Watch List - Short Setup - ELOS, RIMM

ELOS is coming into notable support but the oscillators and indicators are all so weak, that a violation is very likely.


RIMM is forming a bearish flag as price has been sandwiched between the 50MA and the trendline for two weeks.

$SOX - Symetrical Triangle

Click on chart for larger view and notes.

Watch List - ADBE, ENER, BRCM

ADBE

ADBE is consolidating its recent gains near the top of its range and could continue upwards anytime.

ENER

After forming a nice base and breaking out at $50.00 two weeks ago, ENER has come back to retest the breakout point. It now looks well positioned to continue its uptrend. A view of the 15 minute chart below. shows positive divergence of the MACD.

BRCM

After a deep pullback BRCM is oversold and looks ready to bounce. We've had two successive higher lows and a look at the 60 minute view below shows that we have positive divergence of the MACD. Buy on a break of $42.00. Aggressive buyers can buy a break of the downward sloping trendline.

AAPL - Bullish Inverted H&S Pattern

I first wrote a post on this developing pattern on April 9th when we had the left shoulder and head formation. It took three weeks, but as you can see from the chart above, we now have our right shoulder in place and the inverted H&S pattern is really taking shape.

Here is a 15 min. view of the last three sessions. Notice that in this latest rally, AAPL has observed the rising 50 period MA as support on a closing basis, even during the last two bearish Nasdaq opening gaps.

I expect a bit of consolidation before the neckline break, but I won't be taking my eye off AAPL as it may surprise us with more momentum very soon.

Nasdaq Technical Picture

Another big gap down on the open, that's two in a row. This one due in large part to MSFT. Because of the size of its market cap, it weighs heavily on the Nasdaq. You may have wondered why the Nasdaq was showing a loss of almost 25 points on the open, but many of your watchlist stocks were in the green. So for the day, we carved out a doji with a long upper shadow. The Nasdaq shed 22 points on high volume. The worst performing sector was software. The damage to other weak sectors was relatively contained. The biggest loser in the NDX was MSFT with a loss of 11.4% on total volume of 0.6 billion shares. That's about 23% of the total Nasdaq volume for the day. I heard on CNBC tonight that MSFT closed at a 6 year low today. A quick look at the weekly chart, shows that it didn't even take out last year's low. I guess the person who put that segment together doesn't know how to read a stock chart. Looking at the $NAMO above, we are neutral with respect to overbought/oversold.

Trade of the Day - AAPL

I bought AAPL on a break of yesterday's resistance. I sold 50% on the first signs of weakness and I was stopped out on the balance. Only a couple of trades today. Because of the general market malaise, good setups were hard to find. Friday afternoon doldrums sums it up pretty well.

In Play

Long AAPL - 50% profit booked
Long SYMC - stopped out (scratch)

Update 12:43 EST - stopped out on balance of AAPL position

Pre-Market

TZOO gapping up - currently tading at $40.35 from yesterday's close of $38.52

AH Update

NDX futures down 8.25

Nikkei down 288 pts.

Watch List - CMED, TZOO, MCHP, MXIM, LRCX, MU

CMED has pulled backed to a solid area of support and may bounce from here.

I tried to short TZOO and it's no surprise that no shares were available. So we have to take every opportunity to long this momentum play when the perfect setup comes along. I noticed we closed on a pivot point so I'll be watching to see if it wants to bounce back up from here. If not, we'll keep it on the radar until it does.

MCHP has had three days of high volume back and forth and could breakout anytime.

I can't decide if MXIM is a short or if it capitulated today. We'll soon find out.

I must have been looking at the wrong scan, because I missed this LRCX breakout. Let's see if it tests the breakout point.

Another one I missed. The same goes for MU as LRCX.

Along with MSFT several tech names are trading down in AH including DRIV. They issued downside guidance tonight so it could be a short tomorrow.

