Taking Profits, Cutting Losses

No, I still hate Mondays.

New England Patriots in Rematch with New York Giants
The New York football Giants beat a very good San Francisco team that made two major fumble errors in the game. The New England Patriots overcame numerous mistakes as the Baltimore Ravens missed a game tying field goal at the end of regulation.

And now it's the big Superbowl rematch. Just unreal.

Taking Profits, Cutting Losses
Last Tuesday I bought some stocks after screening and things were looking good overall coming into Monday. I closed all four positions today for various reasons. Two will highlight in tonight's blog. The other two were INTU (+1.2%) and ANSS (+4%). Nothing wrong with either name and I will revisit INTU for long term account, just grabbing some profits.

I had high hopes for the position in NXTM. Friday the stock was hit and this morning it started off ugly and went down fast from there. Having stops in place is always important and I was stopped out fast at around $18 for a -1.1% loss on the trade. It got worse from there with a big drop all day long. The move down retraced most of the good move up I was seeing. While it has not violated the hammer print on 1/12/12 there are many names moving well now and I saw no reason to hang around on this one:

Know your exits.

My last trade was CRESY and this one really worked out well. Traded to plan and expectations. Have to love when that happens!:

Breaking out of the triangle I had a target of $13 on this name and it overshot that a bit this morning. I closed the trade out for +10.5%.

Overall, markets needed a break today and I may stay in cash until I see what Boom Boom Bernanke has to say on Wednesday. There is also AAPL earnings tomorrow that can really affect things. Overall 2012 has been way more constructive than the last months of 2011.

Have a good night.

Tuesday Charts

I had a LONG day at work and got home a bit late because it was, wait for it, raining ever so slightly! As such a little pressed for time so just a few thoughts and some charts.

Market Observations
I had plans to open up some longs today. I saw the huge gap up and figured I would wait until around lunch to see how the market was going. I was doing tons of work anyways. Overall markets weakened as the day went on almost closing out the entire gap up open.

Things have gotten a little extended here and a pullback would be very welcome to firm up some support in the SPX 1280-1295 range. I will post charts of some names I am looking at below, but again single stocks acted better than the indices today and that is an important market dynamic change. Should even a near term top be formed, as long as the names I am looking at are moving, who cares?

It's a very heavy earnings week and the banks have been terrible so far. Should that carry over and infect markets on any other poor reports in other sectors things could get more dangerous. I think keeping an eye on the better moving stocks will alert you to that being the case.

Charts
Here are the names I had worked on in the 12631 Trading Room Sunday night and I posted them at that time. Most looking good here (a couple really moved already, dang it!) but I did not like today's candle on TTEK and will have to review that idea going forward. Click any chart for larger view.

NXTM:

ANSS:

MWIV:

CRESY:

INTU:

Still looking at these stocks and will see what the week brings.

Have a good night.