ParkTwain's Parlor

[peanuts]

ParkTwain

I sure could go for some ParkTwain wisdom this Friday. What are the best stocks for next week's market?

HRZ - now that's an ATH breakout

But I didn't buy it! I'm sitting here watching OPSW go sideways for another day. PATIENCE!

Haven't seen anyone commenting on HRZ so I had to say something. I didn't bite on it because its RSI was right at 70 (I prefer it to be more like 65) as it reached its ATH pivot of about 16.50. I didn't quite assess this one right, but there you go. 15% gain in 10 days..

[skiracer]

Here is the page that ranks the performance of his patterns:

http://mysite.verizon.net/resppzq7/id75.html

Followthrough breakout beyond a flag (high and tight variation) gives the best return, based on his research.

Same site Park that give the chart pattern and the definitions and percentages of success or failure for each pattern. I like your for ranking which ones work out the best. Good info.

http://mysite.verizon.net/resppzq7/chartpatterns.html

Bulkowski's chart patterns resource

Here is the page that ranks the performance of his patterns:

http://mysite.verizon.net/resppzq7/id75.html

Followthrough breakout beyond a flag (high and tight variation) gives the best return, based on his research.

Swapped out SIMO, ESCH for OPSW

Captured the last 1.5% of today's 4.5% move. Already had OPSW on my watch list. Of course after I sold SIMO this morning, it made its move. But that's the way the IRA crumbles. I've seen this happen so many times since the summer.

SIMO and ESCH still have some life in them, but they've been slumbering this week. Not the relative strength I expected.

List of trader's blogs

Look, you can trade, or read lots of blogs about other people's trades:

http://www.movethemarkets.com/blog/blogs-i-read/

Re: IMH, it is up or unchanged for the last 13 sessions straight. The divy was icing on the cake.

I had also been watching MMM, which did perk up and closed Thurs and Friday over 75.00. It is entering a gap (early July 2006) that reaches to 81.

[peanuts]

On Friday, I exchanged my pre-ex-dividend IMH position for one in THI, which Thursday began rebounding out of its climax bottom on the heels of the final distribution of THI spin-off shares to WEN shareholders.

I also picked up ESCH and SIMO as anticipated breakout followthroughs. Still holding my position in DDD. It got very frisky to the upside at end of session on Friday.

While looking at the dismal YTD performance of my trading portfolio, I noticed the tremendous YTD performance of the Broker/Dealer index. ( http://tinyurl.com/lbjpj ) Looking at the members of the index (see the "components" link on the left side of that Yahoo page linked above), notice that several are imminent all-time high breakout candidates. In particular, I'm interested in BSC's prospects. Since April 2006 it's made a broad sideways channel, after previously being a tremendous gainer year after year.

SIMO is on my watchlist this week. Great stock! Thanks

On Friday, I exchanged my pre-ex-dividend IMH position for one in THI, which Thursday began rebounding out of its climax bottom on the heels of the final distribution of THI spin-off shares to WEN shareholders.

I also picked up ESCH and SIMO as anticipated breakout followthroughs. Still holding my position in DDD. It got very frisky to the upside at end of session on Friday.

While looking at the dismal YTD performance of my trading portfolio, I noticed the tremendous YTD performance of the Broker/Dealer index. ( http://tinyurl.com/lbjpj ) Looking at the members of the index (see the "components" link on the left side of that Yahoo page linked above), notice that several are imminent all-time high breakout candidates. In particular, I'm interested in BSC's prospects. Since April 2006 it's made a broad sideways channel, after previously being a tremendous gainer year after year.

Speaking of which, anyone notice the perfect-looking all-time high breakout of MER last week? I would have bitten if the runup to the pivot had taken place with an RSI of under 70.

[Websman]

There are actually a couple of AIRLINES on these lists!

Hopefully oil prices will stay down and help airlines to recover...