Nasdaq Technical Picture

After a firmly negative start, the markets bounced back when BB took center stage. When Ben talks about ending the rate hikes, we rally. The NAZ carved out a bullish engulfing pattern on very strong volume. The Nasdaq outperformed the INDU 2 to 1 on a percentage increase. The SOX, biotechs and software performed well while networking was weak. The NDX heatmap has a lot more green on it for a change. The winners today were CELG, XLNX, and APOL (CKFR 4th) and the losers were JOYG, ESRX, and XMSR. We closed weak and the MSFT miss will likely give us a weak open. NDX futures are currently down and the Nikkei is down over 100 points. Stay tuned.

ADBE - Started out Nicely, But

This one didn't work because the market decided to take a dive into the close. But the entry was perfect and running a profit from the get go. That is one of my measures of a perfect trade, you're in the green within less than 5 minutes.

Trade of the Day - CKFR

Nice snap back for CKFR after yesterday's big fall. I entered the position on a bullish flag breakout pattern. The rest is self-explanatory if you click on the chart for a larger view.

In Play

Other than a few quick scalps, no trades so far. I'm waiting for the market to settle to see if I can find some quality setups.

Update 12:50 EST - CKFR - Bullish Flag Breakout - This one is outperforming my original target and hasn't shown any sign of weakness so far.

Update 1:05 - Sold 50% CKFR at $55.00 (+2 point profit) Stop set at $54.35.

Update 1:25 - ADBE made a solid break this morning and is consolidating the move in an orderly fashion on the 15 min. view. I'm staking it out for a possible Fibonacci retracement off on this morning's low and hoping for nice pullback entry. Also looking at BRCM, but that one is very choppy.

Update 2:15 - Tightening my stop on CKFR up to $54.57. It's made a base and the 10 period EMA is now above $54.60 on 15 min.

Update 2:45 - ADBE long triggered just above $39.35 on a fairly flat consolidation base.

Watch List - MRVL, BRCM, AMSG, CTXS, AMD, GM, ILSE, TASR

MRVL looks like a H&S top.

What Up BRCM?????? I thought the earnings beat would propel BRCM higher, not lower. Let's see if the gap closure will hold as support.

Good call Brian. Did you trade AMSG today?

CTXS may have found its support level at $40.00 and could be ready to challenge its pivot point at $41.00.

This is a 60 Minute view of AMD. We had a nice little rally going over the past few days and this morning it pulled back to the trendline. Let's see if we can pick up a little traction from this support level.

You don't often see a stock like GM on this blog. GM rallied today on a Merrill upgrade. Now let's see if it can break resistance.

ILSE reports tomorrow morning so we'll know before the open if this is going or not.

Some of the old momentum stocks of yester-year are back in play. We had TZOO last week, now TASR looks ready to pop.

Nasdaq Technical Picture

Another fairly flat day with the end result a mere 3 points to the upside. The Nasdaq carved out a doji (indecision) on slightly lower volume. Basically, we haven't moved all week. Sector strength was in networking and disk drive, whereas, the SOX and biotechs were weak. The NDX winners were TLAB, FISV and MNST and the losers CHRW, GILD, and BRCM (twice in three days for BRCM).

Buying Pullbacks - FLSH, JCOM

After a deep pullback like FLSH, I need confirmation before taking a long position. I waited until price took out the high of the three consolidation doji bars before going long. Price moved up slowly but orderly all the way back to resistance which was my initial target. I took a 50% profit and was stopped out on the balance just under the pink line.

This JCOM trade came to me via the TI scanner. It showed up on the scan in the morning, but I didn't want to chase it, so I waited for a pullback. It had a nice shallow pullback then traded sideways for an hour. It popped out of its narrow trading range on a volume spike and I hit the ask because I didn't want to give it a second chance to runaway from me. It paid off nicely. On these types of consolidations, I try not to buy until the break of the upper blue line, because these can just as easily fade. However, you have to be very fast when the break occurs. Sometimes a buy stop order helps.

