Watchlist 3/12

$CVO: Breakout over ~5.20

$FRAN: Continuation play over Friday's 23.42 high

MHR: Continuation play

$THLD: Continuation play over 6.73. Analyst price target of $15 announced late Friday

$LIVE: Continuation play. Nice rounded bottom and stochastics turning up.

$CRUS: Over 24.14

$CVA: Over ~16.65

$GCA: Flag break over ~6.65

$JAKK: Flat-top breakout over 16.00

$MTG: Continuation play

Stocks I'm watching, 12/1

FSII - I like it over ~2.70, a break of the declining tops line from the failed gap-fill in July

IMGN - pushing through a tangle of moving averages. Watching for continuation move over the 20dma

IMAX - Watching over the declining tops line, ~20.00-ish. Needs more volume, though...

MHO - breaks out over ~9.20

Setups for week of 3/28/11

Some long setups I've been posting to Twitter this afternoon for the coming week (assuming of course that the market cooperates) plus a few others I've found since.




LLNW Really like the look of this one through the 20- and 50-day




LSCC Similar chart to LLNW, one I lost money on last month when the market turned south. Will look to add if it gets through overhead resistance in the form of those two moving averages.




EGI One to watch if gold stocks move this week and it can power through the 3.10 to 3.18 area




FNSR An old favorite I traded in the teens late last year before it took off towards 40.00. Looks to be rebounding but I'm not sure where I'd add it. Probably on a successful retest and hold of the 200sma.




LCRY I like this one through the 20-day with volume.




EGHT Upward momentum, MACD, Stochastics pointing up. Would love to revenge-trade this one for losses I took in January :)



$DRYS Like the look of this chart. Looking for a move through the 50-day on volume to continue the momentum




$BRNC flagging on low volume. May need a day or two to work off over-bot conditions but looks good over high of 11.12




$BEE looking good for continued momentum this week




$AMCN China stock that got killed the last month. Potential rounded bottom. STO, MACD, RSI all pointing up. Stop under 4.50. Swing buyer beware on China stocks, though!

Mission more or less accomplished

Little did I know coming into 2010 on the back of a 10k gain in the first nine months of my trading life that the year just passed would be my Year of the Reset.

I was dealt some harsh lessons early on by the sordid and unpredictable penny stock world, learned that some stocks never come back — or if they do, they'll require endless patience as your precious capital is tied up for months, even years before you're able to get it back — and finally acquired the fortitude and emotional detachment to take losses early or, if not early enough, then before they become horrendous.

These are, of course, lessons that are as timeless as they are obvious but it seems that learning them is a rite of passage for any successful trader and having done so allowed me to carry out what I christened Operation:Salvage back in the summer — to offload the big losers that had been dragging on my portfolio for months on end by earning the money back through disciplined, successful trading and ending the year flat.

I'm pleased to say that I was pretty much successful; by capitalizing on the "Santa Claus rally", the year-end melt-up in the market, I was able to end 2010 with a small profit that just about offsets the paper losses in four loser stocks that remain in my portfolio, the sale of which would produce such meagre returns that I'm better off holding them in case of an unexpected spike that would allow me to recoup more cash or, less likely, get out close to break even.

The bulk of my success in '09 came from swing-trading biotech stocks, not to mention some serendipity — I was holding shares in HGSI when they announced the surprising success of their phase III Lupus drug trials — and though that sector was again a nice source of trading revenue in 2010, I made little headway with the run-up method, passing up some nice gains in ALXA and AVNR, and generally losing track of the FDA calendar altogether by the end.

Instead, I ramped up my day-trading activity with more and more emphasis on intraday breakouts while focusing on select swing trades in momentum stocks like HDY. That will continue to be my plan in early 2011, with a short-term goal of lightening up my swing positions very early in January because who knows when what has to be an imminent correction of at least 5% kicks in. We've had a great run since September and in December particularly so a pullback will be healthy for what many predict will be a profitable year for the markets.

11/15 Watchlist

Starting this one early and will add over the weekend seeing as my trading screens are still open at the end of a frustrating week for me personally, albeit one eased by the fact that the S&P finished the day above the dual support of the 20-day SMA and the rising trendline that meet around the 1195 mark.

Bad news after market on Wednesday and Thursday for ASTI (dilution), FUQI (delayed 10Q) and MPG (CEO resigned) ruined three of my swing trades and that, combined with the steep losses in the broader market, left me in some uncomfortable holes to end the week.

As things stand, we've had an orderly pullback to moving-average support after a big run in the market and a couple of days' consolidation early next week, a full week of POMO to boot, should set us up for a resumption of the uptrend... but we'll see.

So, with an eye on next week...

