$SPY $TQQQ – if Santa’s rally is coming to town…

Posted on by diogenes227

It appears it started today and triggered the likelihood of more to come tomorrow…

This should be a rally all the way to Christmas and possibly a bit beyond.

Why?

Because the market has been pounded hard to the downside since, in some index cases, early October. But more importantly short-term and long-term breadth, measured by the McClellan Oscillator and Summation Index (see the chart for today below), has simultaneously given buy signals for tomorrow’s, Tuesday’s, open. And they have done it with a telling divergence – see on the chart how deep the breadth plunge was on the lows in late October, and how the breadth numbers failed to confirm the price lows at the same levels last week.

In addition, my nifty-fifty stock list had 44 sells on the first plunge (usually the sign of a swing bottom) but could not muster more than 39 on sells during the last sell-off. Forty-five of them are now on buys.

I have major 3xleverage ETFs giving new individual buy signals for tomorrow’s open – FAS, SOXL, FNGU, TNA, TQQQ, UNPRO — and major bellwether stocks doing the same – AMZN, NVDA, TWTR, GS, BABA, FB. But neither TSLA nor NFLX can be ignored on any market bounce.

While AAPL missed an individual buy signal today by a whisper, this market is not going anywhere without it. However, I see, it closed at 174 and is down to 170 after-hours (a better bargain?). That AAPL has an after-the-close sell down raises the possibility the downside is not yet done.

Highly likely we are now in a bear market with Finra (NYSE) margin debt unraveling. If so, there’s going to be downward pressure on this rally almost every day. This is the time for traders to take advantage of sharp upside bounces like today and for long-term investors to lighten up on their holdings if not to get out completely. Every time margin debt has come apart (and this time it is from a higher level than both 2000 and 2007) the SPX has lost 40% to 50% before the bear market ended in 2003 and 2009. See this LINK – the divergence that kills the bull.

Bear-market rallies tend to be fast and furious so we’ll see how this one goes, but if it is truly a bear-market rally, it will as time goes by take a lot of time to recover from the its eventual bottom whenever it comes and at whatever price level.

(click on the chart for a larger view)

$SPY #Options – Trending day trade 34 for 121% on the close

Posted on by diogenes227

The day-trading strategy developed here and dubbed in earlier posts “The Fool’s Game” has now had 34 trending days like today since the start of this year.

I define a trending day as any day the SPY calls or the SPY puts or a combination of both gain more than 100% on the day trade. All trades are long only and closed out at the market’s close.

The 274 in-the-money put for today closed the day trade up 121% on each $10K traded (see the chart on the left below). There were no trades triggered in the calls.

Today’s at-the-money 273 put closed the day trade up 166%.

See the white flags on the lower right of each chart below for the return on each $10K traded and recorded in real time on Twitter.

(click on the charts for a larger view)

$FB – run amok and tumbling down…

Posted on by diogenes227

Facebook (FB) has been able to run on its own since being founded and going public.

So what, as it turns, does the company do? It runs amok.

As the NEW YORK TIMES INVESTIGATIVE REPORT revealed this week the company has been reckless and irresponsible and instrumental in the Russian invasion of the US 2016 elections, and its executives have “delayed, denied, and deflected” criticism through the entire controversy.

We’re talking sheer greed here, capitalism as its ugliest.

But it appears its time of running unfettered is up as Congress focuses on bringing regulations to finally make it responsible for the harm it has done and to insure that it does not do it again. In the end Facebook will be better off for it…or it will be dead (hard to believe? remember MySpace?).

As a result the FB stock (see chart below) has proved once again in financial markets’ store there all always both escalators up and escalators down,

Regardless, to state the obvious, while investors may see profits evaporate in fleeting time, traders can make money on both the ups and and the downs.

(click on the chart for a larger view)

$UNG – Natural gas may flame out here but what a run!

Posted on by diogenes227

Today looks like a blow-off high but…

But UNG (US Natural Fund) sure has given a lesson in what can happen on a technical breakout from a flat base, from 27.5 to 39.5 in eight trading days (see the chart below). Kind of crazy.

