal as every other stock did an hour later and did not close anywhere near the high.    We still think this one has potential and the close today only put it right in the middle of that tight trading range.   We'd keep a close eye on this one.

ABM, it's almost hard to believe that a stock can consolidate for so long within a 50 cent range.   Only from NYSE perhaps!   Given the surge in trading volume ever since it released earning, we think that this play is far from over.    Once the institutions establish a trading base and enough shares get exchanged hands, the next step should be higher rather than lower.    We'll see if it creeps back above 9 ema next couple of days to assault for a new high or not.

ROS, well there's really nothing we want to say other than noticing "who's in charge today"!.  Seems just yesterday it was alerted at just under $38 as a play off the other Russian telcos.

The bottom line, earning season is almost upon us and it's ok to have some volatility going into the earning.    Again, we've said this prior to last earning quarter that market rarely crashes before the start of an earning season.     At this point, we are trading smalerl sizes and taking advantage of some hot sectors and a few tradable opportunities while we wait for the earning season to start.   When a really good opportunity comes along during the earning season, we'd pounce on it hard with all we got and put another 25%+ gainer on the plate.

 

Reversal of fortune?

who cares, right now!......how 'bout just knocking some sense in again about protecting and building our own little fortunes as we start to experience this daily volatility thing.  This is old hat to the experienced traders, but this is something we all need to be reminded of at times.  Today a couple things came up on DJIM that makes this necessary.  One was early in MTRX.  We always say let the markets action dictate your move, the action, the volume will tell you what it thinks of earning / news and give you a clue as to what to do.  Sometimes its obvious and you might as well get your 'ball spikes on and join in the frenzy..aka FFHL type moves, other times 40k volume premarket as in MTRX will leave you holding your shorts on a white stick as you stand on the 'top' looking down at the action at 9:35am.  Do you want to be with the 1 million shares seemingly traded around 16.50's today or be amongst a few at high 17's, some 18's premkt.  It's lonely at the top!. We tried to throw caution in the morning note again, there is more than one buy opportunity after the exuberance dies off and it will come at a decent entry.  Be patient!.

Back to basics on MTRX, the numbers are very good but unfortunately come on day 2+ of the massacre on the oil patch.  Matrix Service Co beats by $0.13, beats on revs (MTRX) 15.10 :Reports Q2 (Nov) earnings of $0.31 per share, including options charges, $0.13 better than the Reuters Estimates consensus of $0.18; revenues rose 31.2% year/year to $166.4 mln vs the $138.4 mln consensus and raised revenue guidance by 10%.  The instit's hold over 90% and today they churned this at recent resistance.  We took a starter early and added a bit more at the close as it showed it could hold that resistance at least for today.  You might remember our intro of ABM pre market back in December. The first candlestick looks similar as MTRX today and we alerted the next day I think at 21.50 to our buy in and it rocked past that candlesticks top.  That ABM is also a big instit holding and maybe this will play out in a similar fashion.  We touched on ABM last night, everything still holds..but it just looks a bit better today at the close.

The other matter came up in the forum. Yes, we recycle stocks..but to recycle they need to lie in the bin for a while. We do not go buying the dips the next day or the day after.  Let the raccoons frolic in the bin.  We avoid the downturn in a stock by going somewhere else, sometimes its just into cash.  Yesterday we said the 'FXI' is the fix right now in dealing with our Asian DJIM's.  We got a nice run the past week and yesterday as the FXI turned,  we were locking in those gains.  If we put in the forum the FXI is at the gap open and it could get worse...we mean it and wouldn't be standing around at the gap open in a falling market like yesterday to see the gap potentially close.   So no ...we wouldn't be adding the MR, HMIN back today when the FXI has closed that gap pre market at $112.  This can't be a buy signal during the day if we are using this ETF as a measuring stick right now to our China Stocks.  We've had MR,EDU since September, recycling it over and over again but never the next day.   BIDU, is an exception as it trades with the internets and today that sector was not a bad place to find yourself.   Speaking of dips..GROW is swimming in it and we ain't jumping in on such a break of the 9ema.