BSX - Nice, tight bull flag formed here, looking to break out again

CPE - Another one bull-flagging. Has a tendency to run all day when it pops.

IGOI - Really promising bull flag here, with low-volume pullback and the RSI coming out of oversold territory

AVXL.OB - A pinksheet stock trading at close to 5.00. Stochastics would suggest it's getting overstretched here but a move over that 4.25 resistance level could present a scalp opportunity.

BEE - This one looks like it's setting up for higher prices when the market is favorable again so here would be a good place to enter a starter position if you're so inclined.

AMRN - Lots of strength here against a challenging tape. Looks like the dips were bought on this consistently and there's room in the indicators for more upside next week.

SMBL - The breakout point is a little fuzzy on this one but it's got good momentum and the indicators are heading firmly in the right direction. Looking for another push through and hold of the 100-day.

Portfolio Update - 10/15/10

Netlist broke out again yesterday, moving out of that large wedge pattern I've been tracking. I added back the half position I sold on Wednesday at more or less the same price when it became clear the stock was going to head north again and am holding the full position over the weekend.

The price is very likely to pull back within the upper bollinger band soon so I will probably look to take some or all off the table if there is a spike at the open on Monday. But I'm still eyeing this as a swing trade again as we head towards the Interop conference next month where NLST will have a booth in the Cloud Computing section of the Expo hall.

Another of my medium-term swing positions that I've held from 2.86 and through the red the past few weeks is FSI International (FSII) and patience is paying off there too with the stock closing almost at the highs today at 3.22. The trend remains up and hopefully we can get to the 200SMA around 3.40 before the full Stochastics peak.

I lightened up my short-term and day-trade positions before the close today, shedding TSYS, OMEX, ATEC and GIGM for more or less break even. My booked profits from NLST and JASO more than offset the small losses in GIGM and DYP so I was green for the week. I'm stuck in PEIX for now but a rising wedge is still in play there so I'll just bide my time. I'm holding spec play ABTL for now from 0.90.

Finally, an update on the stocks I mentioned in my previous post. The bull flag I highlighted for  AAU  may have been negatively violated in the last couple of days and it's for that reason that I held off adding to my position today around the 2.73 lows. The MACD on AAU has a bearish look to it right now so I may have to be patient here before I get back to green. In hindsight, the distance between the Bollinger bands might have been a clue that it wasn't about to break that wedge after all.

 CIGX's chart, one I tweeted regarding a rising wedge pattern, may offer better prospects of a basing/consolidating pattern than AAU, with the MACD a little tighter. Much will depend on the broader market but I'm hoping to see it start coiling back above 2.00 in the next week or so, but we'll see.

HAUP took a breather today, ending down despite tacking on gains intraday, but that's hopefully a healthy sign rather than a retracement back to the moving average support below around 2.40.

Potential Portfolio Movers

The market continues to fly higher but it was a disappointing day for me personally, with none of my short-term swing positions putting enough distance between my buy-in price and their closing price for comfort, and a couple of day-trades also not really panning out.

SATC got as high as 4.30 but despite tapping that level three times, it couldn't break through and I sold in the after-hours session at 4.26 for a gain of just 0.06, basically enough to cover commissions. I ended up holding PEIX overnight as I was encouraged by the action towards the close.

In addition to HAUP coming to life and popping as much as 0.35 today (my order that went unfilled at 2.30 last week is coming back to haunt me!), a couple of swing positions are looking promising.

FSII looked as though it might cut loose based on early volume but ended up adding 0.10 and closing just above the 50-day SMA at 3.02 which will hopefully be significant as we approach the company's earnings results on October 19. Back in May FSII raised their Q3 guidance and that helped propel the stock to 5.00 but it dropped 50% over the summer and then recovered to where we are now.

The chart is bullish and assuming the results don't surprise (either for the better or the worse -- FSII's Q4 guidance was in accordance with analysts' estimates of net revenues of between $5m and $6m), it'll hopefully gradually rise higher, with some nice room to the 200-day at 3.40. The stock has been prone to sharp sell-offs recently, though, so caveat emptor there...

Almaden Materials (AAU) has been popping and flagging in the last few weeks since it leapt above 1.00 and with the last two days' fairly narrow trading range, the chart looks ripe for another potential break-out of the pennant formation that has formed since it rose to 3.29 a couple of weeks ago. I sold on that pop at 3.22 and have since re-bought at an average of 3.05. It doesn't like red market days, though, and sank to 2.80 late last week, a buying opportunity I passed up.

Hauppauge Digital's (HAUP) move off the bottom this week looks to have initiated a new up-trend, with a positive MACD cross on the cards in the next few trading days. Today's close was above the 20-day SMA and hopefully that will provide support, though the 50-day (2.55) has been a robust source of support and resistance during the move higher that started in July.