Daily Global Economic Calendar

Real Time Economic Calendar provided by Investing.com.

Friday, March 22, 2013

S&P500 Crayon

S and P 500 crayon. Not saying it will happen. Just a guess for fun (an educated guess)


Wednesday, March 20, 2013

5th of 5th of 5th

I am not a big fan of Elliott Wave Theory (EWT)
This is from personal experience. I don't think anybody disputing that EWT is very hard to properly analyze in real time. What really necessary is for pattern to be finished, reversal of some kind to already occur and only then you have a "confirmed" EW count. This whole business is really pretty and can blow your mind with benefit of hindsight.

In practice, trading based on Elliott Wave, Gann, Wolfe etc always ended in doing me more harm than good. Its easy to imagine a pattern or scenario that supports my present position, or worse - to start taking positions based on count that is not finished yet. There-in is a hidden contradiction: I can't invest based on incomplete pattern, but by the time pattern is complete and confirmed it will be to late to invest. Basta! After I experienced this vicious circle several times and always managed to lose money, I decided to stay away from fancy-shmancy theories including EWT. It did me good, and allowed me to observe rather than act on imperfect info.

Truly, ALL information on markets is imperfect. We have to make an aggressive directional bet, based on incomplete data, for unpredictable amount of time. Notably, there are "right" situations, when risk is low(er) than possible reward. "Wrong" is wrong all over the place. And then there are stages in-between.

SPX went thru bunch of stages, some looking like major top, some like run-away long term bull market, until everybody left. Bulls are afraid to get caught again, bears can't take anymore pain. Five big waives off 2009 bottom, five well defined waves off Fall  2011, five off November 2012 low. This last one has distribution happening thruout - not on averages, but on most of former market leading stocks. I am not an expert on Elliott Wave Theory, and I am not sure how to properly label all stages, but i am looking at a picture that is just too perfect.

I am not bullish. My target was 1600+ on SPX, some 50 point away. Possible correction / bear market can take this market to 1000 SPX, some 500 points away.






Friday, March 15, 2013

Cocoa

Cocoa is in a sweet spot, right at 25 Day MA.
I tried to pick bottom on NIB back in fall of last year. Didn't take

Now is an interesting situation on all time frames, IF:
1. Hourly is inverted H&S
2. Daily is bull flag
3. My volume profile starts really improving (its rather neutral now)
4. Dare I say 5th wave down on Daily chart?
5. 5 year chart is at some kind of long term support

I will be buying NIB above 5Wema over 28.80
Looking for it to hold 28.50.  Below 27.50 is a continuation of down-trend

New Moon 14%, Solar activity on a rise - first active for few days, today Mclass flare. Sun had been flat for weeks. Increase in activity always leads to volatility in Markets, both up and down.

Monday is seasonally best day of march all around. From there its all downhill, with slight blimp on 27 and 28 on Nazdaq. After that April is positive for all stocks.

Market is incredibly thin. Where is everybody?
From Chicago's Mr Top Step
         " There was always a big “to do” when it comes to the quad witching, but the facts are the facts: It’s nothing like it used to be. The big roar of the pit that used to have 300+ screaming locals and order fillers has been reduced to 3 or 4 order fillers and 50 or 60 locals all waiting for orders that almost never hit the pit. That said, we do not expect a lot of action today. Some business in the first and last 45 minutes."

 What about that POMO? Where is all that money go?... Cus its not in a stock markets, for sure

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Sick and Tired

Literally.
I've been sick on and off for past 3 months. Finally it did me in. Spent few days relaxing, not in bed, but around it. Seeing doctor on Thursday - I give up, need some pills or something.

Markets are tired too, but not sick yet. Soon it will change.
I have been winding down my stock portfolio for the past couple of weeks. Selling every time I see big volume coming in, or even near support being taken out. Trailing my stops up, until they are hit. I see only few good set-ups and mostly ignoring them, except for some special cases.

I am not calling a top here and now, although it may be close. Mainly I am tired. I have been slugging for months, all while being sick and it catches up with me. I know that I can't go non-stop. I will start making mistakes, then I will try to "press" in order to make up for losses, then I will turn significant profit into an unnecessary draw-down.

It doesn't mean I am stopping operations all-together. Not at all. I just laying off stocks in general, taking intensity of trading way down and not trying to be 100% in.

BOT:
3/4 - BAL 53.54 Half position Cotton
3/5 - SLV 28.03 Half pos
3/5 - SCTY 18.45 1/4pos
3/5 - MGAM 19.06 Half pos
3/5 - FB 28.07 Half pos
3/6 - SIL 17.71 Half pos Silver Miners
3/12 - QID 26.41 This is not a hedge, but a directional trade. No stop for now, but watching 69qqq area. Almost all breakouts failed on QQQ over past 3 months. may not work this week as Quad Witching week is very bullish thru Friday
3/13 - XHB 29.51 If something goes up, it must be homies... Or is it over too? Stop under 29.25

