Pinned Stocks

Crappy weather here all weekend. Never did stop raining. All my fishing gear is ready to go and the Kayak is cleaned and set up as well. Hopefully next weekend I can kick off fishing season.

Pinned Stocks
So things have been beat down for about 6 weeks now. What's next? That is the million dollar question of course, well, slightly less for my account size, LOL.

Right now is actually a good time to look for some long ideas. It is a concept I like to call Pinned Stocks. During a down trend (does not have to be as large as the one we have right now) you can search for stocks that have recently held up well, or have even grabbed a small gain. The key here is to look for heavy buying volume that has come in. If buyers are getting in line to buy shares in company XYZ when things have been tough, they just might go nuts if a broad market bounce occurs. These types of finds are fun because usually you only need play the position for a day or two to capture upside targets.

I am starting homework right now and using the iBankCoin PPT screener it is fairly easy to sort stocks on this type of criteria. I don't know if I will find anything, but I will update later if I do.

Along this line, chessNwine has a few candidates that fit this idea:
Hitting the Pipe Hard
I really like the look of chess pick WES from his chart.

Update:
Ok a rare look into GYSC's mind this Sunday. Here are a few finds chart wise (click any for larger view):

My number one pick, BKH:

Back this chart out to a weekly view and it's even more strong.

Number two, ZGNX, big time bottom here:

Like this one here.

A few assorted ideas:
SNCR:

Looking up.

UVE:

Sellers may be done, and stochastics are looking up.

CNU has a great inverted hammer but want to see some buyers come in:

Interesting.

As always, not investment advice! I do what I do and show you. All of these plays carry risk. There are about a million charting sites better than mine so take a look and see what you think.

Have a good night.

Work Night

I thought the Superbowl was a reasonable game, a pretty fun one. The young Green Bay Packers looked like veterans with how calm they were as the Steelers came back hard in the game. Impressive win and they should be very good for a long time.

Great to see the Volkswagen Darth Vader kid commercial is the big winner so far!

Work Night
It is Monday night and that means I work my moonlighting job as a stock picker. I am off to The PPT and 12631 by iBankCoin to look for ideas for this week. I will update later if I see anything interesting.

Update 1:
Not much coming up on my screens. How can it be hard to find a stock in The Bernank market? Geez.

Update 2:
I am working on a couple ideas, but was way distracted by this blog post:
A Sign You're Getting Old
Well worth a look. I will be 35 NEXT MONTH!!!!!!! Ugh.

Have a good night.

Monday Screening

Storm tomorrow for a bout 6 inches of snow and then a huge storm all day Wednesday for another 15 inches of the white stuff. Just unreal.

Monday Screening
Monday is screening night! I am working in The PPT and the 12631 tonight. Not much looking too interesting, I will update later if I find anything that I am going to trade.

Market is ugly right here and long side bets are harder to find all of a sudden. Figures.

Update:
Not much turning up on my screens. Best looking ideas are HSY, AMRC, and BMY.

Update:
Going in long with HSY and AMRC. Smallish positions.

Have a good night.

Market Currents

Another 10 inches of snow here. This is getting ridiculous. The snowbanks on the sides of the roads are about 6 feet tall. Massachusetts right now is 3 times over the usual snowfall for the period of December-end of January!

Forgot to add, get some requests in for Friday night!

Protect Yourself With Silver
Long time readers know I am a fan of the metals gold and especially silver. I wanted to take a minute and talk to you about a way to protect yourself day in and day out with the silver that you can carry with you without worry of theft. Are you ready for this? Ok, here it is:
Degree Silver Ion Deodorant
YES!!!!!!

Protect yourself with the unique antibacterial effects of free silver ions in this new stick just made for bullion buyers. I bought the arctic edge scent myself (far right of ad above), and it rocks! Not only do you feel you are protected from all things financial catastrophe, but your armpits actually feel like they have some real worth! Instant self confidence booster! With this I wake up in the morning and piss excellence! This stuff sells itself, but I would gladly endorse this product for Degree for a small fee. If I were Degree I would get this stuff on Kitco and Zero Hedge ads pronto!
Disclosure: No position in Degree, physical position in silver.

