Tom Harty
March 2, 2008 | 1 Comment
A suggestion for everyone reading Joshua’s comments who are NOT registered on his site…First, I can’t believe the amount of quality free advise he is giving you. If you’ve listened to him you have saved tons of money by not trying to force trades.
Second, I’ve read Joshua for some time now having first seen his stuff on RealMoney. Just recently I started my Gold membership which has given me better access and more information. I have easily paid for several years worth of memberships by listening to his advise. Read more
Testimonials Archives
March 2, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Phailin Said:
Josh, what you are doing here on this site is very proactive and should be commended.
I’ve met in my life only a handful of people that are as pro-active as you, all of them are enormously successful. I think you have a goldmine building here.
Lately, the improvements i have seen that add so much value are your comments on each individual chart you post for your swing longs and shorts. The charts need to be resized before you post them so they are easy to read in an instant.
Or, just leave everything the way it is, you will still have added something to the investing community that leaves your footprint on this world forever. Good job.
Phailin Read more
It’s About Time!; Stocks Breakdown From The Triangle Consolidation (NYSE Reverses Its Breakout), On Much Heavier Volume
February 29, 2008 | 17 Comments
Well, I guess, all I can say is, so much for that rally. There were a lot of people that were very confident that the lows in this market were seen on 1/22 and 1/23. Those people that believe that is the case still, are living in serious denial about the true problems this market has. Unless you are only focused on the oil, gold, steel, metal, food, ag, machinery, or chemical stocks, there is no way anyone can be serious when they say they are bullish on this market. Everywhere I look I see some big damage that was caused by today’s selloff and the reality of the situation is very clear to me. This market is not a market to buy.
Today, stocks were crushed, as a raft of poor economic data and more subprime BS slammed the door in the face of the bottom-callers. Part of it was due to the consumer as for the third month in four their was no growth in spending. And for those that truly do not grasp how important that is, I hope I can help convince you, along with IBD, that it is indeed very important.
It Is All About Oil And This Very Weak Economy; Stocks Fall On More Subprime Bad News
February 28, 2008 | 4 Comments
Stocks started off weak as an afternoon reversal yesterday continued to weigh on stocks today. But shortly after the open stocks found some footing and rallied ahead until news hit the wires of Bernanke warning investors that small banks with big investments in real estate may collapse in the housing slump. That helped reverse stocks lower, and after that one more feeble attempt at a rally failed, stocks then ticked lower to end the day down around 1% across the board. It wasn’t an ugly day but it wasn’t a great pullback either.
One of the more unusual things about this market that has really gone absolutely nowhere the past month, but has seen a lot of intraday action, is that despite there being a lot of charts completely broken out there, the market continues to hold up. Now, this is obviously due to the oil stocks as they make up a very large portion of the SP 500 and NYSE now. But the fact that the market is holding up with this many ugly stocks out there is quite impressive.
The other thing with these ugly charts is that they are everywhere. That includes stocks moving up or down. Some of my best longs right now do not have pretty chart patterns. What they have instead are very incredible fundamentals and they are in a very hot industry group which is climbing up the charts. These oil stocks have done so with wedging and V-shape patterns and have made those gains on yellow BOP. There are very few out there that are setup in nice patterns.
Early Morning Rally Turns Into Ugly Reversal By Mid-Day But A Final Hour Bid Helps Stocks Close In The Green; Where Is The Volume?
February 27, 2008 | 6 Comments
Well, today sure was a bit odd. Stocks started off the day weak but ended up blasting off higher until about 11am EST and after that it made a little more headway but then rolled over giving up almost all of the gains before rallying one last time until the last 30 minutes when it calmed down a bit. So it was a little wild but not that wild. Overall, what it really was was just another confusing market session in a short-term uptrend and intermediate-term downtrend market.
When the closing bell rang, stock market indexes ended the day mixed with the Nassy rallying and the Spoos falling. But volume was lower and it was almost an inside day which is always meaningless.
But with today’s lame action in the indexes came a little bit of excitement from the usual bullish suspects. Once again, commodity stocks outperformed the stock market by a wide margin, with one of my best stocks on the day being DROOY with a 9% gain. Other metal related stocks did very well also, including my favorite AUY. But all of this bullishness in these sectors have left a lot of other stocks out of buying ranges and before I can even think of getting long more steel, oil, metal ore, or food related stocks, I am going to have to get a low volume pullback in a lot of these issues.
Very Nice Rally Powers A Lot Of My Longs To Great Gains; For All The Bullishness Today, Did Anyone Notice Volume Is Still Below Average?
February 26, 2008 | 16 Comments
Everyone sure was happy today, after seeing the market rally off the back of an IBM share buyback announcement. What is surprising about this is that today’s rally seemed to cause all of the “bottom-callers” to come out of the woodwork. I received a few “I told you so” emails in my inboxes that made me have a hearty laugh. There is something that these very cocky and exuberant bulls have not noticed. There is still absolutely NO volume on the rally. Today was yet another day of strong gains on lower volume, just proving that this is a bear-market rally that is punishing the johny-come-lately shorts that started shorting the market after the gap lower in January. Woops.