SLD:
3/7 - SCTY 16.42  All out. Earnings sucks. So why did it go up all this time?
3/7 - FSCHX 125.60 Sold 1/3 size. Continue to reduce.
3/8 - GEO 35.79 Quick trade out.
3/11 - MGAM 19.65. All out. Continuing on-line poker research. This company doesn't really fit into what I think will happen. Seems that  casinos themselves are setup the best for internet gaming. They will hire somebody inhouse or go to big development company to set up a "System".
3/12 - TSCO 102.98 Its still going sideways, but I see alot of selling intraday and in 104-105 top range. Will consider re-entry above resistance.
3/12 - SCO 39.34 Stoped out on overnight gap. I wrote on many occasions about gap-risk, and here it is - taking away large portion of my gains. Re-entry possible.
3/12 - FB 27.66 50dma and 29ish level proving to be too much of resistance. Watching
3/13 - IBB 155.56 All out. Enough for now
3/13 - TAN 17.70 Closed day below 2 previous lows on daily chart (17.50 level). This may be H&S top, with possible target of 13-14. There is not much support there. I'm afraid I will have to look for individual stocks, cus Solar Industry is in trouble as a whole

Positions
http://stockcharts.com/freecharts/candleglance.html?$CEX,TSLA,CCJ,JJG,BAL,DRYS,SLV,SIL,GDX,FNV,qid,xhb|B|P5,3,3
Full size positions: CCJ, TSLA, QID,XHB
FSCHX (tracked by $CEX) 2/3 pos size and reducing
Total PM allocation is 2 full pos size.

UPDATE 3/14/2013 7am:
           Daily Silver
I swear it looks like bear flag on a daily chart
And miners are no better
And Dollar is a horse - if it doesn't stop somewhere here, it goes all the way.
Oy Vey...

Dividends received
3/1 GEO 45
3/9-3/11 - IBM 7; XOM 10; CVX 12

Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Discovery at Sea

        I got sidetracked over the weekend.
In an unusual chain of events I discovered the Shipping Industry. Shipping over oceans is a very peculiar business at this moment in time. Needs a different mind-set and time horizon, comparing to other industries I follow. I spent 3 days trying to learn everything i can about it, but information is very scarce - there is no investment letters and write-ups on Montley Fool etc are very general in nature and don't address many problems I see. There is some  industry consulting and research, but it's not available for free, and fees are in thousands.

        First of all, out of 48 companies in Finviz shipping section, over half are Greek and Bermuda corporations. Not surprising to see Greek ones being decimated past their financial crisis, with many smaller ones already bankrupt or sold. I have been wondering for years - whats the big deal about Greece, what is there to gain for big boys? Now I know. Small greek shipping business owner is too juicy victim to pass up. Now its not that important anymore - damage has been done and over with.

       Prime industry publication is http://www.tradewindsnews.com/  
As suspected, it is filled with endless pump for foreign traded securities and not much analysis. They do have a pretty good You Tube channel  with interviews from past trade-shows, i reviewed it with stunning results. While past years sponsors where banks and insurers, most recent conference was sponsored by corporate law firm specializing in bankruptcies.  Corporate lawyers are like military medics - when battle is over, they come out to tend to wounded and remove the corpses. Old vampire Wilbur Ross is there too, he feeds on corpses methinks... Greek shipowners are now largely absent, replaced with young american CEO's - a restructuring placeholders of decision makers. It's a good thing really, shareholders where bearing losses of this mess and industry is left for dead. Somebody has to put an E into P/E, and Greeks aint gona do it.

       For the rest of my analysis I removed smallest companies with market cap under 50mil, bringing whole industry to only 37 stocks. First thing that strikes me as odd is that more than half have Price-to-Book (P/B) ratio of less than 1, ten with P/B less than 0.5 and only four with over 3. I have never seen anything like it. Basically they are either a free gift to Wall Street or fully half of ocean shippers worldwide are bankrupt! They just didn't filed papers yet. Obviously, P/B is a deceptive measure, affected by depreciation, stock buy-backs and other accounting shenanigans. I usually completely disregard it, but seeing it as industry-wide dynamic makes money hair on the back of my neck go wo-wo-wo. My present position DRYS is the largest of sub-0.5 P/B stocks.

       Insider ownership is not really an actionable fundamental, but these days I rarely see management and owners with any skin in a game. Here is companies with nearly half of shares owned by insiders: GLNG, TK, SSW and CPLP at 30%. Most of major shippers pay nice dividends - with NMM and CPLP at over 12% and SFL, NAT, CMRE, TOO not far behind. At this time I will not focus on dividend accumulation, because I am not planning to hold them long enough. My view remains that this market is on its last leg, shippers will be hit hard (probably harder than most) in upcoming correction/bear market.

      Short interest (SI) is not homogeneous thruout this industry. KEX, TDW and NAT are at higher levels of Short Ratio (SR) than other majors, but only KEX is near 52 week high and in danger of short squeeze. Contrary to popular opinion, I don't view high SI and SR as bullish indicator. Short sellers are usually very smart and operate with superior knowledge. I don't find it wise to fight them in general, and specifically here I don't see anything way out of wack.

     If I buy any today, SSW looks good. Really good opportunity is sometime in future.
http://stockcharts.com/freecharts/candleglance.html?sea,TDW,CKH,SSW,MATX,STNG,DRYS,DSX,NAT|B|P5,3,3

Here is top 20:
 http://stockcharts.com/freecharts/candleglance.html?$BDI,SEA,KEX,GLNG,TGP,TK,TOO,TDW,GMLP,SFL,CKH,SSW|C|C20
http://stockcharts.com/freecharts/candleglance.html?cmre,matx,nmm,stng,glog,drys,dsx,cplp,nat,nm,dac,sb|C|C20

       Here is  Angeliki Frangou in 2012