Difference of Opinion
I have to say up front I may be a 34 year old guy going on 65 when I am inundated with all the "this will change the world" type talk about various things. I just don't get it, or maybe I just don't use the stuff so it makes little impression on me. Herding behavior for the "next hot thing" is tangible it seems so there is always that. Take Facebook, a site where you can post pictures and talk to people in real time. Wow, blows me away. Nothing like it ever, just amazing. Think of the possibilities of such an application. Mindblowing indeud.

Another is the Groupon lovefest. Group buying coupons to generate sales. Ok, makes some sense. Network, get a deal, all are happy.

Leigh Drogen, one of the sharpest and dialed in to new trends guys I read, is a strong supporter of this business model (not just Groupon in particular) and he opines:

They’re all coming out of the woodwork now. From Priceline, to Travelzoo, OpenTable, and now even Facebook, the group buying revolution is on like donkeykong. Everyone wants a piece, and they will all get one. The list of Groupon clones is long and distinguished, there is even an aggregator of all these daily e-mails, Yipit.

Some of you luddites may confuse this for a fad.

This is a revolution in the way local businesses advertise and people consume. The buzz phrase is collaborative consumption, get used to hearing it. This is the underlying reason that this business model works. Sure, it’s nice to get served a discount to a nice restaurant, but this is so much more. I forward these things to my friends during the work day, we have an e-mail chain, and then we pick one and eat dinner together. It’s about social, it’s about doing things together, it’s about connecting people.

The valuations for these companies are sky high, as they should be. This is a new industry, one where many of these companies are cash flow positive from an extremely early age, have little overhead, and a huge chance to grow. No one has any clue in the world how big this industry is going to be, you can’t model it, impossible. What does all this add up to? High valuation multiples and huge price momentum.

Sounds good!
I thought Facebook connected us, but whatever. This does too, and with sales! In the comments I offered:

I will be up front, I do not get this kind of stuff but that does not mean it will not be huge. Thanks for the big picture look.
On a macro level, aren't these sites very deflationary? How does this impact bottom lines going forward? While Groupon may go sky high, by definition of the service they offer sellers will be pressed on pricing, no?

What makes a good blogger in my mind is interaction, connectedness with the readers and Mr. Drogen responded very quickly which I appreciate:

No, not deflationary. Think of the discount in terms of the cost of
customer acquisition. The businesses that should be using Groupon and the
like are the ones that want to acquire loyal customers for repeat business.
This is a way to get them in the door and hooked on your product or
service. It's all a customer acquisition play for the small business owner.

Fair enough.
Not wanting to take up anymore time over there I thought about this tonight for a post here.

I still do not get it. As a customer grabbing idea it makes sense, but then what? If your business has a clone (and almost all do), they will offer coupon buys too. On any given day someone will be, what happens to you?

Add to this the nature of such a thing. Once you get something 20, 30, or 40% off you are not going to pay full price unless they drag you kicking and screaming. Best Buy did this a long while ago and buried the competition on price. Now they cannot raise prices! I think this is long term deflationary, but not in anything useful as usual. As always it is important to keep in mind one's own bias; I don't use this stuff at all and fail to see the utility. Others use this type of stuff and think everyone in the world will too by next week. If I had to bet, I am probably wrong!
Added:
My friend Mark from the now often stolen phrase of "Illusion of Prosperity" offered this anecdote when I asked his take:

I am 100% entirely in your camp! Of course it is deflationary.
I can even off you some proof if you wish to share it.
My girlfriend signed me up for LivingSocial. Ack. I gave her a really hard time about it. She even used my personal email address! Now I get spammed with daily offers.
However, they recently offered me a $20 Amazon.com gift card for just $10. No joke!
How much more deflationary can it get? Spend $10 to get $20? And what exactly is in it for Amazon.com? Do they need to get the word out? Has nobody heard of Amazon.com yet? Good grief!

