Portfolio of the Week

[B.J]

I Made 20 Bucks!!!

Wooooohoooooo!!!!

[IIC]

Nice Job Spike...Me, well I was mildly surprised that 1966 did not hold...I had my first losing week in my short term account since February...but damage was minimal...I have been trading long on the theory that no matter what the market does...some groups are always moving. The reason is that I always felt that market direction was "King"...but this year it is so BLAH...so I was looking for something else...So far...So Good.

BTW: Anyone think the Naz Comp. was an "Island Bottom" today?

[B.J]

BTW: Anyone think the Naz Comp. was an "Island Bottom" today?

I hear what you're saying, but we need at least one more day to determine that, right?

I look at it like this: When pessimism runs rampant, that's where the bottom occurs. That's a proven fact. However, this site has a lot of rather intelligent traders (i.e. "smart money"), who are typically ahead of the curve. Heck, Spike had on the bull horns until today.

I just have to wonder, if the collective realization of the "smart money" is just now bearish, then how much is the rest of the investment community lagging? Is there a downside? Painful as it seems, we're talking about only 15% for the Naz, and about 10% or less for the Dow, and two S&P's.

I think this correction may have a ways to go. According to your thread, we're just about out of support points (1898 being the end of it). Best case I believe is a turnaround Monday, then a gap up Tuesday. That would form the island, but I'm not betting on it.

[drutzen]

Nice job Spike,

I think we still have a lot of optimism out there also, one item that makes me think this way is that whenever we have a bit of down times, I hear so many talking about this is only a trading range, we will have a nice bounce back, this is just a soft patch, this is only a correction and a mild one at that.

This doesn't seem like pessimism until there are more looking for further declines rather than a bottom or correction.

But with healthcare, utilities, and reits being the only etf's that were up, it seems as though we have a few more weeks of rotation. Big money can't rotate in one week.

I've got to join Spike on the short side this week.

[RL]

Great going Spike. How did you choose these stocks? I am unable to make any decent dart throws In a month. So I entered my holdings and you saw what happened to them. So now I must start all over again. Still hanging on to Blud but not sure I know why?

[skiracer]

We're going to need at least one more day, Monday, to determine whether it's going to be an island bottom or not an then that would actually be a trailing indicatior, but I don't think that it matters if it is an island bottom or not right now. The fact of the matter is that both the DOW, NASDAQ, and the S&P 500 have all dropped a considerable amount over the last 2/3 weeks. I've been saying this for awhile now that it's a subtle thing when they start trending down like this. One step forward, to give a little hope, and then the big money sells off into any strength the next day or two to take a bigger step backward
than the up day. The next thing you know their down over a hundred on the NAZ an over 700 on the DOW. Look at both charts and they look like ski slopes, especially the DOW. When you lose that big of a percentage there has to be something in the wind. Definitely big money unwinding positions in anticipation of the economy turning for the worse. God knows there are alot of fundamental factors wrong with ours and the worlds economy but drops like this are strong signals that this is the way that the wind is blowing.
Trying to guess or make some determination as to what is going to take place tomorrow or next week isn't going to work and taking any positions on the hope that we may have found a bottom is only going to get you in more trouble. I think we can only wait it out to see how it developes over the course of the next few days or week or so.
In the meantime it's a good time to get a list of the current and past leaders and strong issues that have gotten beaten down by this recent drop. They will be the leaders again when whatever is going on reverses and turns back up. Actually it's a good thing that this cycle happens like this because it provides a great buying opportunity to get into a number of good stocks at a much cheaper price. The only requirement is that you must exercise caution an emotional control over your trading until we get a clear signal to jump back in on the long side. In the meantime as long as it continues to trend down there are going to be shorting opportunities setting up but at this point in time it's getting alittle late for that also. So it's a volitaile limboish, just coined that word, time
that we're in. Best to exercise extreme control over your need for the action.