What we always prefer to do is find something else, something else that is near a high, breaking a high or in the beginning of a reversal.  Something like a SYX or a HRT or more ABM or a new play that might catch on like MTRX.   Basically we trade the "GREEN' not the "RED" stocks. If you don't like GREEN and prefer Pink, Orange, maybe your trading platform will allow you to change the colors around. Whatever color you choose, it's best to trade the stocks with a + in front of them in our book.

ROS has been renamed the Russian Rocket...this is just funny and explains those huge lots on the bid we talked of recently. There's been one shakeout recently to low 40's, one might come again but in the meantime adding as this goes higher.

ZOLL is just ZOLL, a nice and quiet medical device stock that doesn't really care about much about the markets internals. Steady she goes...

Besides the highlighted stocks above, we are trading some AMK on the speculative side of things today.

The funny thing we kept mumbling yesterday is its Jan 3rd,2007, who the hell cares about the December 12th, 2006 FOMC minutes.  But it doesn't matter how silly we thought the Times Square NYEve Ball drop was...the only thing that mattered was what the market thought.  It's all reaction..action and we just play along with it....yesterday on the sell side...today on the buy side.

DJIM #2, 2007

We'd like to start this weekend's journal with a little background of ourselves and briefly explain what we really do at DJIM.   This might be boring to those who have been with us down this path.  For those that remember us from the old days, we started this relationship from the "Lizard King's Trading Swamp".   Back then, we were posters on that forum and generally have been sharing trading ideas among other traders primarily on small cap winners since those days.    We were then invited to Sharkinvesting.com to post for their forum VIP and essentially they wanted us to make their msg forum one of the best.    If any of you have remembered those days, you'd remember that neither RevShark or Lizard ever posted on the shark board as we were doing most of the posting and it sort of became our board.     After a year or so, we got cut by the "gurus" in a unprofessional move without a word.  Simply, cut off overnight before we could migrate others if we had be able to give notice of our leaving.  Smart cookies!   Reason?   Lets just say the msg board picks had way outperformed the Sharkfolio and more often than not, we'd been very critical and vocal about the handling of their strategy/portfolio.   Essentially, we did not fit into their business goal of "making" their site look good. lol.   Unfortunately, we only cared about one thing at the time, and that's to find the best trading opportunity and share them in a small community of traders/investors.    What happens next is that we started another forum.     Some of you probably were introduced to us at that forum but to due to the difference in opinions, mostly stock selections with another a split was only a matter of time.     So, here we are 5 months later with DJIM doing things are way, the way we want to share!.

Before we are writers, moderators of this site and others, we are TRADERS.    We are very passionate about trading and it is what we do for a living.    At this point, we are using this site to try to show the public that it is not a myth to trade successfully in this game.    We don't believe in luck, natural talent, or guru instinct.   What got us to this point is years of hard work and dedication, lots of pain and joy, and definitely lots of losses.    You only learn from your mistakes.  We believe trading mistakes usually come from your emotional flaw and believe us, it does take a long time to overcome.    Right now, what we do is very automatic on whether taking losses or profit.    There's really no shortcut in becoming a good trader and just like any other profession, the more you do(trade) the better you get.    Hopefully by showing you how we trade through our Journal(diary essentially), giving intraday alerts to what might be next....we'd always steer you onto the right track and always get you to look for the right kind of setups and avoid the disastrous mistake we used to make in our early years.    This is not a rocket science if all you care about is making a few profitable trade.   If you want to do this for a living, then you do need years of trading in a consistent manner and eventually have a high enough level of a confidence and say "I'm ready for this!"     Right now, writing this journal is not about making a franchise.   We just want to share our trading experience with others so you don't have to rely on those BS gurus and CNBC gods, talking heads...ever.   Eventually, you'd be confident to play this game on your own. 

Now onto the week in review!   We had a short week and it has definitely not been an "easy" week for the markets.  A bloodbath in the commodities...Oil...Gold.   Even in DJIM stock land,  whipsaw is the word and that's the thing traders hate the most.      Fear not, we think it's normal and given the mute action we've had during the last half of December, it's very realistic to get this kind of (really delayed) volatility early in the new year.     Lets talk about some individual action here...