Thanks Mark!

Market Currents
A market going up forgives all ills and this one has for some time. Over the past couple of weeks there have been some misses on earnings and Amazon (AMZN) missed by a bit tonight. It was the snow that hurt the biggest ONLINE store, but whatever. We will leave all that aside for now and we should.

Tim Knight had a video recap up tonight and the intro really jumped out at me. He said (paraphrasing!) that IF the markets went down 10% there would howls and cries for the government to do something about it. I have to agree 100% with Tim. This is where we are now. The recovery is real remember.

How pervasive has this perpetual motion move up been? Amazing really. I am hoping very much for tomorrow to be flat to slightly down and more of that on Monday. Why? Because that would mean the market is oversold by the new normal standards. What good would that be? BTFD! Check this out.

Using the screen I set up looking for oversold (loose term) stocks that have some other parameters I look for, here are the returns over the past month IF I had bought when I screened them and held them to today. There were more that I screened out on other factors:
Screen on 1/7/11 and hold until 1/27/11
NFLX +18%
EW +8%
Screen on 1/24/11 and hold until 1/27/11
FICO +10%
TRCR +2%
ABCO +4%
AFSI +4%
PBTH +2%
Scary, yes? I am not cherry picking. These names I had in my trading notebook (yes, I write stuff down!) I posted most of them the 24th. The few losers were selected against by other criteria, namely sometimes a stock is oversold because it is going to zero (FLML).

So if we are flat or ever so slightly down for a couple days I am running this screen and doing some buying!

Going Long Rock Salt
First is was the GDP of the UK going negative. Then it was weak Amazon numbers, an online retailer. Then it was Monster.com, an online job search tool. The culprit in all cases? Snow! Bad weather is the murderer of growth dreams and the grim reaper of bottom line growth. Who knew?

Thanks to a poster over at the 12631 (gappingandyapping), we can all go long rock salt (via CMP):

You can use this as a hedge should online streaming media firms report misses due to snow slowing down the Internets. Wow, nice breakout.

Have a good night.

Homework Night

It was negative two degrees here this morning (-2)! That's all I have to say.

Homework Night
Seeing that I did no work all weekend I am going to do some screening tonight and look for some new trading ideas. I will be using the iBankCoin PPT as well as their secondary offering the 12631. I will update later if I come across something I am putting to work.

For a couple of great philosophical missives here are two I really liked this wee:

Jesse opines on rampant fraud and corruption in things economic.

Ilargi talks about unemployment and another FED trick to hide losses for all time.

Update
I sold EW tonight for a 6% gain. I still like the chart but this company seems hell bent on buying something soon so I will sidestep that drop for now.

Update again
Screening for two hours now. Not much standing out to me. Going to review TRCR, ABCO, and PBTH. I like TRCR the most but no hurry as the setup may take a bit.

TRCR, do you see what I see?:


Have a good night.

Wall of Worry or Maginot Line?

The streets of Cambridge Massachusetts are impossible to plow after snow due to the severe uneven surface. The drive into work for the last 15 minutes was a teeth smashing bumpy ride. Still, who can be upset with a monster NFL playoff weekend on tap and some good luck in the markets?

Rolling Up Stops
Here is my trading update for this week:

NFLX: UP 7.6%
EW: UP 4%

I was looking for moves of about 10% so I am a bit short after about a week. Still, both charts look good (more so EW for more break out) so I am not dumping right this second. What I am doing is rolling up tight stops. This may get my shares triggered to a sale with any medium sized market move, but I am looking to do two things:
-Start off my PPT experience on a nice note after using their hybrid scores and a screen I made to find these stock setups
-Maybe move along to some other ideas I have in my bag of tricks that I want to try out, but I do not want to manage too many positions all at once

We will see where things go (remember markets are closed this Monday for MLK day) but in any case I am very pleased with the setups and results of these trades. Thanks ChessNwine!

