Monday, December 13, 2004
Issue Contents:
| 08:43 | The Day Ahead Economic releases and news. |
| 09:25 | Swing Trade Setups Featured charts for Monday December 13th. |
| 14:42 | Quick Take: S&P 500 At the top of the range... |
| 16:15 | TrendVue Trader Talk Today's transcript. |
| 23:35 | Swing Scanner Results Monday December 13th closing data. |
| 23:36 | Market Statistics For Monday December 13th. |
Good morning, on this the 348th day of 2004. This morning’s positive retail sales number and upward revisions to prior numbers has lent enough support to pre-open stock index futures prices to keep them near Friday’s high – they had been trading on both sides of Friday’s high since Globex opened on Sunday.
The US Dollar Index is off a touch from last week’s highs, and may set Gold up for a test of last week’s lows that will pass or fail this week; Crude prices were trading a little weaker earlier today, helping firm up stock index futures; Oracle has its bid for PeopleSoft finally accepted by management; and the big question of the week on trader’s minds is what the Federal Reserve will do and say in tommorrows interest rate policy announcement.
US Market Calendar
- 8:30 am: Business Inventories
- 8:30 am: Retail Sales
Canadian Market Calendar
- 8:30 am: New Motor Vehicle Sales – Oct.
Earnings and the Federal Reserve
For earnings highlights, please see today's WSJ Earnings Calendar.
For a list of upcoming speeches, congressional testimony, Federal Open Market Committee material, and statistical releases, please visit the What's Next page of The Federal Reserve Board website. Recently released Federal Reserve Board material, including market moving FOMC decisions and speeches by members, will be found on their What's New page.
Featured setups from Friday December 10 closing data symbol scan
Jump to: Long Setups | Short Setups | Special Situations
Notes for the Day
Futures are pointing up enough to create a gap up situation – lets be sure new that it doesn’t fail soon after the open. Keep a close eye and be ready to bail any new positions if the market fails in the early going.
Having said that, perhaps the long awaited continuation of the Santa Rally is here. We’ll find out soon.
Long Setups
General common strategy: Unless noted otherwise, buy stop just above the “high” value, with an initial protective stop at the low value of the bar, not below the bar.
Test of Bottom – Reversal
QLTI – could go either way. It has had an extremely bearish looking chart for a long time here, so keep that in mind.
Retracement or Pause in Up Swing / Up Trend
QQQQ – since this is likely to gap up a little, find the first retracement intraday and buy stop above. Move stops to break even at the earliest opportunity.
BBH – Biotech HOLDRs.
MXO – still in down trend on the weekly chart but has so far a successful test of bottom.
SWIR (SW on TSX)
GSI:C (TSX) (GSLI on Nasdaq)
RFMD – has held local support so far – buy stop at 2 day high.
Test of Top – Continuation
ONNN
Short Setups
General common strategy: Unless noted otherwise, place a sell alert at or just below the low of the setup bar, and look for the first failed intraday bounce after the low has been broken. What we are looking for is price to push down, bounce a little, and fail again – this is where we want to get short.
Test of Bottom – Continuation
MRO – and many other oil stocks. While many feel they have sold off “enough” now, the market may not agree. Caution nevertheless.
SAPE – if this doesn’t trigger a short today stalk for a couple of days.
Special Situations
ISIL – short – could go either way today – stalk on the short side if it pushes up. I point it out as a possible long side trade only for experienced traders as it had a gap down and stalled Friday on high enough volume – so it might be able to rally from here.
I have to make a trip to the doctor and get checked out for a too-persistent cough; I shall provide updates later this evening. Before I go I want to leave a quick comment here as S&P 500 index futures have hit the round number 1200, and more importantly, are within easy striking distance of retesting the December 3rd highs and any stops which may be lurking just above that level.
As noted here frequently, every test of a swing high is important; retests of a swing high within a relatively tight range spanning multiple days are even more critical. Positions entered today should be moved to a break even stop if at all possible off the intraday charts, just in case.
Also on the just in case theme, before I go I’m moving up stops to just below this morning’s low on the DIA swing trade (we entered very close to last week’s lows) in order to capture a decent profit if these tests fail while I am out. I’ll do the same with a few other positions as well.
If the market can move up from here and make the range high new support, then we’ll be looking for a new up trend to emerge from here.
Reminder: Tuesday 2:15 pm FOMC interest rate announcement.
Today's transcript.
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Monday December 13th closing data.
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Statistics for Monday December 13
Note: Statistics are compiled based on our custom symbol universe of the most heavily traded stocks.
| Symbols in Up Swings | 527 |
|---|---|
| Symbols in Down Swings | 241 |
| Up/Down Swing Ratio | 2.18 : 1 |
| Advancers | 72% |
| Decliners | 26% |
| Unchanged | 2% |
| Close > 20EMA | 71% |
| Close > 50SMA | 77% |
| Close > 200SMA | 70% |
| 20EMA > 50SMA > 200SMA (trend up) | 46% |
| 20EMA < 50SMA < 200SMA (trend down) | 12% |