FFHL,  normally we wouldn't talk about this one today but since it seemed a lot of you are still in this one or are very concerned about the well being of this one, we'll start with this one today.    For us, the easy money has been made, period.    The thing when it comes to a low float play, and when it's not earning related, you really have to understand why it's in play at first place and what kind of traders are playing these kind of stocks.    Again, we never assign any price target, but we rather follow the price action to determine the potential of a move.    Right now, at this point, it does not look attractive to us.    You may think this one has a good bang for the buck kind of potential but the kind of risk it's associated with almost offset any kind of upside potential it offers us at this point.     This is not about milking gains out of a "familiar" play over and over.   It's about going after an easy play, an easy setup with the lowest kind of risk while having highest kind of probability.    You should've made some money in FFHL, and should've locked in most of the profit and you should never listen to those $20-30-40 targets thrown around.   We said if this was a fraction of EFUT, it would be a nice play and it was!    If you haven't made profits in FFHL, then take this one as a lesson and move on.   It happened with EFUT, it will happen here sooner than later as earning season is here. A new play will come with a fever and any of the money still here will leave.   The quicker you move on, the quicker you can be attacking an easier play and a play with better potential.   The more you are hung on FFHL, the most likely you'd be foregoing any and all the other good plays.    Remember this, opportunities don't wait for you, they come and go and it's up to YOU to grab it.    So what's going to happen to FFHL?    Unlike other gurus who claim to know anything and everything, we don't' know and frankly we don't care at this point.   If FFHL goes back to $16 level with some good volume, chances are we'd most likely play it.    If FFHL doesn't, so be it and we are just as happy not looking at it.   Lets just say $14 to 16 doesn't really matter to us, right now.  We're not saying it won't climb back, we just don't care.  This is partially why you will not get 'sell' prices from us.   If we say you should sell here or there and a stock goes up, you will drag us through the mud and blame us for getting you out too early. lol.  It didn't matter we said we were selling a week ago, so there is really not much we can add.    The point here is, you'd never want to think that a certain stock will go to a certain price b/c your mind will always be biased toward that, regardless what's happening with the stock.     We can also tell you one thing, FFHL has been played by day traders, momentum traders and alike and those players have no feeling or love when it comes to it or you!.   It means that there's no institutional support and when they leave, you don't want to be holding the bag.    Maybe one day FFHL comes out with a rosy earning report or a contract announcement.    But right now, it's nothing more than a low float IPO that happens to come from one of the hottest sector.

HMIN, why price entry is not that relevant with this one?   Go back two journals ago and we'd said we'd be buying HMIN aggressively on dips and add lightly on strength.   The only exception to that is that if the whole mkt is going through a pretty severe down tick and the sector FXI is also pulling a similar down move.  We said this one might the best of bunch among the China's going forward and now it's been acting like it.    This one made it to IBD 100 as #6 and we think this is going be a new phase for HMIN.    Will IBD suck the life force out of HMIN?   Maybe eventually down the road, but not before we suck a few more points out of it first.  

GRC, whatever the news(contract announcement) it had a week ago, this one is definitely being played at this moment.   We are putting this one on radar and we took a small position in this one on Friday.   Again, if we take a starter position it does not mean you rush and pick it up like some of you are doing on alerts that are not ready to go or before you do some DD.   Until some come to your senses and stop chasing these we will keep them to the Journal..lol. Just kidding!...There's plenty of experienced traders here who don't need to be told not to chase.......Patience...younger trading 'JIMMERS!

Other than these, there's really not much you can talk about when the week ends with a -20 Naz and -83 Dow.    The earning season is coming up soon and we'd be just very patient.   A lot of DJIM closely followed are still in the ' hub' as we said last week. Some attempt to get to highs again but are knocked down by the whipsaw market.   Trade if you must but don't gamble.   Take smaller position and practice.   Gain experience along with it and cope with your emotion.     Take this slower market time to learn more about charting and come up with a selling strategy (we'd definitely touch on it more from now on with fresh plays, momo plays).  Improve your tactics as you go on.    We'd be here every day to give you heads-up on anything that we'd consider as an opportunity.

