#IPOs – A Great Year For “Dummies”

Posted on by diogenes227

In the fervor of an initial public offering — an IPO — investors can easily get carried away.

After all, they are being pummeled with positive publicity by underwriters and brokers that this is it – the chance finally to buy into a latest, hot new company! But, in fact, unless one is some kind of insider or maybe a politician being bribed the first day of trading – the stock’s IPO day – is a crap shoot.

Take CRWD (Crowd Strike Holdings), which went public yesterday, as an example. The stock opened at 63.50, rose to 67, dropped to a low of 56, and closed at 58. A gambler might have a strategy to buy in during the day but at what point in that nine point chop does an investor make a safe investment? At no point.

The key to investing in IPOs is the first day’s price range but the buy comes after the first day as suggested in this post here: Buying IPOs for Dummies.

Following a “buying IPOs for dummies” strategy, CRWD is a buy on a close above 67.00 and at no other time. That’s when the initial fervor is over and there may be a worthwhile chance to profit going forward. Otherwise, the stock could drop through the low like LYFT did this year and keep on falling. Everyone who bought LYFT on its first day is losing money but those who did not buy are not.

How has this strategy worked this year so far?

With several companies, just great! SOLY is up 217%, SWAV is up 90%, BYND is up 86%, ZM is up 45% (see the charts below).

PINS is included here as an example of how defense can be played by both the long-term investors and swing traders. PINS rose 29% before falling back below the high of its IPO day for a loss of .9%. Disappointing for the investor, yes, but not catastrophic. Along the way, a trader might pay closer attention – at the bottom of the first big down blue bar on the chart at the right of the chart panel below PINS still had a profit of 17.2%. That would have been a good spot to take some, if not all, off the table.

(click on chart panel for a larger view)

#GoldStocks – talking trees when there’s a forest out there…

Posted on by diogenes227

To state the obvious, most stocks move with the general market, and more obviously almost all stocks move like all stocks in their sector.

And this may be no more obvious than with the gold stocks.

I’m always surprised at the endless discussions of which gold stock to buy. Gold bugs, particularly, love this stuff — this one, or that one, or maybe that one. One stock picker or another has very good arguments for each of their choices, fundamentals, technicals, some buddy’s opinion, whatever, but they all ignore the obvious — they’re talking about trees when there’s a forest out there.

Take a look at the charts below.

Five of those charts are stocks and three are ETFs, but hide the symbols and company names for each chart and who would be able to tell which NEM and which GOLD, which is AEM and which is NUGT? The patterns essentially all look the same (like fir trees in a fir forest).

But actually they are not the same. I have the same swing-trading system on each of those charts. Now look at the numbers in the white flags on the lower left of each chart. Those are the total returns year-to-date per $100K committed to each swing trade (calculated also to easily show percentage gains for the system).

Obviously, there is a difference between the stocks and the ETFs. The leading stock in the sector, KL, is up 17%, while RGLD, lagging, is up only 1.4%; a prominent name like Newmont Mining (NEM) is up 14%. On the other hand, the leveraged ETFs, NUGT and JNUG, are both up 82% and even GDX, not leveraged, is up 25% – same time frame, same trading system.

The trading system here is not the point. It is just here to illustrate that too often traders and investors can’t, as they say, see the forest for the trees.

(CLICK ON THE CHART PANEL FOR A LARGER VIEW)

#MarketTiming – Stall or drop?

Posted on by diogenes227

Been on vacation so haven’t been able to keep this blog as timely as I would like.

And besides, being in places where there was not even cell-phone coverage, I see I’ve missed a pretty sprightly rally. That’s the way it goes sometimes.

Anyway, TQQQ, my favorite leveraged ETF, is up 21% on the short-term breadth signal (the NYMO), six trading days ago. That signal triggering from double-bottom territory on the NYMO set the stage for the rest of the signals. Consequently, TQQQ is up 12% on its price signal and 8.3% on the long-term breath signal (the NYSI).

See the charts below — from left to right, short-term breadth, price, long-term breadth.

Since the rally’s start on the open of 6/4, other leveraged ETFs of note were SOXL (semiconductors) up 23.7%, FAS (financials) up 11.6% and FNGU (fang stocks) up 25.8%.

