Update on the uptrend ($SPX)
Looks like 1150 on the S & P, which is also former resistance, is the new target for those looking for an end to the February 5th rally.
Counting with Doug: Financing a trip to Lake Tahoe solely with blackjack winnings?
Gaps to fill on the way down — ($SPX)
The unrelenting grind of the market upwards, to my view, has left only two important gaps (around 1125 and 1080) on the S & P 500 to fill on the next trip down, and they are getting more and more remote by the day. Bears shooting for either target have been brutalized all month, and there is currently no sign of a let-up by the bulls. Those betting on a swift, hard reversal are still pacing the floor, but the market is approaching short term overbought levels again, not that it has mattered much this March.
Bulls in the (super) market
I’m not playing this one, but if you have a bullish slant for Thursday, here’s your chance at Super Valu stores (SVU), testing the 20 day SMA as we speak. Tight stop underneath the 20 and under Monday’s intraday low, say at $16.15. That would make the goal a run at the recent highs in the upper $17 range, providing the desired 3:1 reward to risk ratio. Good Luck!
Five by Five — March 24, 2010
Five market links for today:
* Starbucks to pay a dividend! (Daily Option Report)
* Today’s trading is described as a bullish sell-off: (Charts and Coffee)
* Corporations have enough cash: (Bonddad)
* Is debt settlement better than bankruptcy? (Bankruptcy Topics)
* The US Dollar is surging on news out of Portugal: (In the Money)
Where were you on October 1, 2008?
Remember what you were doing (or how you were feeling) on Wednesday, October 1, 2008? That’s the last day the S&P 500 was around the 1170 level, and at that time it was on an express train straight down. The presidential election was a little more than a month in the future. The baseball playoffs were set to begin. Maybe the leaves were turning colors. If you were long stocks, you were in danger of developing immediate bleeding ulcers.
The market has a much different feel lately (up 10 days out of the last 11!), but I can’t help wonder if something big to the downside is lurking . . . .
Or maybe I’m just stuck sitting on the “wall of worry” . . . .
Cruisin’ without a care in the world (RCL, CCL)
Like tulips and crocuses being harbingers of the coming spring, might it be possible that cruise ship stocks signal the sign that all is finally well in the equities markets?
Royal Carribean got a nice pop yesterday on competitor Carnaval’s news that bookings — especially for the expensive cruises — are turning up.
There must be nothing but blue skys over those Carribean seas from the look of the chart, showing RCL doubling since last summer. As for Carnaval itself,
its pretty much more of the same. Just makes me think of the massive disconnect with Main Street America, where financial suffering is by no means on the wane. be that as it may, I will watch these two to see if they can provide useful future tells on the state of the “rally” or is it a bull market by now?
Five by Five
Five links to read by 5:00 PM tonight, or they might get stale:
* Capping executive pay doesn’t send the muckety-mucks scurrying after all (Bonddad).
* Not so many new highs may point to the end of the rally (Trader’s Narrative)
* Looking for dividends? Look at Pepsi! (V-Investor)
* The eye in the sky: satellite imaging set to boom (Crossing Wall Street)
* What’s it worth? Free tax advice from H&R Block (Bargaineering)
CROX breaks through
A dreary March Tuesday in New England hasn’t exactly got me fired up for plastic shoes, but it is worth noting that the cup-with-handle followers were rewarded by CROX today, which is up over 8% on no news, except that the weather is crappy throughout most of the nation. My psychological bias against this firm, and the money made previously by shorting it, make me incapable of jumping on this particular bandwagon, but as a voyeur I will enjoy the ride!
Trading the housing market — a ball of confusion
Traders who want to place bets on the future of housing in America sure have their work cut out for them. In the wake of the news that housing starts have reached fifty year lows, some contrarians might be poised to jump in to this battered sector, but they may find themselves buffeted by a wild ride.
Take, for example, KB Homes (KBH), which announced earnings this morning. This announcement was reported both as “KB Homes posts wider than expected quarterly loss” (by Reuters), and simultaneously as “KB Homes posts narrower quarterly loss” (by the Wall Street Journal). For the record, the loss was $0.71 per share for the quarter ending in February.
The chart finds KBH grinding upward since December, albeit with a 4% negative reaction to the earnings report today. Before that, it was sitting atop all the important moving averages, but not last summer’s peak over $20. Anyone who can find an edge here, God Bless ’em. I suppose you could buy in here, and see if it can hold the December-March trendline, while looking at a return to last week’s highs at $18 on the upside. No housing guru here, I’ll pass for now.
Five by Five
Five market/economy links up by 5:00 PM for a good night’s reading:
* Ten reasons to love ETFs: (ETF Trends)
* Estate planning advice from the leader of the ’70s rock band KISS? (Crossing Wall Street)
* Choking on health care shorts (Drogan)
* Calm before the storm? VIX back under 17 (Market Rewind)
* You know its spring if baseball players are making millions: Batting champ Joe Mauer re-signs with the Minnesota Twins (Daily Options Report)
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