Cheers'

We better get ready...

Before you know it,  half of the companies out there may have reported their earnings already.  The flow is about to start. Frankly, we feel that this mkt needs to kick a gear higher to really start this earning season.   What we mean is that we want to see more volume and more volatility!    Good earnings get bid up and bad earnings get dumped kind of volatility.    When things are chaotic, there's always opportunity.    We don't want to speculate which sector or individual company is going to shine this quarter, but we have to keep a sharp eye out for outstanding report.    

Today's action from DJIM land is surprisingly quite good given the weakness in technology sector.     Of course, we are only concerned about individual action here and we'll let the talking heads discuss the theoretical side of things.    Most of the DJIM stocks enjoyed some very nice gains and here is a run down..

MFW, financial companies, especially the little ones like this definitely can trade on their own.  Come looking back, an entry point at $28 is not that bad of a deal.    We've been actively trading this one last couple of days .

AMK, as mentioned last night, we thought this had the best early chance this week alon,g with MR.  It didn't disappoint with a nice day.

MR, so it looked like it had a seller or two mid way through the day as it reached highs.  This one had above average volume today and we'd be watching it closely next couple of days to see if it has the juice to take out the old high and start a new leg.

HMIN, it looked like it almost had some steam to break out but only to come back some in the afternoon.    It's having a pretty stubborn consolidation so far.    Again, we are not eager to chase potential breakout but once it gets some push under some heavy volume, we'd chase and alert everyone at the same time.

GLDN, new closing high, there's not much else to be said about this one.   In fact, this is definitely the best Russian stock on our list right now.

CCF, slow down Jose.   To be honest, we actually aren't comfortable for it to trade into the $32s this early.  It was here for all high 27's/low 28's to snap up last trading afternoon.  We definitely want to see some base building here.   Let everyone catch some breath and accumulate some position.

AXR, though we did not actively participate in this most recent run-up, this one should always be on anyone's top trading list and its good readers have not forgotten this $90's DJIM.  Its been up in charts all along, so there's really no excuse to at least have admired this move..lol.   Honestly, it's not easy to chase a 30 pt move and we just have to take it as is.  If you played some, congrats to you but if not, no big deal as opportunities will come.   It is a little stretched at his point so we aren't looking to do anything here.

Some other stocks on our list that closed well include, GRC OPTM HRT OMRI.    One last note on EDU and future earnings, earning dates are to be played, not to be held through.  We didn't say anything cause there was nothing impressive about the report. Last report which was sensational sold off, so this one is no surprise.  Still, it's pretty good, it''s just the market doesn't care.  CHDX, this one was in play a month or two ago and today it broke out apparently on good volume.   Keep an eye on this one for potential follow through or not, it's not the most consistent day to day performer.  Another is a big DJIM flyer from last quarter, CETV which put in a NCH today on a gap. Not sure what the beef is here today! . Good stocks just grind it out over time and before you know it...boom...a NCH

cheers,

All focus on AAPL tonight..

Well,  it definitely looked like there's really no other interest to keep traders from staying up till the end.     AAPL's earning is out and now what?   At this point, we think it's more of a company specific news even though the strong shipment of ipod may spill over to some other component players but we are not going to get too cute at this point.    What was anticipated was also probably what was expected.    There are very few setups worth mentioning today, so we'll tackle a couple of the ones we like and a couple of others from the watchlist.

HMIN, perhaps we are not the only ones anticipating this breakout so the end result although somewhat encouraging early, but not spectacular near the end.    One thing for sure, this is among one of the widely held Chinese stocks out there.   The close is nowhere near the high and it was definitely dragged down by the poor index action.    We will call this breakout still but we aren't going in with any sizes. There are lots of breakouts, reversals your stocks may see, but it is always a good idea to take the gift in some size before the overall market catches up to your stock and diminishes the breakout or reversal gains.  HMIN and MEND are two examples today of this.