[spikefader]

Thanks all for the congrats

IIC: Nope, I don't think it's an island bottom today on Naz. Not a single day island bottom anyway.... the market has some serious work to do. $VIX P&F Pattern just had a quadruple top breakout yesterday, with a projected target of 31.50. Usually, increasing volatility is accompanied by selling. So just say VIX goes on a fast tear to 31.50 in the following weeks, then the market is going to get hammered. Just look at the last time VIX went on a bullish tear; May, June, July of 02. We all remember how fast price fell then. Is history going to repeat? Lord knows of course. Right now, it is a very logical possibility. But maybe VIX is just going to spike and reverse, one may argue. OK, great, yes, that's also a logical possibility. We cannot possibly know what's going to happen; we can just plan for it. If your retirement is long the market right now I think it's foolish. There are times to seek shelter from an looming storm, times to put investments into safe harbors; now is one such time. Don't wait for an 'uppy', don't wait and see what happens, don't try to get cute with it. There are times to be bullish; now is not one of them. My humble opinion of course My current bias is bear, and I think we are in for a lot more down, possibly weeks of it. The question is just how volatile it will be.
VIX chart here

Drutzen: Credit to ya for picking an absolutely monster this week with GGR. I'm sure if you had the option you would have locked in profits on that one. That's the difficulty of this competition. One must be pick stocks that will end the week strong, not just Monday and Tuesday! You've got to be right for the whole week. I wonder if we'll ever want to change that; where people can elect to take profits during the week. That would make it a lot more work but probably more real. Luck has a lot to do with our competition, which may be a good thing of course

RL: I picked 'em using channels!!
TZOO: weekly channel long failure a while back; daily channel failure earlier this year; and a recent channel turn down that I chased.
SGTL: daily channel long failure in late March from 30.20 low; followed by a channel short on April 7.
SNRR: I think it was yaoyao that brought this one to my attention and channels set up bearish for that one too; then channel turn down April 8 - but silly stock bulled up when it set me up for a short
RATE: I've been watching this one on and off for a while; weekly channel short a couple weeks ago, then daily channel short late March and channel turn down the week before the competition.
WLK: recent daily channel long failure, and also a lower channel tag with price continuing to slip after it. It looked real slippery channel-wise, and I chased the bearish continuation.
They all looked really weak despite my bullish perspective last week, so I took 'em betting they'd fall well on any weak market days. Turned out my bias was completely wrong this week, and they fell very nicely during a weak market.
(BLUD careful on the long side with that one - it's looking bearish triple toppish to me; channel turn down is about to happen and that may nail it)

Best to all and good luck next week.

[IIC]

I guess I didn't really understand what an Island Bottom was...never paid attention to it before...Just came to mind when I looked at the Naz Chart.

Here is a Stockcharts code to see some examples:

[type = stock] and [daily sma(20,daily volume) > 1000] and [2 days ago close < 2 days ago ema(10,close)] and [yesterday's high < 2 days ago low * 0.975] and [yesterday's low != yesterday's high] and [today's low > yesterday's high * 1.025]

[skiracer]

Spike,
Congratulations on the resounding win. I agree with you on your premise of being able to move in an out of positions to take some profit out during the week. It would take alot more work on someone's part to run it under those guidlines but would be like operating under more real conditions. It's still alot of fun the way it is now though and much better than nothing at all.

[RL]

Thanks much Spike for the warning on Blud. I'm out first thing Mon, been geting uneasy with It any way.

[billyjoe]

RL,
I owned BLUD a couple years ago, never timed it right and didn't make any $ , but somebody did after I sold. Always have problems with any medical related stocks. I think CMN is the only one that really was profitable for me. Glad I got out at 15%. Your darts are overdue for some good hits and when it happens it's good news for us all.

billyjoe

[RL]

Lets give It a go. At least this will not lose me any money and adds some fun to this thing called Investing.

Prz

APPX

ATK

HANS

[IIC]

I'll put all my $$$ on CNTY and TIMHY

[coachgbw]

congrats to spike nice calling

this week's winner's are the following:

hurc
endp
redi
cryp
and i'm shorting bebe

good luck to all

[skiracer]

CMTL - I might actually buy this stock this week.
HTRN - under heavy institutional accumulation - looking to re-enter this week