Gains among my be “bellwether stocks” were led by TSLA up 20%, coming from deeply oversold, AAPL up 11%, WYNN up 12.4%, SHOP (newly added to my list) up 14.4%, AMD up 14.5% and even a biggie like MSFT was up 9%.

Did I mention that we’re talking just six trading days, from Tuesday last week to Tuesday today? I guess I did. Six days, needless to say, that is what swing trading is all about.

So what now?

Both short-term breadth and price gave sell signals today with much of the market still wildly overbought. Likely we get a pullback starting tomorrow. Or at least a sideways stall to work off the overbought conditions. Note the big black candle of indecision today on the chart to the right. Below the low of that candle it’s a drop, above the high a resumption of the bounce.

If, by chance, this upswing was just more of the thrust from December to make everyone believe the bearish growl last fall was nothing to listen too, I suppose this rally could drop right out of the sky.

Either way, as long as the long-term breadth (the NYSI) is rising, the path of least resistance is up.

(click on the charts for a larger view)

$SPY Options – Weds 285 call fades into the close Tuesday

Posted on by diogenes227

After peaking at up 20%, the call finished with a .4% gain on the close.

Disappointing for the day trade.

(Click on the chart for a larger view of the tweet)

#MarketTiming – tracks of the bear?

Posted on by diogenes227

Sometimes, as they say, it’s not a stock market, it’s a market of stocks:

(Click on the chart to see the full twitter thread)

(Click on the chart to see the full twitter thread)

(Click on the chart to see the full twitter thread)

(Click on the chart to see the full twitter thread)

(Click on the chart to see the full twitter thread)

(Click on the chart to see the full twitter thread)

$SPY – Friday’s calls at the end of the bounce…

Posted on by diogenes227

Friday’s 285 calls immediately vaulted as high as a 42% gain but wound down for the rest of day, hitting a breakeven stop along the way, and finishing down 52%.

If one studies the day’s bounce from the opening gap down and final reversal at the close (see final chart below), it’s apparent there was not much to do to capture some of the profit on the day before it was all gone on the stop loss. The bearish gap at the open might have given a hint to fast and nimble traders three days was all this bounce would have. Of note, it’s evident how important a stop is to avoid letting a profit turn into an outright loss.

Suspect Friday’s price action is a sign this little three day bounce has reversed and there will be downside next week, but we’ll have to see Monday.

There were no puts to buy on the reversal day since after the early run up SPY never quite fell back through its open.

(click on the chart for the full twitter thread)

(Click on the chart for a larger view)

$SPY – Long Friday calls on bounce day three…

Posted on by diogenes227

The bounce continued Thursday…

(Click on the chart for a view of the final tweet)

(Click on the chart for a view of the initial tweet)

$SPY – Calls on bounce day two

Posted on by diogenes227

The market followed through strongly Wednesday after a “turnaround Tuesday” on the current bounce signal.

(Click on the chart for the full Twitter thread)

#IPOs – no shares to ride for $UBER and $LYFT yet

Posted on by diogenes227

Since BYND, with a big jump, is making noise again today, thought it’d be a good time to take a quick look at recent IPOs still in play as per this criteria:

Buying IPOs For Dummies

See the charts below. Each is set at a $10K investment to show the percentage as well as dollar gain for each stock in the white flag on the lower right of each chart — for example, SWAV is up 99% since its IPO buy, SOLY up 115%, and so on.

UBER and LYFT have not climbed above the hype on each of their first days of trading so they are not long investments. At best, LYFT particularly is a short.

Of note, if APLT holds its gain for today, it will be a buy either at the close today or on tomorrow’s open.

(click on the chart panel for a larger view)

$SPY #Options – Calls on the bounce day…

Posted on by diogenes227

The great trader and “market wizard” Linda Raschke, talking about trading setups, once said “when you see what you’re looking for, jump all over it.”

As outlined in the post yesterday, I was looking for a market bounce, possibly as early as a “turnaround Tuesday,” and voila! The bounce began in the futures overnight and followed through on the open into an upswing for most of the day before selling off into the close (see the tweet and charts below).

The SPY in-the-money 281 call (SPY opened at 281.99), Wednesday’s expiration, netted a final 52% for the day trade, $5200 for each $10K traded.

(click on the chart to see the complete Twitter thread)

The Final chart:

(click on the chart for a larger view)