Buy,Hold, or Sell, Why?

[Runner]

Here is one....

[Runner]

Here is an awesome momentum play that works real well. Often times we think we miss a move because the stock enters into a strong up trend. This is fine and a simple technique I’ll call the 1-2-3 move can land you some huge profits.

First the stock must be in a intermediate uptrend. Then you drawl your trend line.
Second the stock needs to pull up some more and run a while. You drawl another trend line.
Third you enter the market long when price pops upper trend line and set stop.

Look over stocks in sectors that have shown some real strength and you might respect this set up as much as I do. I hope this little trick helps!

[Lyehopper]

why not post the tickers?

Here is an awesome momentum play that works real well. Often times we think we miss a move because the stock enters into a strong up trend. This is fine and a simple technique I’ll call the 1-2-3 move can land you some huge profits.

First the stock must be in a intermediate uptrend. Then you drawl your trend line.
Second the stock needs to pull up some more and run a while. You drawl another trend line.
Third you enter the market long when price pops upper trend line and set stop.

Look over stocks in sectors that have shown some real strength and you might respect this set up as much as I do. I hope this little trick helps!

Hey Runner post the tickers of the others so we can research them. Might be good short prospects now. PARL showed the same pattern before it's recent decline.

[Runner]

Lye here the 3 tic’s

GHL
VLO
ITG

Getting back to using the tops down approach notice this chart of the S&P 500 in relation to the momentum charts. You can see the stocks pop off the bottom along with the s&P. If you bot in Feb-Mar you more likley jumped into a neg. position pretty quick..

[skiracer]

If you followed the shorter term general market trends and the different group and sector trends wouldn't you think that you would be able to catch or time the uptrends or the downtrends to enter positions over the short term either long or short. Depending on your objectives you should be able to trade the markets, and specific groups or sectors, any time that you can determine a DEFINITE trend in one direction or another. When they are range bound and trading sideways would be the right time to either stay in cash or limit your trades to only the setups that might offer or look to offer a chance but then it becomes more of a gambling situation rather than creating an edge for yourself and benefiting from the trend. That period of time, Feb/March, wasn't the best time for the markets but there were uptrends and reversals during those couple of months that provided opportunities if you watched closely and were able to catch the uptrends and the reversals over the shorter term.
It really becomes a matter of being astute and being able to determine which way the markets are trending over the short term time frame and which groups and sectors are the strongest or weakest during that time frame. Being able to stay in cash during range bound, horizontally flat periods, is a matter of controlling emotions and the need for action, which is probably the most negative factor in being in or out of the markets.

Let me ask you or anyone this. What good does it do to try and figure out what the markets are going to do 2-3 or 6 months out from this point? If you are buying a stock on it's fundamentals alone today an are figuring that the next three qtrs. are going to grow proportionally then the longer term outlook is helpful as market strength and direction do generally affect the movement of 50% of stocks. But if you're looking at the short term trade and for movement over a 3/10 day time frame isn't it a waste of time to look that far out. Wouldn't it make more sense to concentrate your analysis on today to what might be happening two weeks out which in my estimation is hard enough to do. There are two many factors economically and politically, that might happen that could affect the markets and no one can forecast what is going to happen in the future. I would like to hear any thougths on this either in agreement or disagreement. Alot depends on your personal strategys so please explain them with whatever your thoughts might be.

[Runner]

If you followed the shorter term general market trends and the different group and sector trends wouldn't you think that you would be able to catch or time the uptrends or the downtrends to enter positions over the short term either long or short. Depending on your objectives you should be able to trade the markets, and specific groups or sectors, any time that you can determine a DEFINITE trend in one direction or another. When they are range bound and trading sideways would be the right time to either stay in cash or limit your trades to only the setups that might offer or look to offer a chance but then it becomes more of a gambling situation rather than creating an edge for yourself and benefiting from the trend. That period of time, Feb/March, wasn't the best time for the markets but there were uptrends and reversals during those couple of months that provided opportunities if you watched closely and were able to catch the uptrends and the reversals over the shorter term.
It really becomes a matter of being astute and being able to determine which way the markets are trending over the short term time frame and which groups and sectors are the strongest or weakest during that time frame. Being able to stay in cash during range bound, horizontally flat periods, is a matter of controlling emotions and the need for action, which is probably the most negative factor in being in or out of the markets.

Let me ask you or anyone this. What good does it do to try and figure out what the markets are going to do 2-3 or 6 months out from this point? If you are buying a stock on it's fundamentals alone today an are figuring that the next three qtrs. are going to grow proportionally then the longer term outlook is helpful as market strength and direction do generally affect the movement of 50% of stocks. But if you're looking at the short term trade and for movement over a 3/10 day time frame isn't it a waste of time to look that far out. Wouldn't it make more sense to concentrate your analysis on today to what might be happening two weeks out which in my estimation is hard enough to do. There are two many factors economically and politically, that might happen that could affect the markets and no one can forecast what is going to happen in the future. I would like to hear any thougths on this either in agreement or disagreement. Alot depends on your personal strategys so please explain them with whatever your thoughts might be.

Ski, great words of wisdom. I would say that your probability of success in intermediate term is increased significantly if your into the over all markets strength. Looking over hundreds of charts I see that once the S&P bottomed in April time frame you chances for success was greatly increased. Now sure 2-10 days hold are different, but to capture huge gains I feel the over all market performance becomes important.