Now, I have to say, this rally is very impressive. But, come on, this rally is coming on absolutely NO volume since the selloff on very strong volume from the November top. A good market does the opposite, with the downtrend coming with no volume and the uptrend coming with a lot of volume. When you see action like this, it is TA101 that you do not look to get heavily invested in the market. Instead, you look to short the stocks, that have broken on huge volume, whenever they rally back to the key moving averages and then fail. There is no text book perfect pattern stocks follow so you have to be a little bit liberal with the 50 day moving average. But still if you see a heavy volume breakdown after a low volume rally, do not be afraid to short it as long as other former leaders are building similar patterns.
SP 600/NYSE Lead Stocks Higher As Stock Indexes Post Decent Gains On Mixed Volume; The Big Trend Is Still Down
February 25, 2008 | 10 Comments
One thing that I love more than anything else is when I open up the ‘Big Picture’ by IBD and see the exact same thing that was on my mind being spoken of immediately.
This event is the NYSE breaking out above the trading range that started February 5th. When I reviewed my index charts at the EOD to see how they looked, there was only one index that stood out. The NYSE’s breakout above that range came on an uptick in volume which was taken as very bullish today by most pundits that I read. However, I am not sure if they do or do not use the 50 day volume average but if they do they would notice that volume was still below the average for the last 50 days which makes it absolutely clear that the big institutional investors were not falling all over themselves for stocks today.
But a trend is a trend and right now we have a lot of different trends in many different time frames. When you hear me speak of the “uptrend” in this post, know that I am speaking from the 1/22 and 1/23 lows and when I speak of “downtrends” I am referring trend from the November top. So now that that is clear, let’s move on.
Late-Day Bullish Reversal Off The Lows Keeps Stocks From Hitting New February Lows; Volume Remains Below Average, For A Full Second Week In-A-Row
February 22, 2008 | 39 Comments
What looked like was going to be the session before a possible breakdown turned into a bullish reversal by the close, after word of a bailout of the bond insurer ABK. Now, I am not here to discuss the ethic of CNBC of this news and to be honest I could really care less as I think watching CNBC is a waste of time (I just tried to watch it again, recently, and that lasted 30 days). So if you were watching your charts intraday, the spike looked the same as it did on CNBC. It really doesn’t matter what the news announcement was and anyone that thinks that this changes anything must not remember the last time CNBC did this last month. LOL. Different players, same game, with CNBC. You are best to just turn it off.
By the closing bell, somehow all the indexes, based on that rumor, turned what was looking like pretty nasty losses into .8% gains on the DJ and SP 500. It was simply stunning but not quite convincing. How so? I tell you what intraday spikes that CAN be explained are lame. If we would have gotten this spike, on heavy volume, and there would have been NO news, I would be very bullish on the market. Instead, I still have the same apathy towards being long or short here as the market is coiling tighter and tighter showing very little conviction.
Stocks Selloff A Day After Strong Gains, Once Again, But Volume Comes In Lower; Bottom Callers Are Starting To Wonder About Their Bottom
February 21, 2008 | 7 Comments
Today proves one thing: CASH IS KING. There is no other better way to start this commentary off tonight than by reiterating what I have been saying for the last few weeks. This market simply has no direction and since around January 15-16 the market has basically gone nowhere, just trading in one giant range. This tightening range is showing up as symmetrical triangles on the daily charts of the Nasdaq, SP 500, and other indexes. The problem with this is that the range is tightening on lighter volume. Lighter volume consolidation patterns usually lead to a breakout in the same direction that the base came from. That trend is down.
So with the market coiling up for a move, the 50 day moving averages coming very close to the indexes as resistance, and the volume shrinking, it could be safe to say that the next move for this market is a break lower. With the indexes being so close to the moving average line it just seems that there has not been enough buying pressure to push the markets above the moving averages.
Nice Little Rally Lifts Stocks On Higher Volume; The Gains Pale In Comparison To The Overall Downtrend
February 20, 2008 | 4 Comments
Today was a nice little rally for the bulls and if you have been going long some of my recent oil, metal, steel stocks that have been showing up in my scans then today was really good for you. However, I heard, once again, some very bullish statements from a crowd of mainly new traders that can’t seem to see the overall downtrend in the market over their calls for a real market bottom.
Now, while everything that I know about the market tells me that this is nothing more than a bear market rally in a longer downtrend, I have no qualms about profiting on the long side, like today, by being long nice charts. Some of those charts showed up recently and have been profiled at RealMoney or posted here as longs. Those stocks are going to do well no matter if this market moves up or lower because they are in such a hot sector right now that the overall market does not matter.
But for those buying stocks that are selling off hoping to buy a bargain, like in IMA and VZ today, you are fighting a major downtrend that looks to only be starting in the long term.
