A-Team wins the coin toss!

Kick off time came a little early today with AAPL giving what many hoped for at the show!.  You couldn't read a piece of press without the question on everybody''s mind...What will AAPL do?. The anticipation was there and the traders were waiting for the news.  Nothing like a little spark to the techs that need to lead this market.  You can't live on Tires and Rubbers being the leaders as in the past sessions much longer.  Mr. Jobs you may now call it Apple Ltd,  Apple Inc. or Banana anything as long as you keep throwing the toys out.  We talk a lot about momentum here, nearly 120 million shares is definitely it.  UBS lifted the tech sector yesterday and AAPL lifted it today.  Let's hope we can get some conviction in buying techs.

We've heard ramblings from analysts that aluminum might be somewhere to go in 2007, so maybe it's no big surprise the official EPS kick off went all swell with Alcoa giving a shiny picture AH.  The stock is up nearly 5% AH.  Nothing like a look in the past and getting some ERS dusted off, maybe some CENX too for tomorrow.   Always look for something that can piggyback an Alcoa type play, the secondary plays are often more fruitful.  Same goes for those that will feed off the AAPL endeavor..you didn't have to look far as a reader tossed out a play out of our backyard in SNCR on the Forum.  Last look before calling it a day, SNCR was trading at $15, now it sits in the 15.60's. 

Last night,  we discussed the need for new stocks, new plays!.  If anything these events give out a few secondary plays that should get some traders interested.  Still, today was not without a few other things working off DJIM notes that provided some nice opportunities.

VOL, which we introduced on our last forum has come back with vengeance today.  It beat estimates handily and we started to trade this off the pullback around $41 as soon as it looked like it would hold its morning gains.  Soon after our mention it broke the days high over 42 and added a few points more into the close.  This is a volatile play but when it gets momo it can give you a helluva a ride.

OPTM, mentioned pre market caught the usual wind and from just over $25 hit a high of $26.60's, hey if Cramer gives you 5% take it and say see you next time.  One good thing about OPTM is most of you have played it here and should have a better feel for it.  Its not that big of a surprise it gave it all up by end of day.  Not so good to finish at low of day for any stock, but this one is quite the choppy trader so it just might have legs again very soon.   Off this ' triple play' business, we alerted another at $25 that has been talked as a triple play threat, even if its robotics/lasers are used elsewhere mostly..... IPGP a recent IPO that has held steady after gapping on IPO day and now by the end of day looks even better on the charts.

OSIR,  the FDA play from last night to watch. We picked some up again as it looked to finish near the high. Maybe it has a another day in it or two.

So there are plenty of new holds tonight..AAPL,IPGP,SNCR,VOL,OSIR

AMK which almost kissed $20 after being in the low 17's a few days back and MFW which had an incredible snap back today show that quality companies trading well can do some fancy dancin'. Most importantly, how irrelevant it is to know exactly what prices we enter these or any stock at.   We give you a stock to watch for a potential trade, some move soon, some don't...some you just better keep around so you can catch a move like MFW did the next day for 3 points today.  In both of these stocks readers could've had better prices than the prices we got for our first bite!.   Don't concern yourselves about exact prices of our entries on stocks, just make sure you're making money....hopefully on the same stocks we share with you.

This is more like it.....a little conviction

Of course, we are referring to the various strong action from the DJIM stocks.   In fact, you may very well call it a DJIM market today.    In our opinion, today is definitely the best trading day so far in this new year.    Sure, we don't have any crazy movers out there but that doesn't stop our readers from throwing out a few..CBLI,  but we are very encouraged to see the broad action from many many stocks.   Ok lets start with the run-downs.....we'll skip the first of 5 from last night new crop, AAPL .....

VOL, we had to put this one on first because after a breathtaking run-up yesterday, we got another speechless run-up today.   So, to answer some of your "entry pt" questions, when it comes to "EARNING" play, it doesn't even matter what price, as long as it's entered within a reasonable time frame after the mention.    So what's next?   Again, have you forgotten to take some profit today?   Strong move like this one exhibited always pauses quicker than you can blink.    If it goes a lot higher, we'd be glad that we still hold some and would likely add some back.   Again, the idea is that you'd never want to have an idea of getting into a hot play with a full position at the beginning of a run-up and sell the "full" position at the absolute top.    That kind of "timing" mentality is not only insane, but risky as well.

OSIR, we were discussing among ourselves earlier that this one could be a slow crawler.   For some reason, someone up there heard our chat and decided it's time to teach our "arrogance" a little lesson.  So it ran with very good volume.   We did not complain about the quick change of pace in action so we quickly rejoiced the idea by adding more in the 27s.   If that's the way they want to play, so be it.