ZOLL, this is a little rocket that would go nuts off any good news.  Unfortunately, most of the gains were achieved within the first 10 min. of trading and it literally spend the rest of the day digesting the early gains.    It's very difficult to play these and unless you get in pre-mkt or right at the open, there's really not that much of an opportunity.  But, if you're an early starter, your day could be done by 9:35.   Basically, you could make a living off these early bird specials.  Of course, we have to also look at the prospect to see if this sets up a new leg up.   At this point, it's not very clear whether how much of the news is already priced into the action so we are less inclined to chase any more.    If an opportunity presents it self for a nice setup, we definitely will.   There are hundreds of releases every morning, we try to pick out what we think is best for you to closely watch, maybe get a starter position if there is some interest. Today, this was clearly the case as the stock traded in the $66's-67's pre market.

 PTT, is another example of a pre market note from last week that is doing well.  We are back trading some.

MR, now perhaps this is the way they do things over there.   Updating their guidance with a positive outlook while sneak in with a secondary offering at the same time.    From a co's point of view, they timed it right and damage is minimized.  For us the traders, we just hate to see the stock get derailed from some news like that.    This by no means the play is over.   We just think it may need additional time to churn over this "secondary news" or after they announce the pricing.   11 million additional shares is a big deal, in case those who aren't familiar with these sort of things.    Like any other plays with secondary offerings, this news will linger over the stock price for a while and we find it hard that it will challenge the old high any time soon.   Of course, anything can happen but we are going with our past experience for now and going light with this thing.  This is an example of letting the market dictate the action.   Initially, we had no clue of the secondary but the market told us something is not right.  We thought there might be cheap shares, just not because of an offering and small downgrade.

VOL, to play the bounce or not to play?   If you got a fast enough of a trigger, there's probably some intraday opportunity there to provide some quick action.   For those of us who are looking for a meaningful and sustained movement, we don't think it's ready yet.    Those monster 3 days rally followed by an even more wicked sell off is something that would keep some traders away from.   At this point, we are saying we don't trust this thing, yet.   There are also some longs who may be trapped to and are dying to get out.   We'll need to give it some more time.

IPGP,  played with yesterdays reversal some more and now finds itself back over 9ema.  Nice if you took the 23's, 24's yesterday, but we're not sold back on it just yet at these prices in this market.

Again, earning season is in the very early stage and we have many many more companies to report.  Most of the companies which fit our trading criteria have yet to report.    We are hopeful that we'll see some more good report this quarter and give use some real gem to play with.

Cheers'

DJIM #5 2007

Well, it's been a pretty decent earning week for us and opportunities were there to grab.    That is, if you didn't get distracted by the index action.    During the earning season,  it's rare for the market to pullback significantly since there are always funds/institutions waiting for their favourite stocks to report.   At the end of an earning season, however, things may be different as there aren't that many things to look forward to for another three months.   By then, interest rate talk, economic number and as well as the seasonality will be big factors dictating the market movement.  Still, there are small caps that periodically surprise with the timing of their releases, so it's almost earning season 12 months a year for us.     Well, that's how we've been viewing things.   

During the earning season, the only thing in our opinion that should be dominating your trade/watch list are the earning plays.    Basically keep an eye on those that have had good potential of releasing strong earning and keep a tag on those unfamiliar names that just reported strong earnings.   Pretty soon, your watchlist will expand from a couple of dozen to literally few dozen stocks.     Again, the point of having this kind of watchlist is to simply making trading decisions easy for you.   Basically, when you have a list full of strong earning stocks, it's just a matter of picking the ones with the best momentum, best charts, best float and best sector.   Fortunately, we are here to give everyone a heads up on what we think are the best so we can all be on the same page and trade the most out of those potential winners.

Here are some of the stocks of interest from past week....

HRBN, so why start off with this BB stock you ask?   Simply put, going toward the end of Friday, this one had the best momentum.    We alerted on the fact that it's going to be listed on Naz on Jan. 31th and given the quick glance of its fundamental and float, we thought it has a very good shot to make some good gains at $10.   Well, an hour later Briefing.com picked it up and we hope some of you have picked up in the low 10s.  We said the yahoo's could spread the story quickly, that's why we wanted to get this out to you first.    Volume on Friday is still a tiny 200k and given the fever Chinese stocks have been getting lately, we think this one is far from being discovered.   Float is 5 mill and co. is profitable for a few quarters in a row.    Not much else you can ask for.    We think it should get some more upside action before and after the Nasdaq listing.

