Tuesday New Highs

There were 52 new highs today, here is the list.


These are the top 10 industries in percentage of stocks making new highs:

Name	Stocks	NH	Percent
Medical Practitioners	4	1	25
Beverages - Brewers	9	1	11.11
Silver	9	1	11.11
Movie Production, Theaters	12	1	8.33
Water Utilities	12	1	8.33
Gold	50	4	8
Health Care Plans	15	1	6.67
Regional Airlines	15	1	6.67
Waste Management	15	1	6.67
Computer Peripherals	31	2	6.45

These are the high volume advancers and decliners from the relative strength list:

Advancers				Decliners
Ticker	Relative Volume	Change		Ticker	Relative Volume	Change
SPRD	6.45	12.91%		ARST	2.8	-0.31%
RADS	3.45	6.73%		ACC	2.55	-0.60%
ANV	2.72	3.58%		IPGP	2.24	-3.52%
MSB	2.44	3.96%		TDG	1.9	-0.87%
VRX	2.29	0.17%		VHC	1.9	-4.07%
SOL	1.73	2.21%		ID	1.7	-0.44%
ARUN	1.73	1.66%		HOOK	1.66	-1.48%
AIRM	1.67	0.44%		DX	1.64	-1.08%
RGNC	1.63	0.17%		SLW	1.64	-1.31%
WRLD	1.57	2.26%
GENZ	1.54	0.29%
IACI	1.53	1.06%

I have nothing reporting after the close. I have CVGW scheduled before the open, but good luck confirming that one.

FOMC Update - The Clueless Edition

One thing becomes quite clear when you look at this chart: when price gets below 1050, somebody (or somebody's computer) starts buying, with the exception of early July (the computer may have been busy playing chess). For the IBD tyoe traders, we got the volume we were looking for today, and nearly had enough of a gain during the day for a follow through, but the release of the FOMC mnutes was good for about a 10 point drop. Only a late stick save prevented what could have been a really disastrous day and month.

This is becoming a tale of two markets. The Nasdaq, which depends heavily on technology, has been very weak of late, and an important part of that is the semiconductot index, which, to put it charitably, is coming unglued. This has broken any support from the last 6 months it might have had, and is depending now on Mr. Fibonacci for support. I'm not betting it will get it.

As if a mirror image, the all important gold and silver index is nearing the top of it's trading range and at some point will probably try a breakout. Even the FOMC fear of "disinflation" isn't putting a damper on this.

Once again, the percentage of stocks on the Nasdaq that are above the 50dma has entered "bear" territoty. below 30, with all moving averages moving down. It does seem to be losing it's down side momentum here, but is still significantly weak.

The smae index n the NYSE, which has entered the "no man's land" between 30 and 50. Traditionally this seems to be a transition zone, and it does not stay there long, so I am looking for it to move sharply in one direction or another in the near future.

From the FOMC minutes (I did not read them, but saw the highlights) it appears that the Fed is far less confident in the economy than they have been letting on. It is also becoming apparent, despite Bernanke's claims to the contrary, that they are clueless what to do about it.

I will have the new highs update shortly.

SPRD

Here's a big breakout that popped up late in the day. Earnings? Big contract? Nope, it was merger mania again. INTC apparently bought someone, and these guys are in the same general sector, so traders figure they will get bought up, too. Other than a lame reason for a breakout, this is a very nice chart pattern, with a cup and handle and very well defined support and resistance. Price relative did not quite hit a new high before the breakout, a minor weakness, and ATR was rising during the later stages of the base, another minor flaw.

Today's Leading Industry

Name	Stocks	Change	40 week avg
Movie Production, Theaters	12	1.61%	29.24
Copper	6	1.41%	34.39
Meat Products	12	1.39%	61.66
Music & Video Stores	4	1.37%	51.13
Paper & Paper Products	26	1.16%	53.75
Confectioners	5	1.15%	60.75
Gold	51	1.14%	31.35
Major Airlines	8	0.92%	60.31
Accident & Health Insurance	9	0.90%	60
Regional Airlines	15	0.81%	37.4

Today's top 10 industries.

The leading industry, movie production and theaters, is lead by LGF, the 4th largest in the group, up on a buyout offer from Carl Icahn. This is a very weak group, and the charts in general look horrible. Most are at or very near 52 week lows and all have dropped sharply from the April highs. This is possibly a group that could see some rotation, if they don't go bankrupt first.