IPGP, well we are glad someone noticed that big block after the close.   It just goes to show that ppl other than us, ppl with deep pockets, and probably institutions are interested in this stock.    Time to get in was definitely yesterday and time to add is today....$25-28 move in 1.5 days ain't bad!

SNCR, this one needs no introduction and we were the first ones probably to trade this back in the 9 range. lol   Putting aside all of the speculation of whether this apple iphone will take off or not, just take a look at the volume.   This definitely puts this one on map among many many momentum institutions, if there's such a thing called that.    We don't think the run-up is over right away, judging by its action today.   Besides, this one does have pretty good earning.

DLB, ok we were actually pretty bored with this one lately, until today that is.   So apparently it broke out, with decent volume.   Will we give it some faith and believe there's some follow through?  Hell yeah and if we aren't being faithful in this kind of market, when will we ever be faithful?

MEND, this one was a late purchase for us and we did not have time to alert our members.      Pretty strong breakout and we like its action.  Again, don't worry about entry.  It mattered little on yesterdays 5 new holds. At a point today they averaged about a 10% gain off yesterdays close.

In fact, there are quite few other stocks that did well today and we are just not going to go into every single one of them.   Just go through all of your DJIM watchlist and you'd know which ones we are talking about.    The market is definitely kicking into a "good mood" gear.    With earnings coming up and as long as some good reports come up ala VOL, we'd be in business and it'll be busy enough for us to trade through the earning season.   Looking forward to trading tomorrow....

cheers,

DJIM #11 2007

You can't tell traders, investors,  'March Madness' is about to tip off.....it's been center court since February 27th and there is no Cinderella story emerging.   Actually, she went to a 'Rally ball'  last week with a tall checklist but all she had was change it seems.  She wasn't the only one.  Simply,  you can summarize last week as a week of high expectations for bargain hunting without a lot of buying.  By Friday volume had dried up, there is simply too much apprehension in the players even after 3-4 days of a reversal. Three days of a rally mustering up barely 1% of a gain in the indexes is little to get excited up.   As we've been saying this bleeding might need time to stop, right now the traders are looking under the band aid for reassurance the cut has healed.  Simply they are re-bandaging all over again just to be sure it doesn't bleed again with an unexpected news blurb.  Somehow the trust has to come back,  maybe we will just consolidate till earning season blooms again.   Hey, it's only a few weeks away till April kicks in, yet we are still finishing of the first Quarter of  '07 with micro/small caps reporting that are giving some play (JSDA #99 IBD).   If there is anything to look forward to, it is a fresh Q of potential plays to feed on.  Considering this is what DJIM is centered around...we've got more hope and can live through this corrective activity more than others playing a different niche.  Oh yeah and one thing is if you don't follow our, "No holding into earnings" stance..maybe you should at least follow it now until this correction subsides. The guillotine is sharper than usual in this sort of market as seen by the PSPT,GMKT beheadings last week....... Be cool, be selective is the daily memo here.  The momo trader needs something, even if they are in rehab at the moment.  One play that seems to be gaining traction again is the Solar play, actually this slowly should become a longer term play as this area is not going to go away.  Sooner than later owning one of these and putting it away under a pillow might be the best strategy.   We are playing both again and have written about them in detail as to their differences.  TSL closed much better than FSLR on Friday but FSLR still had some higher price buying AH's.  Right now, it's a game of jumping tracks as one or the other is providing opp's for a nice gain and we are doing the same a lot of the time.

SNCR, finished well Friday and is one of the few we had selected earlier last week. A timely move just after mentioned in the forum of setting up nicely showed promise at the close.

Early in the week on the Journal we pointed out HDNG KBW UEIC HURC as ones we are looking at first at that moment for a trade. This still holds into next week as one or two moved nicely ( KBW 34-38 ) and most are holding up well or setting up for a move up in a good market follow through day.  With oil stabilizing over $60 recently, BTJ is definitely one that looked best late last week and should be closely followed or traded.  SYNL had a nice week and CYNO is the IBD in America profile this weekend.   As far as JSDA, we'll see..we're not very patriotic it seems..lol.  Comparisons to HANS is like comparing Footballs across the border...the NFL to the CFL..not even on the actual product or earning, but the ability for JSDA to ever trade anything close to how HANS did.  These are the stocks we will continue to closely follow and possibly trade on Monday.  Of course... a wake up call from overseas mkts will play a role on which side of the bed we wake up on tomorrow.

OEH, our lodging lux play before the meltdown made NCH Friday as merger, speculation activity is foaming again in the sec.

What's next?

