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.

Options Expired Today, but Friday is an Easy Roll

It's Friday! It's NFL Championship Sunday! It's overwhelming to say the least.

Market Observations
I stayed long into the weekend, probably not the best idea ever. I recapped my stocks on Twitter so if you are not on there, you missed it.

One I want to point out has two MAJOR drawbacks so lets start there with CRESY:
-It's a smaller name at $650 million market cap and average daily volume runs at 150k shares a day.
-It's Argentinian, and I hate buying non-US stocks.
With those in mind it was strong look on an iBC screen I use and it has been bought very heavy in the later parts of the day. Volume was heavy today and a while back 3 million shares were bought up. Interesting:

Enough work!

Friday Night Entertainment
Another weekend is upon us.

Cowboy Record
I came across this great post over at Ptak Science Books which showed a record of an old era Cowboy and his experiences. It was a nice read, but a picture included just jumped out at me. I am assuming this is in New York and a Texas Cowboy is shown the huge city way long ago:

I was shocked how huge NYC was when I went and I am well aware of such things. How did this cowboy feel?

Fun with Images
The eyes see all. No kidding!

"Let me take you on a scenic cruise":

see more Very Demotivational

AWWW!:

see more Lolcats and funny pictures, and check out our Socially Awkward Penguin lolz!
Love the kitties!

Sports Clips
In honor of the huge football weekend I am running sports clips instead of film clips.

My man Robert Sinn (See his great blog here) was looking for an early Mike Tyson fight. The one that sprang to mind was Tyson vs Jesse Ferguson. In Troy, New York 1986 a young Tyson got a real test and answered big time in the 5th round, shattering Ferguson's nose and ending the fight (Ferguson would be DQ'd in 6th for holding). Skip to the 5:35 mark of this clip for the huge punches that finished it:

Body shot then uppercut with the right!

From last year, Kevin Harvick wins California and beat Johnson to do it. We were way short of title, but this was sweet:

NICE!

I love my Saints, but the 49ers, via Vernon Davis, were amazing in last weeks game. Catch all the angles in this video:

Hate it, but I do respect it.

Rock Blogging
Pump up the volume.

My good friend Jennifer Hillier has just moved in to a new place and is getting settled. After a huge move, its great to be in your own space. Let's go with Staind and "It's Been a While":


A great information source is on Twitter, @Arctic Gambino and he was looking for some White Stripes "7 Nation Army":

Like it.

Fellow 12631 member and twitter follow, @azulgrana_ wants Iron Maiden's classic "Run to the Hills" but I say only live:


Excellent request by Mr. Hebron (The Basis Point) and mad props for getting a StockTwits job! Ted Nugent and "Stranglehold":

Yes, thats sweet.

Two left.

HoobaStank and "The Reason":

For you.

Last call!

This song, if you give it a chance, can mean trading or writing or anything that you work hard for. Kenny Rogers with "She Believes in Me":


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.