70 puts and 10 short positions - Watch TraderTim's blog

This is the guy behind the Prophet.net web site:

http://tradertim.blogspot.com/

//
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
The bottom line for me is this - I've got over 80 positions, about 70 puts and 10 shorts, in all kinds of different industries. And my portfolio value went up today. That's why I'm looking this bull straight in the face and laughing at it. Savor the moment, pal. You're about to get wasted.
//

THEN he rode through a 3-digit-gain day in the Dow... OUCH!

//
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
Well, look. Today hurt. It hurt bad. I got blasted out of a bunch of positions. And I notice the comments board has gone bananas. I don't even want to set foot into that place. It's probably like a bar fight by now.

But this is something to keep in mind - - I can deal with getting blown out of positions. But I don't hang on. That's why I say, over and over - always have a stop in place. Always! Take PNRA, for instance. I bought puts on it. Some people said I was wrong to do so. Turns out they were right. That's fine. I can deal with the loss. But if I had just hung on (past the circled point, where I got pushed out of the position), now that would be stupid.

As enamored as I've been with OIH shorts, I closed out my energy shorts today, including OIH. I think the selling in energy and gold is really overdone. There are hammer patterns all over the place today!

So I'm going to blow away my reputation as a permabear by offering what I think are interesting stocks to consider buying (yes, buying) or buying calls on (that's right - I said calls). I still have lots of put positions, and plenty of shorts. But there's no denying the force of buying at this point. ...
//

Uptrending stocks and ~20% retracement phenomenon

From looking at many, many 52-wk charts of strong to very strong uptrending stocks (esp. those making a new 52-wk high), I have noticed that a good number of them hit a point of having a significant retracement of around 20% at some point during the overall uptrend. I am now watching for this and making note of the behavior of the pps in the weeks or months just after this has happened. I want to see whether I can identify the technical characteristics of these charts for those stocks that continue to show a sustained pps increase after this kind of retracement. That is, is there a tell re: any volume pattern, the quickness of the rebound from the retracement, the time spent near the low point of the retracement, etc.

A few tasty setups from this week's action

From this "A" list, I think I will go for ESCH and SIMO first. ELRC is also intriguing:

ACAS, ALL
BAMM
CACC, CSE
DLLR, DTV
ELRC, ESCH
HRZ
KMB
MDV, MFB
OPSW
RNR, RYAAY
SIMO
TCHC

AND ... I have a "B" list as well:

BDX
CMP, CVP
DECK, DKS, DRI, DRIV
FDS, FISV
MEH
NHP
PG
SRE, SSS, SUAI
TPX, TWGP
UAG
WSC

There are actually a couple of AIRLINES on these lists!

Couple of ideas to consider

I'm behind in doing my normal research for all-time high breakouts, but lately I have a couple of other ideas going. I'm watching Tim Horton's (THI), the recent spinoff from Wendy's, which is about to bottom, I suspect. Wendy's just Friday completed distribution to shareholders of the remaining common shares it had owned. THI should prove to be a significant gainer from that bottom for the subsequent 9 to 24 months, pick your holding period.

I'm also watching for MMM to show signs of a turnaround so that it starts to participate in the Dow record-making fireworks. Playing a spinoff angle like THI has been well documented by Joel Greenblatt (see my recommendation of his "You Can Be a Stock Market Genius"). Today while poking around some links to pages about Greenblatt (such as this one: http://www.gurufocus.com/news.php?id=807 ), I noticed that MMM is a "guru pick" among at least a couple of "deep value" fund managers.

As a final idea, I picked up some IMH last week in anticipation of its going ex-dividend tomorrow (10/4). I had gone through the imminent divvy list found at the Birinyi Assoc blog that I posted a few days ago. I looked at the charts and technicals for those with a 10+% annual-basis divvy and going ex this week and decided to pull the trigger on IMH. Since then it's been acting pretty good, so I'm getting some appreciation with my dividend. With only 3 months left in the CY, I'm thinking more of getting those little easy chip shots where I can find 'em to pad my YTD trading portfolio return.

Well, I guess you would agree that this book is not intended for beginners in the stock market.

Yes, I can agree with that.
Since the author goes into great depth about company reports etc reading the book can be a daunting task for the novice