Friday, April 11, 2014

Indices closed down .89% to 1.34%.....

Indices continued its downward spiral & closed near low of the day.

S&P 500 @ 1815.69, low 1814.36

RSI @ 38.61

CMF @ -0.033

Internals were :

Down volume led by 4.04 to 1 in NYSE & 6.03 to 1 in Nasdaq

Declining stocks led by 2.56 to 1 in NYSE & 4.10 to 1 in Nasdaq

Net new 52 wk lows were leading by 29 in NYSE & 76 in Nasdaq

VIX UP 7.17% @ 17.03, high 17.85

Oil @ $103.74

Gold @ $1319.00

Canadian $ @ 90.40

Stocks which closed green included RAD
KOG EXPE CMG GTAT ARUN
FNSR PANW GIB MGA
WYNN

Here is my portfolio weighting :

MU      34.67%

WUBA 25.20%

LULU 16.54%

RAD   11.92%

GRPN 6.99%

OWW 4.68%

Exposure 159%

Next post by 2 PM Sunday.

BLOG does NOT give buy or sell.

Saleem

2 comments:

stocktrader_1996 said...

Hey Saleem,

A big down week for the markets saw the portfolio drop 3.32% versus the S&P's -2.65%.

Only Weekly Winners: YELP (+6.3% upon sale), TZA (+6.1% from purchase), AXLL (+1.2% upon sale)

Biggest Weekly Losers: PFPT (-13.7%), CSOD (-10.0% upon sale), DATA (-8.4% upon sale), GM (-8.3%), AAL (-7.9%)

YTD Info:

Portfolio: -8.89%
S&P 500: -1.77%

The week started out pretty much according to plan with followthrough selling Monday, but then a Turnaround Tuesday and a nice day Wednesday. When we thought all was back on the right track, the bottom fell out Thursday and Friday. I scrambled mid-week to cut cyclical exposure, and then finished up Friday by selling most of my software names. I did thankfully add some protection on Thursday through a large TZA purchase which helped ameliorate the downside the rest of the week. The current portfolio is very small:

TZA - 26.4%
AAL - 19.3%
PFPT - 6.5%
GM - 6.2%
Cash - 41.5%

Closed Positions: BLDP SINA AXLL CSOD FDX JKS WLH YELP DATA
New Positions: TZA
Buy/Sell Intraweek: SGMO
Add-ons but then sells: SPLK NOW

Well...if you haven't figured already, something is clearly wrong. The selling seems relentless on most days with only brief daily respites. This is really a big shift from what we've seen the past year or so. The reasons people give for this change are almost countless, but it's really that price action is dictating further price action.

Some things people point to are the Fed withdrawing stimulus, the Ukraine situation, a Chinese slowing of growth, an avalanche of IPOs/secondaries, tax-related selling, hedge fund/margin forced liquidation, a sluggish pickup in the US after the weather-related softness start to the year, and a flattening yield curve. Any or all of these might be the "answer", but it's more important to observe the flows and price action, which have been undeniably very negative in recent weeks. Although people may be confused as to what really happened, or what may happen next, the key is just that the market will stabilize when the selling is over--simple as that. Where that point is, is really anyone's guess.

Although I was late to react, I have now positioned myself mostly neutral with only a few names in the portfolio, and even those positions hedged with a TZA long. I still like many names, including those in the software space, but I need to see more signs of stable trading before wading back in.

We are now shifting quickly to negative sentiment and already have short-term oversold conditions. For this reason, and although Monday will likely see more sluggishness, I suspect Turnaround Tuesday will make another appearance. I will be looking for opportunities to capitalize on the large swings having currently both short and long exposure in my portfolio.

Earnings season worries me for many names including software. Given the fragile support many of these stocks have, I wonder if the bottom will fall out once earnings arrive, even if decent. We've seen software stocks like IMPV drop 45% on an earnings warning, and stocks like CSOD drop 10% on just negative chatter (on an overall positive market day). This makes me very wary of holding positions in some beta names into earnings. Although PFPT and DATA have set earnings' dates without pre-announcing, I wonder how much they would have to beat/guide to get a positive stock reaction...

Overall, I just can't be as heavily bullish-biased as I've been for a long while. It certainly seems like money is leaving the market en masse, and that means many stocks will take longer to find stable floors than in many prior corrections. I stand ready to buy those key future names, but the timing and price are more important than ever.

Stocktrader

Stocks100 said...

Hi Stocktrader,

YES..a bad week for every participant....

Stocks may climb wall of worries.

Saleem