News of the Weird
A couple of items caught my eye today.

You know my monster fear of robots (and grizzly bears) and here is more:
The Terminator Scenario: Are We Giving Our Military Machines Too Much Power?
I am going to say......YES!!!!!! Great article at the link so check it out.

Ok, has the gold price made gold mining UNDER THE OCEAN a winning idea?:

Offshore Gold Rush: AngloGold, De Beers hunt gold under Atlantic
NEW YORK (CommodityOnline): It is perhaps the biggest global gold hunt under the waters. AngloGold Ashanti (ANG SJ) and De Beers (DBRSY), two of the world’s largest metals and minerals mining companies, are searching for gold deposits under the Atlantic sea.
The companies that formed a joint venture to hunt for gold and other minerals under the sea have officially launched the project to find gold deposits off South Africa’s west coast, to begin with.

Wow.
Maybe this is a way my beloved OMEX can get a new lease on life as every treasure they find gets blocked by some country looking to get cash for stuff lost at the bottom of the ocean for 100 years, and yes I am looking at you Spain!
Disclosure: Still own a very small position in OMEX which just got back to my buy price.

Memory Lane
As I cannot come up with my own ideas, I am ripping off my man Jeff at The Housing Time Bomb with a stroll down memory lane. Way back when I stated blogging here is what I wrote on October 31st, 2007, and yes I have been doing this a LONG time:

....That's a collection of some of the better chatter going on today. I fully admit that I can offer nothing on these matters. I could dig out data, charts, a Ouija board and still not get through to anyone that can buy the crap listed above. The totally absurd things I saw and read today have convinced me of two things:
-There will be NO downward movement is stocks in the next calendar year
-The housing bust will be bailed out on the banking end, but through blind instruments and FED shenanigans. Do not get me wrong, home prices are going to continue to fall, foreclosures are going to go parabolic, and the home buying industry will be crushed. Just do not expect to see any macro fallout involving banks or major brokerage firms. They will be well cared for. In time the housing problems will not even get a headline, as its only 5% of the economy anyway!

Wow!
I was right about banks getting the helping hand but I never thought the overall stock market would get whacked so hard! Of course at the time I had so much less understanding of theses things. Still, chilling call on the banks and housing, yes?

Wall of Worry or Maginot Line?
I have to admit I am more of a "bear" than a bull and more of an analytical thinker than a blind momentum type mover. This will always keep me away from "once in a generation" moves in the markets as well as color my vision to "vastly improved data" in regards to many things. It also means I do not lose money. To each his/her own.

As such, I wanted to offer an analogy for today's climate. I submit The Maginot Line:

The French established the fortification to provide time for their army to mobilize in the event of attack, allowing French forces to move into Belgium for a decisive confrontation with German forces. The success of static, defensive combat in World War I was a key influence on French thinking. The fortification system successfully dissuaded a direct attack. However, it was strategically ineffective, as the Germans did indeed invade Belgium, defeated the French army, flanked the Maginot Line, and proceeded relatively unobstructed.

In plain terms, the Germans drove around it. General Patton once said "Fixed fortifications are monuments to the stupidity of man". Indeud.

I think a major reason why I do not write so much anymore (besides a break I really needed for personal reasons) is that there is no more talking to people. I read "stocks climb a wall of worry" but that is not accurate in any way, shape, or form. The FED, assisted by other central banks in great condition like Japan's, have plotted a course around the wall of worry, the Maginot Line of worry if you will. No frontal assault or climb has been attempted, the markets just drove around it. To compare previous metrics to now and say "see things are all right" is disingenuous at best and insulting to anyone with half a brain.

In the end things are what they are. In an severe uptrending market, mistakes and miscues are easily wiped away. This was the plan.

As of late things are getting a bit strained. More and more days close actually down! Market out performers still work, but take a look a the dregs of those sectors and they are no longer following along around the wall of worry.

Have a good night.