USAP, buy the dips!   This strategy works the best with strong earning play.   If you missed the first run from 39 to 43, getting in at the low 40 is not a bad thing.   We added some on Thursday and now the stock looks better than before.    It showed that there's interest and support when the stock dips.  

CCF,  maybe this one doesn't have the kind of crazy momentum of some of the Chinese stocks but we just like the way it is.   The point is, this is the kind of stock where you don't have to check every single tick and knowing that it'll probably make new high sooner or later.

HMIN, we think this one is definitely getting more and more interest everyday.   The IBD profile we noted Friday before the bell sure helped the cause.  It's no longer a simple Chinese play anymore, it might be an Olympic play as well as IBD noted.    As long as the major trend line does not get violated, we'd buy some on the dips and sell some on strength.    If you have a fast trigger, you can definitely buy on a breakout and make a point or two that way.   This one is still very much in play.

TRCR, we think we have written enough on this one and we are keeping a very close eye on this one.   We'd like to add some in the low 6s but if it doesn't come down, we'd be just as happy adding some on strength.

VARI RESP VTRU ENR,  how we play these earning plays are simple.  We get a starter position in each one and add to the strongest one.   If one position lags, cut it lose and add the funds to the stronger ones.   This actually remind us of a race where you get to bet on all of the horses.  The only difference is that it's rare you lose on any horse since they are all winners to begin with.  Here, we are playing with more institutional money and sometimes the trend is easiest to pick up.  VTRU, besides the EPS number it is also a speculative takeover target, for you home gamers of the dating scene they are of the Lavalife site and others.  lol. $50 are the digits being thrown around.

NWK, this was a play on pre-announced earnings. Usually, they sell off once the numbers are publically released but for whatever reason this one keeps staying strong and the action just seems right.   We're set up here and looking to add more on a break.  It got painted down at the close and some sellers wanted to get out for the weekend, so we'll see what it does early tomorrow before proceeding further.

CCOI, our last alert on it said there were some favorable ramblings on the CLEC sec including TWTC.  TWTC had a very nice Friday and we are looking for more out of CCOI on TWTC heels.

ABM, is back in the picture. One look at the chart shows we could be looking at another test of the highs and a further break.

IPGP, this is looking better on the chart with a close over $26 and as posted by a member in the forum this company is starting to get recognized for its growth earning potential. This is the discovery we talked about...slowly happening.

Bascially in breaking down what we have is quite simple.  Our sector play in Aluminum, we have CENX that is up 5 pts since we touched on the subject on AA's earning.  We have USAP, as our steel play with earning.  So you want to keep an eye on the whole sec action with these.  On the cheap speculative trading side, we have a TRCR and HRBN.  There are new earning plays like RESP, VTRU, ENR to test out and hopefully see them become long term plays.  And there is the old reliable DJIM recycling program working with the HMIN, CCOI's of the trading world.

Just a note... the market is a complex dynamic with uncertainity at every turn.  What we do here is trade on emotion, mostly what our gut(s) is telling us might work or not and we react to it.   We trade when and what we feel gives us the best probability at a successful trade, we don't expect you to have this gut as for many of you its not your full time gig...so leave that to us and worry only about proper risk management of your money.  You don't have to be a rocket scientist to see which direction our selections go first,  if anything work on your timing so you can get the most out of a stock.

Resiliency continues...

We definitely had some resilient action going on today.   There's just not enough force to knock this market down, especially DJIM stocks.     In any case, we feel that a big market move is in the cards to get us out of this range bound trading environment.    At this point, it's almost pointless to speculate which way the market wants to go.   The only thing we can do is to be prepared one way or the other.   Fortunately the indecision of the market isn't deterring some movers from the small cap land.    Here are some few worth noting...

