Wednesday, March 10, 2004
Issue Contents:
| 08:57 | The Swing Trader Today's stock picks. |
| 09:28 | The Swing Trader Update open positions. |
| 16:16 | Active Trader Transcript Real time forum log. |
| 17:05 | SwingScanner Results A new filter. |
| 17:12 | Economic Data Summary of today's releases. |
| 21:36 | SwingScanner Results Swing trade short list for Thursday. |
| 21:38 | Volume Leaders NASDAQ, NYSE and AMEX. |
You've seen me do this time and again. There will be a list, and all of a sudden, there are clear groups of stocks in similar technical positions.
MER and CCI have both pulled back to the point of breakout. Needless to say, the scenario is that IF buyers do not show up where they should, THEN traders would not want to play these bullflags. Right now, with the market quite weak, you want to make sure that any swing trades on the buy side are really choice setups, and if you look at OSIP, MGAM and DNDN, they are similar in look and feel, and not as good as the ones below.
If you look at CNP, KBH, and WEBX, you can see variations of stronger bull flags. WEBX is closer to MER, but it's a cheap tech stock, so there might be many more buyers for this than MER. Traders interested in buying the pullback on a swing trade basis should place a buy stop at Tuesday's high, and use Tuesday's low as the initial stop loss. Others on the list that resemble CNP and KBH are LGND, AT, ESRX and IGL.
AMX, CNET and AVP would be ones that I would avoid, because they are not totally clean setups.
I don't like any of the short side candidates on the list, but here's a thought. Here's one that might be the old 1-2-3 exhaustion play with weekly and monthly charts extremely stretched, a potential spike top. Intraday, if CFC sinks below the 3/01 swing high at 93.64 there may be room for some quick hit and run trades on the short side.
For background information on our approach to swing trading, please visit the Swing Trading Principles section in the Knowledge Base.
Let's update our picks from Monday.
Bull flag on SYY nearly reaches target within the 50% rule. If it can't do it today, traders should consider taking profits.
Should have been stopped out on K in yesterday's trading.
GSK hits the downside target on yesterday's gap down. Traders who want to hold this one short should move their stop loss to yesterday's high. Others should take profits.
Real time forum log.
Click on the title above to expand this document.
I continue to work on criteria, and after looking at this list (based on Monday's data), I think I've got a very good test of top/reversal scan worked out.
XOM
NKE
CMX
PEP
STJ
SLE
AZN
MAS
AOC
G
PSS
DHI
PBR
MON
ECL
FPL
EXC
ADVP
KFT
OSTK
FHCC
MBA Purchase Applications Index 428.6
(Econoday.com) - The Mortgage Bankers purchase index rose 1.4 percent to 428.6 in the week ended March 5, indicating little change in demand for homes. The refinancing index, closely watched in the bond market as an indication for future prepayments of mortgage securities, was also little changed, up 1.0 percent to 3,567.6.
Trade Deficit -$43.1 Billion
(Econoday.com) - Swelled by rising oil prices, the U.S. trade gap widened sharply again in January, to a new record of $43.1 billion. December's trade gap was revised slightly higher to $42.7 billion from $42.5 billion.
Both imports and exports fell in January. Imports were down 0.5 percent to $132.1 billion, while exports, despite competitiveness tied to the decline in the dollar, fell 1.2 percent to $89.0 billion.The trade gap with Europe narrowed sharply in the month, reflecting weak demand across the Atlantic. In contrast, the gap with China widened further.
Soft exports are a bit of a surprise given the weakness of the dollar, which has yet to stimulate a surge in foreign demand for our products and services. The gap with China will encourage speculation that the nation, under pressure from its trading partners, will begin to step back from the yuan's currency peg with the dollar, which has kept the Chinese currency from rising and has added to the competitiveness of China's exports.
Inventories +0.1%
(Econoday.com) - Wholesale trade inventories inched up 0.1 percent after posting a larger 0.6 percent rise in December. Inventories of durable goods rose 0.6 percent, but nondurable goods inventories declined 0.6 percent after a 0.1 percent drop in December. Over the year, durable goods inventories are slightly stronger than nondurable goods. Wholesale trade sales jumped 0.6 percent after a 1.5 percent hike in December.
5-Year Note Auction 2.695% Yield Awarded
(Econoday.com) - Results for Wednesday's $16 billion 5-year note auction were mixed. The bid-to-cover was 2.47 percent, below February's 2.84 percent but about the median over the last six months. The high yield at 2.695 percent was a mild disappointment, 1-1/2 basis points above the when-issued yield at the bidding deadline. Importantly, though, demand from foreign central banks appeared strong, with indirect bidders, which include central banks, making up 44.0 percent of accepted bids compared with 42.4 percent last month. The coupon for March's offering is 2.625 percent, well below last month's 3 percent coupon and a reminder of the downward impact that last week's poor employment report has had on interest rates.
Potential bull flags in uptrend.
JPM
MCD
SEPR
ASKJ
IMCL
BR
D
LGND
MGAM
CELG
TLCV
AMAT
DELL
JNPR
MXIM
LRCX
ROK
LLTC
XRX
TTN
ADM
UNH
ERES
ODSY
ATVI
SEAC
We will review the list of the most active stocks on the NYSE, NASDAQ and AMEX overnight along with today's SwingScanner results to see if there are any swing trade setups for tomorrow.