Monday, January 17, 2011

Watchlist for the week of January 18th, 2011

It's nice to have a forced day of holiday once in a while! And although today is not a holiday in Canada, it was nice to sleep in an extra couple of hours before going to work!

Anyway, the markets seem unstopable these days, and I think we continue higher for at least another week or more. As I am writing this, Nasdaq futures are down most likely because of Steve Jobs' medical leave, but I suspect tomorrow will be a good buying opportunity in AAPL. I'm sure a lot of fund managers would be more than happy to get into AAPL at a discount. But be careful, as AAPL reports earnings tomorrow after market close.  Anyway, here are a few stocks I'm watching for next week:

KWK is forming an ascending trinagle on a long-term weekly chart, and it looks great on the daily as well, inside a flag pattern. Notice the decreasing volume inside the flag on the weekly chart, with increasing volume in the last 2 weeks, which could be an early sign of a move to come:




ASTM is another favorite for this week: it's forming a beautiful flag, and when ASTM breaks out, this thing can really get going. I'm long already 1/2 size and I'll add another 1/2 size on the actual breakout of 3.28, and my target is around 4.40, with as stop below the flag low ~2.90.



Other than KWK and ASTM, I'm also watching for possible breakouts:
ACOM, ALKS, AVNW, EQIX, GPRE, HCBK, JOE, KCG, KWK, LEAP, NE, RAS, ROIAK, SD
 
Good luck this week!

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Morning gaps

So I wanted to go over a strategy that I often try in the morning on stocks that are gapping up. It doesn't alway work out, but sometimes you can make your day in one trade! This morning, I noticed APWR was gapping up around 5% in premarket on good volume, above a recent consolidation and into a nice gap from November 30th. It announced a 43$ million contract with another company, and I thought this was likely significant enough to sustain the gap.  My target was the top of that gap, at around 6.30-6.35. Unfortunately, I got in prematurely, and got shaken out.... This often happens to me, and I need to find a way around this! Anyway, here are the daily and the 1-min intraday charts, let me know if you have any comments! Thanks!



Otherwise, I had a decent day and played the PWAV breakout along with many people in the Charts Gone Wild chatroom! We banked some good coin on that one!

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Great day!

I had a great day and entered several new positions this morning. In fact, I got triggered in almost all the buy stops that I had set the night before. I was even long 150% at some point (on margin), so I decided to scale back and take profits on most of my positions before the end of the day. Now I have only 1/2 or 1/4 positions left. I don't recommend using margin overnight, as you never know what can happen!

Anyway, the solars have been on fire lately, so here's one trade in JASO that I closed today.



I also had some successful daytrades in CPE, GTE, NCT. I took a loss in STP, and I'm still holding onto AVNW, CPE, CSIQ, ETFC, JAG, RDN, RFMD, RRD, WFSL, XNPT  and XING(short).

And here are a few names to watch tomorrow (some have low volume so be mindful of checking this first before you buy): ACOM, AEL, AHS, BCSI, BBEP, IBCP, GMXR,  MMR, MU, PWAV, THRX, TIVO.

Monday, January 10, 2011

Watchlist for the week of January 10th, 2011

I didn't have time to post my watchlist on sunday night, so here's what I'm watching going into tuesday and for the rest of the week most likely:

ACOM, AONE, BBEP, BSDM, CPE, ETFC, GTE, KCG, MHR, MMR, MNI, PWAV, RDN, RRD, SID, SPWRA, YGE, WTI

You can copy the entire list and paste it in the search box on Finviz, and then click on the link "open in screener" and that allows you to see all the charts in one page, like this:


Or simply click on this link: http://finviz.com/screener.ashx?v=211&t=ACOM,AONE,BBEP,BSDM,CPE,ETFC,GTE,KCG,MHR,MMR,MNI,PWAV,RDN,RRD,SID,SPWRA,YGE,WTI,
I'll post some trades tomorrow! Good luck this week!

Friday, January 7, 2011

First week of the new year!

It has been a pretty choppy first week of the new year, but under the radar a lot of momentum stocks have been breaking out. There was good strenght in some semiconductor and homebuilder stocks this week. I had a good week (I'm up 2.1% already for the year 2011), and look forward to the next few weeks of earnings season!

Here are a few trades I took this week. Not all of them worked out well, but I am forcing myself to keep my winners longer, so this has paid off already (see the LNG example). I saw some resistance at 7.00$ (round number) and at 7.22, the previous high. So those were my 2 targets and they executed perfectly!




I got triggered in MHR on this flag, and I accidentally set my stop as a sell limit, so I took myself out of this trade accidentally, for a 4.8% loss! It still looks good however, and hasn't dropped below the low of this flag on the daily. I might look to get back in it, only if it truly breaks out of the flag with conviction and volume!



This is a day-trade that I took in KLIC today. I scaled out a bit too soon, and unfortunately I didn't leave any shares on for a possible afternoon breakout. I'm too trigger-happy and need to work on my patience for these day-trades!



Ok, I'll try to post a watchlist on sunday, have a good week-end everyone!

Thursday, January 6, 2011

CBL weekly chart


Hey, I was just chatting with a buddy in the Charts Gone Wild chatroom, and thought I'd post a chart for everyone to see... sometimes it's much easier to show things on a chart than to type out what you're trying to say! Anyway, this is why I like CBL on the weekly timeframe. I don't know anything about the company, and if I were to buy this for a positional or long-term swing, I'd look into it before buying. But technically speaking, I think it looks great! Also, notice the huge volume (accumulation) in the past 2 years... So my measured move target would be around 36$ in the next 1-2 years... long-term play as I said!

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

It's a new year

I made a few small trades today, with one notable trade in SPMD. Although I missed the initial breakout, the daily chart looked great, so I was confident it had more room to go.

My entries are marked on the chart below:



Other than SPMD, I also added some swing positions in JAG, ZAGG, LNG, CSIQ and IDT. They all look good on the daily chart, and I will add more on confirmation of breakouts in each of these.