Thursday, April 17, 2014

Indices closed mixed.....

Indices struggled a bit but made it into green in S&P 500 & Nasdaq, Dow was a small loser.

S&P 500 @ 1864.85, high 1869.63, low 1856.72

RSI @ 53.03

CMF @ 0.015

Internals were :

UP volume led by 1.64 to 1 in NYSE & 1.73 to 1 in Nasdaq

Advancing stocks led by 1.43 to 1 in NYSE & 1.83 to 1 in Nasdaq

Net new 52 wk highs were leading by 108 in NYSE & 16 in Nasdaq

VIX Down 5.78% @ 13.36

Oil @ $104.30

Gold @ $1293.90

Canadian $ @ 90.02

Stocks which were UP 1% or more included   GRPN MU OWW
SWIR YY SPLK TWTR LNKD KOG SINA AAPL YNDX
CRUS LRCX SNDK AMCC JDSU FNSR AEM MS
TRLA Z WYNN TRIP...

Here is my portfolio weighting :

MU       36.62%

WUBA 23.39%

LULU 15.33%

RAD   11.32%

GRPN 6.96%

OWW 6.38%

Exposure 162%

Next post by 2 PM on Sunday.

Enjoy Easter holiday.

BLOG does NOT give buy or sell.

PS...on last trading day of the week, there is closing post only, this means on Friday's & holiday week.

Saleem

2 comments:

stocktrader_1996 said...

Hey Saleem,

Finally an up week for the portfolio showed a 3.37% gain versus the S&P's +2.71%.

Weekly Winners: CLDX (+11.5% from purchase), SPLK (+8.8% from purchase), NOW (+8.4% from purchase), GM (+6.4%), JKS (+5.5% from purchase), PANW (+5.5% from purchase), AAL (+5.1%)

Weekly Losers: PFPT (-6.5%), TZA (-1.6% upon sale), SGMO (-1.1% from purchase)

YTD Info:

Portfolio: -5.82%
S&P 500: +0.89%

Last week went basically according to plan but with a bunch of Tuesday scare in it. Monday had a nice opening, but drifted lower all day until it staged a great rebound into close to turn the indices nicely positive--that signaled the end of the forced selling.

Tuesday was the great fakeout day where people used the up open to start selling/shorting again after Monday's up day, and we broke prior day lows in the $COMPX and $RUT which forced all the trader/algorithm longs back out again. This created a "V-bottom" when all the selling exhausted, and we rocketed back up to close positive in all indices. Based on my Monday read, I knew the institutional selling was over, so I layered in all Tuesday morning to get back to full positioning. This turned out to be one of my best moves this year.

With the bottom firmly in place now, Wednesday and Thursday were followthrough days with Thursday seeing a bit of profit taking near close ahead of the long weekend. Here's the composition of the portfolio now:

Top Weighting (19.6%): AAL
Middle Weightings (11.2-8.4%): GM MOS PFPT
Lower Weightings (7.0-5.0%): PANW SPLK YELP DATA NOW TRIP JKS
Speculative Weightings (4.1-4.0%): CLDX SGMO

Closed Positions: TZA
New Positions: MOS PANW SPLK YELP DATA NOW TRIP JKS CLDX SGMO
Add-ons: GM PFPT

So the number #1 takeaway from this week and going forward is that the forced/liquidation/panic selling is over. What combination of factors that led to this we may not know for certain, but the action this week tells us this phase has run its course. The action now turns to earnings season.

This week is one of the biggest for "big company" earnings, with the likes of NFLX, GILD, AMGN, FB, AAPL, DOW, BIIB, DAL, QCOM, MSFT, AMZN, CAT, UPS, SBUX, FCX, BTU, POT, NUE, DHI, CELG, P and F all reporting, along with the portfolio names of NOW (Wed PM), AAL (Thu AM), and GM (Thu AM). With many participants underweight equities due to recent volatility, I expect good earnings will be rewarded, while poor earnings will be punished (although not if solely due to weather).

The rebound of the US economic from this harsh winter is still in question by many as the data is still mixed. By far the best data point we're getting is the multi-year low jobless claims, which should give currently-employed consumers confidence, even if new job creation is still not robust. I also heard many CEOs last week in interviews talk about a pickup in March which followed into April. I think this is a great sign for the future, and we should be on track for even better economic data ahead.

The problem spots of China and Ukraine still remain, with China signaling last week they will accept slightly lower growth as the economy reshapes, while Ukraine continues to flare up and Putin's eventual advance into eastern Ukraine may be progressing. Given the nature of the market right now, and the focus on earnings season, I don't think either of these items will be problem enough to stop individual stocks moves.

Overall, I am pleased with the current market condition, having finally flushed the sellers out completely. I hope I am in the right companies for earnings season, and we'll get more information on that soon.

Good luck to all! :)

Stocktrader

Stocks100 said...

Hi Stocktrader,

YES..your timing was good in terms of getting back in your high beta...

My boring no beta stocks kept me afloat in this turmoil...not a bad performance.

Hopefully we all gain from upcoming moves.

Saleem