I guess it’s a weather report for a cold, cold winter.

Regardless, it’s going to be a buy-the-dips play for some time to come. One would think has to settle down some first or there is going to be a lot of risk, either long or short.

On a contrarian note: aggressive traders might want to look to short it as soon as it stalls, for at least a scalp and possibly a worthwhile dip, with a stop loss to cover at the high of the move at whatever level that is when the time comes.

(click on the chart for a larger view)

$SPY #Options – Trending Day-Trade 32 for 166% in the “Fool’s Game”

Posted on by diogenes227

When something looks too good to be true it usually is.

But so far not this year.

The day-trading strategy developed here last November and dubbed in earlier posts “The Fool’s Game” has now had 32 days like today since the start of this year.

Thirty-two trending days.

I define a trending day as any day the SPY calls or the SPY puts or a combination of both gain more than 100% on the day trade. All trades are long only. The 276 in-the-money put for today closed the day trade up 166% on each $10K traded (see the chart on the left below). There were no trades triggered in the calls.

This was one those great trending days that goes one way all day.

And by the way, the market, with today’s hard sell down, is now wildly oversold so the chance of bounce tomorrow is very high. I say that chance is about 85%, but that’s mostly a guess based on the past six months market action. No telling how high. There’s also about a 75% chance the bounce will be a one-day wonder.

For fun, I’ve included a chart of the “at-the-money” 277 Put for today below on the right just as a comparison between one strike and another on a day of expiration. The gain per $10K traded, $25,384 (also the percentage gain, 253%) is in the white flag on the lower right of the chart.

Obviously, the greater the risk the greater the reward.

Remember these posts are meant solely for entertainment purposes and for the educational purpose of showing what the possibilities are in options if one has persistence, experience and discipline. They are in no way be construed as any kind of direct or indirect trading or investing advice.

(click on the charts for a larger view)

A falling $BID takes its toll…

Posted on by diogenes227

Sotheby’s (BID), the art-auction house, has always been a telling market indicator.

It often confirms the market’s direction when the stock and the indexes are in sync but more importantly it sometimes leads at the turns, not at the exact turns in the shift from bull to bear and back again but as a warning, often far in advance (see the chart below).

When BID is no longer in sync with the general market, it is time to question the market’s current direction.

I have written about this before in this link:

$BID and $TIF – What do the rich folk do?

If the question is actually relevant, one could argue that when the rich quit buying art, it won’t be long before they are selling stock.

(click on the chart for a larger view)

$AAPL giveth, Apple taketh away…

Posted on by diogenes227

There has not been much to say about AAPL these last couple of years as it’s made a near parabolic rise and taken the entire market with it.

Its phone has made the company tons of cash and still does. And it has used a lot of the cash to buy back its own stock, by some accounts as much as $300 billion to propel it past an unprecedented $1 trillion market cap.

But there-in, as far as the stock is concerned, lies rub. Most likely Apple has been and still the biggest buyer of AAPL. It been a mugger sticking a phone in the face of investors and saying give me your stock.

What if it ends up being essentially the only buyer?

And despite all of the fundamentals in favor of the company, those fundamentals can not go on forever. AAPL has been competing with itself for years (now there’s a business plan…) but now others are joining in are beginning to take a toll, and the iPhone keeps getting more and more expensive, and the tax breaks it gets or maneuvers for itself will balance out eventually, and evidently the biggest fundamental of all is still and maybe will always loom over the company – Steve Jobs is still dead.

As AAPL eventually and inevitably falls, the larger question arises: Since it is in all of the big three indexes – the DOW, S&P and Nasdaq — will it take the general market with it to the downside the way it has to the upside?

(click on the chart for a larger view – update 1/2/2019)

UPDATING $RACE – Ferrari heading to the pits

Posted on by diogenes227

This is a look back.

In August there was this post:

It’s been a great run for Ferrari but its $RACE is run

In which it was said:

If this race was hill climb, RACE obviously finished in the money.

