Skiracer's stock slopes

[skiracer]

Just thought I would post this chart on HTRN as I feel it is a good opportunity and setup for some appreciable gains over the next week or so. You'll have to make your own assumptions about what to do with it.
Check out the A/D and OBV lines.

[mrmarket]

Skiracer, this is such a good thread that I've asked Karel to make it a permanent staple on here..get ready for "Skiracer's stock slopes"

[Karel]

Done, as per $$$Mr.Market$$$'s suggestion. Skiracer, feel free to suggest a better title, alliterations preferred!

Regards,

Karel

[ninner]

yes this is a good thread....everyone can learn alot from skiracer!!

[skiracer]

If I can continue to just be myself and rant as I have been over the last few weeks then I'll just continue along the same path.
The name you've selected for the thread suits me fine. I just hope it's not going to be indicative of the way my trades turn out. I appreciate the thought of your doing this an I will try my best to keep it coming in the same fashion. Thanks.

[mrmarket]

skiracer...slopes go up. They do in this forum, anyway. Keep it coming.

[RL]

Ninner

Glad to see you hope you will contribute to this site rather than bad mouthing It like the other day. On the IBD site I go by HITMLONG and had Invited Steve to take a look at us felt he would be great to have on board, but you and others began to shoot this site down. If nothing good to say say nothing.
Hope you will continue to post here and bring us winners GOOD LUCK.

[skiracer]

It seems of late that as much as I love trading and searching for stock setups when Friday comes I'm happy that the week is over. I don't know about the rest of you but I spend alot of time at this and then watching the screens most of the day becomes somewhat tiring. By the end of the week, even on up weeks, I need a rest from it. I guess I'm saying that I'm glad the markets are closed today an am looking forward to a long holiday weekend.

I had a decent week. Got stopped out of KOMG on Monday for about a .75 gain. Any gain is better that a loss in my book even when it isn't what you expected from the trade. HTRN is doing exactly what I expected it to do and doing it in a basically volitaile and crappy market. Have to be happy with the trade. Up .96 from my entry of 10.80.

Yesterday I was looking for a bounce of some sort from a pretty good oversold condition. So was everyone else an it looked good early on but the market stayed rangebound for the most part and into the close lost any steam it had going for itself. I call it the weekend bailout. Almost every swing and short term momo player takes what they have on the table an goes home for the weekend. With things the way they are throughout the world you never know what you're going to come back to on Monday. That's one reason why I very seldom take any new positions on Fridays.

Anyway here's a chart on the SPY and some thoughts about it to contemplate for over the long weekend. I think that next week is going to be a decent week with a decent bounce but not anywhere near a rally of sorts. Have a great and safe weekend over the Easter holiday everyone. Next week I'll have a couple of new picks that I've been watching which I'll post here on Sunday night. Trade what you see and not what you think.

[skiracer]

Aside from the one position I am now holding in HTRN, there are several stocks that I have on my primary watchlist. These are the ones which I like enough to take a position in if they hit my target entry prices.
I've included a chart on each one an a basic explanation of my feelings. The SOX and SMH both showed some strength at the end of the week on Thursday. My feelings are that we will get a bounce this week and that the tech sector will rebound somewhat and lead that bounce. Of course never make the trade until the confirmation of the move on the chart has taken place, never on what you think is going to happen because usually it never happens. That's why a plan, targetted entry and exit prices, are so important, especially if your going to do this on a swing trade type of strategy.

There are 7 of them on my list. Five are in the tech sector and two in the consumer staples sector although Avon Products could be placed in the cosmetics sector. Except for AVON all are long side trades with AVON being on the short side. In order of preference they are:
1. KOMG
2. ADBE
3. JBL
4. JCOM
5. NTAP
6. YUM
7. AVP

[skiracer]

I have to apoligize for the way I've written over the charts in my last post. Most of them aren't quite legible. I'm still experimenting with the whole process although I am making progress with it.

I've noticed that there isn't any thread or posting on anyone trading ETF's, holders, or iShares. It's something that I have had a good deal of success with over the last couple of years. The sector ETF's are great in that they allow you to play an entire sector or the basket of stocks that make up that sector as a whole instead of individual stocks in that sector or both.

Here's a portion of a weekly report I get for free from an outfit called Morpheus Trading Group. They run a hedge fund and aside from stocks trade ETF's regularly. It's a great way to open and widen your trading activities across a much broader scope. There are ETF's for sectors, countries, commodities etc. so it's a pretty varied and large area to trade within. Here's the portion of the article. It ties in with what my feelings are on what's going on with the tech sector (SOX & SMH).

[Runner]

A few that I keep on eye on BBH HHH OIH PPH RTH SMH SWH
I’m thinking short-term bounce may be setting up in retail (RTH). I’m also keeping my eye on semi’s (SMH)

[skiracer]

I started trading them a couple of years ago. I find them much easier to catch trends with than regular stocks an I'm usually always in one or two of them depending on which sectors are strong at the time. They are much easier to figure in my opinion. I'm watching SMH very closely right now an think that it is cheap and ready to bounce along with the tech sector this coming week.

That's another reason I subscribe to Stockchart's John Murphy's message alerts. He always is on top of which sectors are strengthening and weakening and the rotation in an out of them as the market cycles. As an example, I found it much easier to trade the OIH as energy strengthened rather than to try and catch individual energy stocks. I still would catch individual setups in energy related stocks but the sector ETF's are easier overall in my opinion. It's strange that they aren't used by that many smaller retail investors when they are as easy to track as they are. The more common market tracking ones, QQQQ, DIA, SPY are traded pretty heavily but I find that I don't use them as much as the individual sectors themselves. Good to see you use them.

[Runner]

RTH (retail) gave an expected bounce GPS HD WMT
SWH showing a little power in the afternoon

[Runner]

I’m watching some of these ETF’s to determine money flow and then tier 1 stocks for trading. I’ll keep these until the end of April.

This will be my huge list:
SMH (Semi’s)
RTN (Retail)
SWH (Software)
PPH (Pharmaceutical)
BBH (Biotech)
OIH (Oil)
HHH (Internet)

Stocks:
KLAC NVLS AMAT INTC
GPS MIK WMT HD
MSFT PSFT VRTS INTU ERTS ORCL
MRK BMY PFE
AMGN DNA
XOM CVX
EBAY YHOO AMZN

Most of these will be scalping trades using tech indicators for entry and exit points. . May also trade some of the ETF’s as well.

[skiracer]

I had set a stop on HTRN at 11.50 yesterday at the open. To be honest I was surprised that it took such a dive over the course of the day. Anyway I'm out of it for the time being. They report on April 3 an I'll have to wait to see what the next couple of days will bring.
Glad I wasn't holding any of the stocks in my portfolio of the week picks. Kind of got killed yesterday. The OIH etf looked great in the pre-market and was down over 1 point early on but what a reversal and also up big today. What a pick that was.
KOMG took a big hit yesterday on no news. I like the stock and bought 4000 shares this morning between 21.06 and 21.30 which is a larger position than my normal money management rules dictate but I really feel that this particular pullback is presenting a great opportunity to enter at a bargain price.
I'll be keeping a real close eye on this one just in case it goes the other way. I would be happy just to see it recoup to the 22 range where it started before it's recent runup. It reports earnings on April 27 and has raised guidance several times over the past couple of months.