Trade of the Day - AAPL

Here is an example of a trade where I was comfortable taking a position before the actual market open. As per last night's watch list, AAPL looked like a good reversal candidate after yesterday's NR daily bar. I took a position in AAPL just minutes before the open as price started to accelerate quickly to test the pre-market high set earlier in the morning and which also matched up well with yesterday's highs. I exited 50% of the position with a +1.00 gain as the Q's ran into resistance and started to back away. The balance was sold just below $68.00 when it appeared that this level could not be taken out.

In Play

Long AAPL as per the watchlist - 50% profit just locked in as market hit resistance at 10:30.

Long MNST on a break of the pre-market high 50% profit locked in.

Also watching PSUN for a tradable pullback - This is a TI scan breakout name.

Update 11:25 EST- the market is coming in fast so I've closed both MNST and AAPL with nice profits.

Update 2:09 EST - A couple of pullback entries on stocks from the 3 day breakout T_I scan have done well this afternoon - FLSH and JCOM. I'll post the charts later this evening.

Watch List

I noticed a lot of failed breakouts today, which is never a good sign. There's a general lack of good setups tonight so I've decided to focus on stocks that made higher lows either NR or reversal type bars - TEK, GRMN, and AAPL.






Plus the usual consolidation/continuation setups include AMD, SWIR, DRIV (yes again) and JBHT.

Nasdaq Technical Picture

Let's call it a consolidation rather than a distribution day, because the Nasdaq shed just 3 points on slightly higher volume. It was another day where good setups were hard to come by. Tech sectors were mixed so some are starting to bounce including disk drive, hardware and the SOX. The NDX winners were CDWC, TLAB, LNCR and the losers were SEPR, GILD and YHOO.

Trade of the Day - ZRAN

ZRAN was trading up in the pre-market on last night's stellar earnings report. I entered long on a break of the pre-market high. I closed the position on the first signs of weakness because that's the type of trading day it was and because there's no need to be greedy when you're up 1.8 points.

In Play

Only one big winner so far - long ZRAN on a break of the pre-market high. Sold AMD for a small profit. Stopped out on BRCM for another tiny profit.

RIMM popped up on the 3 day breakout T_I scan. Waiting for a suitable entry. I'd like to see it pull back to $78.00 but it's consolidating at the high end of its bullish move.

Watch List - ENER, SWIR, CELG, CYMI

ENER is consolidating recent gains and could move higher anytime.

SWIR gapped up on a great earnings report at the end of last week. Keep this one on your watch list as a potential momentum play on a break of $18.00.

CELG is a buy on a high volume break of $40.00 or a retest of support at $39.00. Same type of concept as CYMI below.

After a 38% retracement of the last leg up, CYMI looks ready to move back up to retest recent highs. Buy on a break of $54.00 or on a successful retest of support at $53.00. I'm posting the 15 minute view below to get a better idea of the two possible entry points. If one 15 bar closes below $53.00, the setup is no longer valid.

Carryover from last night - AMD still looks good as a long. It had a a small breakout today but needs more volume. DRIV is still on the watch list as a potential consolidation breakout play.

Nasdaq Technical Picture

A small hammer reversal bar sitting on support of the January high and the 20 day EMA. All tech sectors were in the red again today, however most lifted off of their lows into the close. Disk drive was the exception, it closed on its lows and has been one of the worst perfomers over the last three days. Today's NDX losers were BRCM, SIRI and JDSU. The winners were CELG, NVDA, ISRG.

Trade of the Day - CMED

CMED showed up on the Trade_Ideas 3 day breakout scan around 10:30. I waited till it consolidated and broke resistance at the blue line before entering a position. As you can see from the oscillators and indicators, CMED met all of the criteria for a momentum move. I exited the position into the close for a +2.00 move.

N.B. - Blogger problems again all morning. I see they have scheduled some maintenance for tonight, so the regular posts may be late. If I don't post tonight then you'll know its a blogger problem.