EML, what else are you gonna talk about first? lol    Again, this one followed through very nicely and we added some.    When it comes to an earning play like this one, it's very hard to say where the initial run-up will end and stop.    What we do know, however, is that the first pullback has to be bought aggressively.   How high can the initial run-up can go?   Your guess is as good as ours and we just have to take it day by day.

EDU HMIN,  in the case of EDU, yesterday in the forum we said around $40.50 this is being walked up to the offering price..Well..well,  the pricing for the secondary was announced tonight at $41.50/shr. For EDU, that's heck of a pricing.   We think the recent rise in price in conjunction with this pricing is the fact there's lots of institutional demand for this share offer.   This one is definitely interesting as 7 million shares at 40+ bucks isn't chump change for institutions.    Basically, we like this one again(what else is new), now that the cloud is lifted.    HMIN, simply broke out!   We bought this breakout as mentioned in the Forum after noting on it and we are looking for follow throughs.   Again, at this stage either take the points on moves and wait for a pullback or just stick through the tough days cause it just keeps going higher. You should know how it works by now.

VE,  this euro has been a nice steady performer from 68's and it's definitely not a small cap..lol. Tonight we noticed its been upgraded to a buy by Dresdner in Europe.  Looks like a $77 area target.  Analysts at Dresdner Kleinwort upgrade Veolia Environnement SA from "hold" to "buy." The target price has been raised from E48 to E60.  In a research note published this morning, the analysts mention that the company secured extra revenues of about €1.5 billion per annum from contract wins and acquisitions in 2006. Veolia Environnement is poised to increasingly benefit from its maturing contracts, the analysts believe. These contracts offer visibility into cash flows, which the company can reinvest to maintain above-average profit growth, Dresdner Kleinwort adds. Veolia Environnement has limited commodity exposure, the analysts add.

GLDN, talk about resiliency!!. Just incredible $4 dollar move from 9ema levels in one day.  If you're reading the Journal, Forum..looking at charts you are up to speed and probably making nice trades in this stock.  Believe it or not, this finished 4 cents off a NCH after yesterdays dismal day.  Will it bust out soon or will this become a visit to a potential wall?.  Give us a good Naz and this baby will go higher!

MFW, AVZA had nice days and finished right up there at the highs and we were adding to both along the way.

MDCI, last night we said the action was better than the earnings.  Today, we can only say the action was worse than the earning indicates.  A few things...yesterdays action, especially the close was probably toooo ' good and we probably should have exited the last 10 minutes when the stock had a final big stick up.   Unfortunately, the action by noon today showed we should leave for the time being.   Something might have been said at the CC after the close and for us it's always better to leave and ask questions later.  It also could have been a D grade, likely on valuation.  We don't care much for these as we've seen plenty of stocks shake these off quickly.  We think this one will, maybe as quickly as tomorrow on split day and we will aggressively buy back to add to our original starter.

CGX, we added today to this name as the action was much better than what you saw in MDCI.  An almost identical day to MDCI yesterday and today this one showed it might be the better of the two.

SSRX,  this one is actually a Chinese biotech IPO from yesterday.  Its debut action was not impressive but today's action felt much better.   This is a profitable co. as well and we bought a starter position in this one.  There are lots of IPO's the last few days, we're dipping here for a start around $16.

SYNL, thin stock seem to rule these days.   Earning came out and it didn't take much for this one to move.  We are keeping a close eye on this one to see if there's any follow through.  We have some thoughts on it in the Forum, we are looking for the angles (eth) here more than the earnings to play it in the future.

..Off-Roading

Hope you had yourself a good 4X4 yesterday for all the crazy bumps and bends of the market pounding your kidneys!.   A good seat belt might be in order not to get dismounted as the noise from all headlines is over bearing the earnings reports from the big names at this time.   As we said before the open yesterday, we can't do anything about the noise and just have to go on trading what is in front of us and hopefully working for more than a day trade.   Despite the jitters still prevailing in the market arena, opportunities were still there on the stocks we've been tossing out...