The indices poked their neck out today and broke out of their trading range from the last little while.    As we were saying yesterday, market was looking for a catalyst and today we got one.    Does that mean that we are ready to challenge the old high next week?   Ah ha, if market is predictable like that, then we all should be running multi billion dollar hedge funds.    The truth is that we just had a good old relief rally today and what comes afterward is usually trickier than what most people would expect.    One good thing about the reaction of the fed decision today is that we are that much farther away from the recent low.   Today can be used as a good indication that we've just had our bottom for this correction.   The sub-prime issues are being sorted out and worked out slowly and many institutions now have a realistic expectation of what to expect from some of the firms involved in the sub-prime lending.    This is good news!   Uncertainty tend to raise fear and certainty raises optimism.     Seasonally, we are ready to kick off another earning season.     What?   It seemed like we've just finished our last earning season.    Yup, this gig is literally all year around and right now we are back to focus on finding earnings plays that fit into our criteria and trading theme.      In a way, we are kind of glad that the big drop happened before the earning season. Does anyone else feel like "we just got rid of a monkey off our back"?   In plain words, now that we just had a correction, bears can all suck up and go away.   Hopefully this is the case but we do need confirmation from market action during the next little while.     The best case scenario for this market is to inch up slowly and digest any big market gains like today with time.    The absolute last thing we need is for this market to go up in a few straight days and then to get smack down hard which will for sure shatter investors' confidence.

Now onto our small cap land....  When the market is in a good mood generally, the small caps always tend to get busier and see an influx of funds.  Here are some of the stocks we are noticing today...

CSV,  we have to crown this one tonight as it joined the 25%+ gainer club today.   This one is such a sleeper that despite the fact it doesn't generate any buzz among the momentum traders, but it generated 25% during the last month or so.   And do we even have to remind people that last few weeks hasn't been the most friendly to many investors. The same goes for HTC, the Euro Telecom which has produced 25% too. The reason we bring these up tonight is after today, it is time to look around at past DJIM stocks and see which survived through the turmoil best.  It is probably best to start doing some homework and expanding your tradable watchlists.   Another reason is just a reminder that despite the volatile stocks we mostly cover there are plenty of quality crawlers that work for the longer term investor.  Last Q, we had EML, SYNL, AMIE's and this Q the CSV and HTC have already stood out.

HURC HDNG,  yes keep on going and make those new highs.    Market really owes those two as the market environment was not friendly when these two came out with stellar earning report. UEIC falls into this boat as well.

FSLR TSL, we wish these two had done a little better prior to today.   Nevertheless, whatever it takes to kick-start the momentum is fine by us.

SIMO SNCR UEIC,  had new closing highs and we are definitely gonna look more on the tech side of the plays as the earning seson goes on.  SNCR was probably towed by AAPL today.

AMAG, we used to trade this back in early 06' with great success under a different symbol, it's a streaky stock and if you get on the right side..at the right time this one can be quite the winner. It's in late-stage development for iron deficiency related anemia in chronic kidney disease and that is the speculation part.  We started very small and will see if the small float and big short interest can dance with the Deutsche Bank $100 target put on it today. Wait for confirmation of a turn here before taking on a play like this or just start very small and make sure you have many more plays before it.

Folks, market definitely seems to turn for the better last couple of days and especially today.   With the earning season coming up, we feel like we should get right back into it 100% and pick up where we left off.   This doesn't mean that we are gonna be committing all of our capital.  It just means that we are gonna be committing 100% of our time and focus in finding trading opportunities for the next little while.    Hopefully we'd get some really nice plays that'll make up for some of the lost time that we incurred from earlier this month.  Just remember, we might need to curb our enthusiasm as traders soon after a day like this and that simply means taking some profits before kicking it up again.

..nice day in select group...

Another round of M&A activity on a Monday gave the markets reason to bounce after Fridays sell off.   However, the taste of disappointing tech earnings lingers on as the NASD gave up most of its gains by days end. Somewhere in the middle of all this were a bunch of closely followed DJIMstocks that had some fabulous action.

TXT, after consolidating some of its gap gains off earnings, today it showed some of it's potential by climbing a steady 3%. Now we see if it can take out the highs on earnings day and gain some momentum to which we can add to.

DDUP, we`d love to see what this one could do with some volume. Could easily be a 2-3 point day in store for it if the volume actually showed up.

TTPY, this newbie from last week pushed hard early to mid 26's on the heels of its late day push Friday.  We'll see if this action puts this IPO on some trading screens by watching the volume before adding more.

TBSI, DRYS, this incredible action continues. We`ve outlined previously how we`d approach trading these at such lofty levels.

LDK, we talked about the targets this one got, well today at least one of them got hit. Unfortunately, it is really the only solar doing anything at the moment.  Maybe this is the way it will be until FSLR reports on the 31st.

PENX, looks to be back in the game as it closed with a NCH.

CMED, tacked on about 6% and could be the beneficiary of some of the ISRG action.  Reason being it has been mentioned as the next ISRG.

With AAPL to report on Wednesday, we`d put good ole`SNCR on top of your trading list for the next couple of sessions. Today it gapped off an upgrade related to the iphone.