Here is another example. All the Indices were stalling out at last prior highs. This surely was the sign of weakness and your probabilities of capturing gains was greatly reduced. This is using the tops down approach. If the market is not moving then what are your chances of huge gains? Yes strong sectors were the momentum is present is where we want to be. But in this current market forgot about huge upside gains. Does that mean one stops trading? IMO , yes if you’re an intermediate trend trader. Can you find day trades and 2-10 day holds, yes because your playing the smaller trends. Last few weeks have about made my goal for the year. Longest time in a position was 12 days.

Now once your in a position and the market corrects does this mean you sell? Absolutely not but your management techniques might change.

As to your question about following the smaller term trends. I see nothing wrong with it and I do it myself, but in these choppy trends your probability of failure is increased IMO. One who goes heavy in shares and does not use stops can find themselfs in a serious jam. Our current conditions is only good for D/T’s if one trades to the long said at all.

No one can say how long any trend will last but you very well might get a signal when the Indices are in trouble and move to a more defensive posture. Like I stated back a few posts a trend is a trend until it isn’t. Runner your nuts, your telling me the moon and stars all need to be aligned up before one trades? Not at all, but tops down will IMHO assist one in making money and staying out of trouble.

Even with my D/T’s I normally get my head handed to me when I go against the indices. If the Nasd100 is trending down notice what happens to the bid and ask. Mr. Market maker then will play some games to suck us in. They are so clever they even know how to manipulate the candles you see in you chart. But even these pros get caught on the wrong side and they need to cover. They short the STO 80 band and panic when the 80 band test pops back up. Ever seen a stocks STO stay above the 80 band for a few days on the intra day chart? This is a short panic and stops getting triggered like a big dog. After the first volley this stock better have a bunch of buyers or it’s headed down. Ever noticed why break outs fall? Price jumps up to trigger stops and then no buyers step in.

I’d make a statement that if you went long a stock over the last month or so your probably taking a sting right now if your riding it out. Speaking of any time frame is timing the trend important?

Enough of this babbling. As the saying goes if the trend is your friend then at this juncture in time right now what is the short term trend?

[Runner]

Ok here we go. Before I get into the charts I posted as possible buys I’d like to introduce the “tops down approach”. What does this mean? Well simply for this thread I’ll use the S&P500 as my tops down approach.

The chart is backed out to when I posted the possible buys. Now lets look closely at the chart. First off we had a nice pull back in Aug. (See chart A) followed by a nice tweezer bottom. This told us a possible reversal was coming, but we waited until confirmation of trend change. A few days after bottom notice the awesome volume spike. This is what I was looking for to go Swing long.

We move up nicley to point (B) and a warning flag was triggered. We could not hold the gains or take out (A) highs. Smart money flipped and went short with stop just above (A) highs.

We pull back off (B) highs and pay close attention to ©) This looks ominous to me. We got several up days with almost zero movement of the market. This waved a huge caution signal on going long the market.

Note that right now (B) could not take out (A) and the price is not far from (B) so why would you go long at this juncture? IMHO I saw zero reason to take the market long on 10/03/05.

Remember we are not talking about day trading but Swing trading..

Here it is again, based off this chart what should we do??

[skiracer]

Runner,
I always respect your imput an I know you put alot of time an energy into all of this an once again I have to agree with you about what your saying but I think that what you've said is what I was trying to get across. You can only follow the trend regardless of whether it is short term, intermediate, or longer. Speaking for myself I find it hard just to determine the short term for my own strategys an of late it seems that much harder to go with something before things change and reverse on you. It's become much harder in this recent market environment this year to make the determination on the short term much less farther out.
What I'm saying then is that without identifying the immediate market direction or market trend you're lessening your odds of a winning trade. To go long an expect to hold for a longer time frame is ever harder with the changing conditions and the factors that influence economic and market direction. To answer your question about where are we right now as far as what to expect with market direction I think that we are heading farther down but that there will be bounces up due to changing circumstances as we head downward over the longer term. The idea is to find those bounces and be able to utilize them in your trading during the whole process.

[Lyehopper]

I'd say short it/Question?

Here it is again, based off this chart what should we do??

Based on that chart and market conditions I'd say short it.

However it would be nice to do additional reasearch (FA), see a longer term chart, look at a weekly chart, know the RS and other key vectors, etc. to make a more informed call.

Do any of you guys time your bias with the help of the VIX,VXN and VXO? Haven't heard anyone here mention them.

[dmk112]

Here it is again, based off this chart what should we do??

I think that is a bear flag and although it was broken to the upside the pattern is still there so I wouldn't take the trade.

[Runner]

Here is one....

Sorry guys, this chart was taken from the past. Sometimes break outs work and in this case it did. ADVS went on to about 30% . Notice the nice 3 month base it cleared and did not look back. I chose to buy this once base was cleared. I normally do not do this, but stop was just under base.

[Runner]

GRP had a nice thrust down and is now moving sideways over last few days. Is this just a pull back? What should we be looking for? Is this a long,short, or wait?? Give brief overview of you opinion. Stock has run about 115% this year..

[dmk112]

GRP: I think it is rolling over, look at the volume on the pullback - HIGH! I would be looking to short this one.

[Lyehopper]

Hey Runner!!!

How about this one?

http://img325.imageshack.us/img325/3...lychart8te.png

Remember this chart? Well, THANK God I didn't stay away as you advised.lol

The ticker symbol is PSAI. I would have been happy to have shared it with you guys but nobody seemed interested.... Oh well....sigh.... hehehehe

[Runner]

Remember this chart? Well, THANK God I didn't stay away as you advised.lol

The ticker symbol is PSAI. I would have been happy to have shared it with you guys but nobody seemed interested.... Oh well....sigh.... hehehehe

Hey, I’m glad you didn’t listen too!! Your chart looked like a shot gun round hit it. Can only give my 2 cents based off info at hand.