WBD,  ...this was one stock that required no seatbelt yesterday as it glided avoiding all the potholes others were encountering.  Just the day before we noted its $110 top and the moon shot came of 10-11 points from the top break.   This might have more legs as it made a NCH, but we know it's trading history well and always put days like this in our pocket and dismount.  We'll be back, especially if it holds these levels in the days to come and sets up again or if it shows signs of working the NCH higher.

"Another one followed here closely all the time because of its volatility and ability to shoot a moon shot intraday is WBD, the Russian dairy/beverage co.    It  had a beauty of a walk up Friday as you could see by the intraday chart.  This one could give it up just as quick always remember,  but the way it was ladder walked for 5 hours makes you wonder what's up.     It never trades so orderly. "

YTEC, now you know why we said this has momo trade capabilities.   The quickness and steepness of its late day charge shows what we might have on our hands here,  with it you have to accept the early action as a characteristic of such stocks.   Just have a barf bag in your 4X4 handy.  This China IT and outsourcing co' has a knack of reacting nicely to any news it throws out.    Considering their business is with the thriving bank business'',  you can expect this stock to be a possible PR machine of contracts that will jolt it constantly.     We noted midday these momo stocks do not play to a schedule, meaning if the indices are popping it shouldn't be a surprise they are not following along as we saw in the morning and then eventually an eye popping move late in the day when the markets were struggling.    As far as its fellow country bud, JRJC,   it basically followed the path of BIDU and many other stocks gapping and then steadily coming down.    The reason we book this with BIDU, is its in the same universe you could say.  It's from China and has the momo trading flavor of BIDU type...simply after its recent ride we know its capabilities to move and draw attention of traders just like BIDU has over time.    The 60min shows higher lows, a clean and jerk over $40, meaning a good close over $40 would give this a nice looking daily chart and most likely some much anticipated action again.    The risk should never be forgotten with momo stocks, we've also seen this side of JRJC.

The other names we are trading and/ or top of the trading list are all familiar DJIM names.... EDU CETV HMIN LULU BCSI GLDN VMW JST.  RBN off EPS and VMI, always seem to appear here after earnings and both do so again.

Even though trading opp's are all over the place, a day without some many bumps in the road would be a welcomed sight.....Yeah, right..as if!

Shaky Start and a Steady Finish

Although it's still a little too early to write off last week's action, we are definitely off to a pretty good start this week.    Monday always sets the tone for the week, doesn't it?    Ok, superstition aside, we are glad to see that there was no follow through to last Friday's sell off today.  Another big fat red candle would not have been a pretty sight.    Even though some of the names on our watchlist felt a little shaky in the early going, many of them all ended in a very rosy way.    This is somewhat reassuring because we didn't want to see last Friday's ugliness get carried over into this week.   Momentum can get built up on the downside just as easily as on the upside.    Honestly, we still couldn't see the reason why the market was sold off that hard last week.    Many of the issues the market pundits were calling for were known for a while and there is really no quick fix to them.    Still, we have been managing to live with some of those issues(credit crunch, high oil, low dollar) for a while now and most importantly, fed has been willing to pump liquidity into the system and adjust the monetary policy when any unfavourable situation does arrive.   What's the big worry?    If you believe the entire stock market and corporate profit are centred around the housing market and high oil price, then you may have already parked your money in t-bills and shouldn't even care about this market.    For those of us who trade names like AAPL or RIMM GOOG BIDU , things don't get any better than now.

The point is, this market is not just about the 3M or CAT or BAC.   There's a bull market in quite a few other sectors and that's what's keeping the game alive.    You can also argue that there's just so much liquidity out there that there's always institutions looking for some hot (growth) area to invest.   We just have to be on the same page as those money managers.

AAPL delivered a nice report and should benefit quite a few momentum names.

CRNT, this plays has been on our watchlist for quite sometimes now.   Today the company reported earnings which beat the estimate and it also raised guidance for next quarter.   Stock saw a flurry of buying and ended near the high of the day.   We really like this kind of earning reaction and we are playing it fairly aggressively.

LULU JASO ISRG HMIN, these three have traded to their recent highs today and we particularly like their action compare to some of the other names on our list.    For the sake of momentum, we think as long as the market shows some favourable action, you'd want be trading these names aggressively.