Our positions

Update:

1.Sold partials on the VMW for just under a point on the breakout test (if we go under we often take some off into target of breakout alert).   We now have our stop around breakeven on a move below 88.

2. SWN keeps threatening to stop us out but at the last second moves up and away from our stop.  A move through 35.5 today would make us exit.

Everything else looking healthy: we're green in VMW GD ATPG NBL and down 0-1% in SWN SOHU MON.   The more extended the market the less "Cowboyish" we are with trades and the tighter our stops.

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Update II:

at 3:50 PM on Friday. Booked the rest of VMW for 1 point gain; bailed on SWN for 20 cent loss and took partials across the board for gains (GD ATPG NBL) and losses (MON SOHU) on this market rip as we're feeling uneasy due to how extended market has become.  Still long partials in GD ATPG MON NBL SOHU. 

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We're swing long 7 positions now (5 of them we bought lower from selling earlier this week and 2 new ones).

 We sold SWN earlier this week near 38 and bought it back on the 50SMA bounce under 35.9.   SWN testing 50SMA right now and we might bail on this for 30-40 cent loss on a close under 50SMA.

 MON we sold near 63 and picked it up again near 61 on bounce on 20SMA-- has support at 60.5.  Close below that would likely take us out.

 ATPG we sold near 16.5 resistance on Tuesday and picked up again for 4% lower -- we like how its basing under 16.5 resistance and are just going to sit on this for a while.   Our "bail" point would be a loss of the 50SMA.

 GD we sold over 69 and picked back up aournd 1% lower -- we like this for a break-out of 70.

 NBL we sold Tuesday at the open near 87 and picked up again today at 81.76 just above the 50SMA.  If it loses the 50SMA and then 80 support on a closing basis we'd probably take the loss.

 SOHU small swing here on today's dip at 77.5 in anticipation of 79 break-out.  Smaller size than previous positions because support far away.   We'll play this one by ear as there is no real support nearby.

 Same thing for VMW.  We picked this one up today at 88.07 in anticipation of 89 break-out.  Again though, smaller than all the other positions (save SOHU, same size) because no real support nearby.   Another one we'll go by feel for stop.

We're less aggressive than last time we put on swings (12 positions, all bigger) as commodities are still weak and we feel more confirmation is needed before we put on more size.

Market Talk

Market decent action today in almost every non-commodity sector.  We bought back 3 positions that we sold yesterday, all for lower prices but all still above support.   Bought MON on 20SMA bounce and in anticipation of 64 breakout, bought back ATPG (support farther away there - 50SMA) in anticipation of 16.5 breakout, and GD in anticipation of 70 breakout.   Natty is the only commodity acting well -- gold, silver, coal, ag stocks, and oil all were weak on the day.  We'd like to buy back our commodity sells from yesterday (including CLF OXY APA NBL which are all significantly lower from our sales) but want to be more patient on these and wait for tests of support. 

We'll be going through all our favorite commodity stocks and will list all of our support alerts in tonight's newsletter. 

Market Talk

A lot of investors/swing traders talk about how utterly wrong it is to try to pick tops and bottoms.   Well, we do it all the time.  And well -- we've picked short-term tops and bottoms correctly many times in real-time in the last year we've been on Twitter, and archived for our subscribers in the last 4 1/2 years of the HCPG newsletter.    It really isn't that hard if you know what to look for.    Yesterday we sold all our swings (12 positions including many commodities that have gotten hammered since) near the highs of the day (again, all real-time) after 3 weeks of being long. 

Operative word though is short-term.  We're not into picking long-term bottoms/tops, which we think is significantly more difficult.  Everything we do is based around the short-term, meaning 2-5 day time-frame (or 2-5% in price).     

We've taken it easy today, as is our custom on the first day after sentiment change.   We like to get active on day 2-3 when decent support candidates pop up but on day 1 there's usually not much to do, for our style of trading anyway.

The only support trade that triggered today from last night's newsletter was OXY on 91 support -- we tried it since risk was so low.   Entry was around 91.03 with stop at 90.87 (it's our typical support trade strategy of getting in on reversal on alert with stop under -- many posts in blog on this subject).     First partial is always against the 20EMA/5 min chart.  Stop for rest is on the higher low trend-line or break-even.    First partial profit was for 37 cent profit (not much but risk was only 16 cents).  Holding rest to see if we can get through the 20EMA as trade now is risk-free with stop at our entry price. 

Top Talk

We posted on Twitter yesterday that we had started a new set of swings, "almost every set-up in newsletter that hasn't triggered".  

Subscribers knew that this meant we went long stocks that had been on our alert list for days:  MON DHR NBL CSX STT AIG on top of swings initiated weeks ago CLF UPL OXY ATPG.    We knew market was already extended but what gave us confidence to initiate the positions was what we wrote at the end of the newsletter:

We strongly believe that we won't hit any significant intermediate top (not talking short-term 1-2 day pullback) until we lose most of our triggers.  In our experience tops have often come into play when a lot of our alerts trigger and then fail on the same day.   All we want at this point is for them at least to trigger as that would put us into the green on all our positions (since all the swings are in anticipation/under the alerts).




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In extended markets the safest trade is TO the breakout, not after.    As we posted this AM we sold all our old swings near the open,  sold partials of new swings into the open, and were finally all out of everything before 10AM.    All green, all nicely profitable.

We're all cash now in all accounts.     As to the market we think we're heading in for some horizontal movement.  We have very few alerts left and a some basing and filling would do wonders for new setups. 

It's too early to tell yet but today could be a day that we described last night in which breakouts trigger and fail on same day, representative of an intermediate top.