Nothing like stair-steps in an uptrend.

But, a couple of observations: 1) the stock has not had a breakdown from a boxed consolidation until recently; 2) there’s also a small head-and-shoulder top formation inside the box; 3) when leader flag it’s a warning for the general market too.

So what now? It’s short the bounces until it makes a new high, and as long as it continues breaking to the downside.

And keep in mind this could be a warning in a possible transition from bull market to bear market.

Simply put, no stock goes up forever. At least not in a trader’s world. I’m sure Warren Buffet might disagree but then he’s been investing in a century time frame.

Since August, RACE has a rally back up to 140 and has rolled over as expected. That failing rally was the opportunity for long-term investors to take profits and get out.

See the chart below which has been updated from the chart in the link.

Obviously the trend has changed to a downtrend. RACE, step by step, is now building a down staircase.

Its race run Ferrari is pulling into the pits.

(click on chart for a larger view)

Five sessions in the marijuana stocks

Posted on by diogenes227

Going into the market selloff last month, marijuana stocks were the leading sector in the market.

The stocks were flying on Constellation Brands certification of the sector’s profit potential with a $4-billion investment in Canopy Growth Corporation (CGC), then came Canada’s blanket legalization of the weed, Michigan in this election becoming the 10th state to legalize recreational uses in the U.S., following pot pioneers Washington and Colorado and others.

And now Jeff Sessions, the leading federal marijuana-legalization opponent, has been forced to resign as U.S. Attorney General. While Trump forcing Sessions out no doubt has more to do with Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, it does have the side effect of removing another obstacle in the road to a possible national legalization.

The leading stocks in the marijuana sector surged today on the Sessions news but they were already on the run with the market bounce.

Long-term breadth (measured by the McClellan Summation Index) turned up after a 40-day decline on October 31st, giving a clear market-timing signal to buy the market on the open on November 1st, five trading days ago.

CGC is up 23.7%, TLRY 41.8%, CRON 29.2% and the ETF for the sector, MJ is up 16.9% (see the charts below, the white flags on the lower right tell the gains far per $100K invested).

In addition GWPH, a stable medical marijuana stock that has been around for a long time in the US, is up 8.9%.

All in five trading days. This sector is a perfect example of the splendid simplicity of the long-term breadth signal. Coming into the market selloff as a leading sector, it was highly likely (almost a certainty) that as the market’s drop stopped, the sector’s stocks would bounce fast and high…so to speak.

(click on the chart for a larger view)

#Stocks for the #BorderWall

Posted on by diogenes227

Just for fun…

Let’s say the Republicans retain both Houses of Congress on Tuesday — that the so-call “Blue Wave” never reaches shore.

In that case Trump will have even greater carte-blanche to do whatever he wants and since he will be running non-stop (every day except golf days) for reelection, the top item on his broken-promises agenda will once again be wasting taxpayer dollar on his so-called “Border Wall.” Idiotic, yes, but there is money to be made bottom-fishing this sector and the stocks for concrete, steel, construction equipment and construction companies like CAT, CX, USCR, VMC, EXP, SUM.

See the charts below.

Long a short in this bull market (“broken promises”) they could have more than the bounce of the last few days, maybe even a rally on growth prospects as middle-class taxes (isn’t that all that is left to draw from?) get funneled to their coffers.

Now let say the “Blue Wave” not only arrives, it turns out to be tsunami as the Democrats take not just one but both Houses of Congress.

Having learned their lesson the Democrats realize there’s victory in jobs, jobs, jobs and the Party finally launches a massive program (FDR-sized!) to restore America’s deficient, crumbling infrastructure (to try to raise it to the level of the rest of the industrialized world or, as trains go, at least better than Bolivia), fueled by taxes on the one percent (who can afford it and then some…). Smart, yes, and there is money to be made bottom-fishing this sector and the stocks for concrete, steel, construction equipment and construction companies.

See charts below.

(click on charts for a larger view)