FOMC Minutes Released

Here is the market's reaction to the 2 pm release of the FOMC minutes, in sharp contrast to Bernanke's "happy talk" last Friday. Apparently the market doesn't like what the FOMC said about the risks of "disinflation", the Sesame Street way to say "deflation".

Options Data

Today's unusual options trading, from whatstrading.com.

Market Leadership

Ticker	50-Day Simple Moving Average	52-Week High	Relative Strength Index (14)	Change	Change from Open	Gap	Relative Volume
ARST	52.05%	-2.32%	84.95	0.78%	2.51%	-1.69%	3.62
BIDU	1.11%	-10.98%	48.31	1.79%	2.49%	-0.69%	0.83
CMG	4.57%	-2.72%	56.23	1.59%	1.94%	-0.35%	0.41
HANS	5.86%	-3.35%	57.93	0.30%	-0.17%	0.47%	0.5
IGTE	2.20%	-12.17%	49.88	1.08%	1.92%	-0.82%	0.66
MELI	6.68%	-7.27%	54.24	1.62%	2.43%	-0.79%	0.57
NFLX	8.11%	-10.05%	56.58	2.96%	4.01%	-1.02%	0.81
PCLN	21.93%	-5.43%	62.47	1.03%	1.61%	-0.58%	0.5
PRGO	-0.13%	-10.74%	48.4	-0.05%	1.02%	-1.06%	0.43
VRX	6.16%	-1.88%	62.07	1.23%	1.25%	-0.02%	0.5

Today's market leader performance. None but ARST are getting significant volume.Most have reversed after gaps down.

Here is a link to the charts.

LGF

Here is today's only breakout so far, and it turns out it is another takeover mania breakout. Icahn is offering 7.50 a share for this, so unless someone else puts in a bid, there isn't much upside from here.

Today's Pivot Points

Floor		Woodie's		Camarilla		Demark
R3	1076.23	R2	1069.12	R4	1058.06	High	1064.97
R2	1070.31	R1	1057.23	R3	1053.49	Low	1048.36
R1	1059.62	P	1052.51	R2	1051.97
P	1053.7	S1	1040.62	R1	1050.44
S1	1043.01	S2	1035.9	S1	1047.4
S2	1037.09			S2	1045.87
S3	1026.4			S3	1044.35
				S4	1039.78

Tuesday Morning Update

The retest of 1040 didn;t take long, and if you blinked you missed it. The market went into an immedieate rally on the test, and the only question now is where is the resistance. 1055 was a briefly held support level from yesterday that might be resistance today, if not then 1060 should be the first real resistance we have. We had a flurry of economic reports this morning, none terribly good but none at apocalyptic levels either. Leading sectors today are XLY and XLB, lagging are XLU, XLK, and XLI.  The Nasdaq is lagging, the Russell 2000 leading. Oil and gold are both up, and both started rocket shot moves up just before the market opened, I have no idea what that was about.  Treasury yields gapped down this morning, and are attempting a fill the gap rally, with the TNX just barely getting back above 25. We are on follow through day watch here, so I will be watching the volume. Of course, if the market reverses again (highly probable), that won;t be a factor.

I have 15 new highs so far, with only one breakout, LGF. I have nothing scheduled to report today. JOSB, which I had scheduled Monday, is holding it's conference call on Thursday, so I would assume they are reporting Thursday morning.
 

Monday New Highs

There were 60 new highs today, here is the list.


These are the top 10 industries in percentage of stocks making new highs:

Name	Stocks	NH	Percent
Medical Practitioners	4	1	25
Nonmetallic Mineral Mining	8	1	12.5
Beverages - Brewers	9	1	11.11
Computers Wholesale	9	1	11.11
Recreational Goods, Other	9	1	11.11
Silver	9	1	11.11
Gold	50	5	10
Networking & Communication Devices	20	2	10
Information Technology Services	32	3	9.38
REIT - Healthcare Facilities	11	1	9.09

These are the high volume advancers and decliners from the relative strength list:

Advancers				Decliners
Ticker	Relative Volume	Change		Ticker	Relative Volume	Change
LOGM	1.73	5.19%		ACC	1.56	-0.10%
MSB	2.12	4.75%		SAM	1.62	-0.50%
QLIK	1.58	4.33%		HS	1.88	-0.73%
FOSL	2.36	4.22%		AIRM	2.01	-1.33%
VHC	4.66	4.10%		RADS	1.69	-2.33%
HOOK	5.52	3.85%		UFPT	1.64	-2.72%
GENZ	3.68	3.39%		ARST	2.34	-2.87%
NR	1.86	2.99%		ANDE	1.6	-3.03%
SOL	2.23	2.75%		NZ	2.42	-3.32%
IPGP	2.52	1.72%
PAY	1.56	1.59%
NNBR	1.53	1.37%
ID	2.46	1.23%

None of the stocks I had scheduled today reported. I have nothing scheduled after the close today or before the open tomorrow.

Monday Mania

I tentatively identified 1055 as an intraday support level, and was ready to pat myslf on the back right up until the last hour when it broke. After two successful tests, in rapid succession, of 1040, it looks like another one might be in the cards. After Friday, it looked like we might be headed for another follow through day (which we will be looking for starting today), but the weekly charts were quite bearish, and that is what bore out today. Volume was way off today, which is a positive, and we are still in decent shape, but that can change rapidly.

The Nasdaq looks like it is slowly gaining strength, but if it breaks that trend line on the price relative line, we could see a significant collapse. If not, we could see another retest of support here followed by a pretty sharp rally. Unfortunately we probably won't know for at least another week.

The Dow industrials show signs of relative weakening, which, ironically, is also a bullish sign. The horizontal blue line on the price relative represent a "top" level, which, if it breaks through that, could also mean we have another leg down. Notice that CMF is on the verge of going negative, and we are not far from a "death cross" of exponential moving averages.

The Russell 2000 is either carving out a bottom or about to break the neckline of a large head and shoulders pattern. At this point it does appear to be gaining relative strength, but it is too early to draw any conclusions.

The U.S. Dollar is bounceing after, first, a massive rise, followed by an equally massive drop. It is about to be sitting near a convergence of moving averages, which will be either strong support or resistance, depending on where it is when they converge.

The problem with pre-holiday trading is that it is mostly technical in nature, although I don't think it has ever been as dominated by computers the way it is now, and the complexion of the market can change on a dime as soon as the big boys are back from their vacations.

I will have the new highs update shortly.

FOSL

FOSL is a previous breakout from a scattered pattern that immediately pulled in to fill the gap, formed another short base (or, robably more properly, a high handle), and started a move yesterday, hitting a new high today. This has been playing support and resitance levels to near perfection, and has a very strong price relative line.

REE

There was a news story last week that did not get a lot of attention: China is going to cut back sharply on the exporting of rare earth minerals, which are vital to the production of modern technology. As a result, the few rare earth mineral companies that aren't in China are getting a bid. The previously ignored REE (from it's name I assume it is a rare earth mineral miner)has been making a big move on steadily increasing volume. This is one of those small cap AMEX traded mining companies that I wouldn't trust farther than I can throw them, but it could be worth a gamble taking a small position until the hype wears off.

ZIXI

The other mania sweeping the market is merger and aquisition mania. This morning ADAM, an internet provider, announced they were being bought, so other internet providers got a big boost in hopes that they, too, will be acquired, thus jacking the price way up and all but assuring nobody in their right minds would touch them. I'll bet this doesn't end well.

Today's Leading Industry

Name	Stocks	Change	40 week avg
Personal Computers	2	1.22%	40.42
Recreational Goods, Other	9	1.03%	35.83
Tobacco Products, Other	2	1.02%	48.75
Internet Service Providers	9	0.88%	37.92
Diversified Computer Systems	8	0.66%	40.32
Photographic Equipment & Supplies	6	0.57%	56.67
REIT - Healthcare Facilities	11	0.47%	70.45
Consumer Services	12	0.45%	49.37
Specialty Eateries	4	0.37%	75.38
Drug Stores	5	0.36%	20.5

Today's top 10 industries. REIT-Healthcare facitlities and specialty eateries are the only ones with long term strength.

Since I have been tracking it, personal computers has been a 4 stock, then 3 stock, now 2 stock group, AAPL and DELL. AAPL is bigger than DELL by about a factor of 10, so it is the main driver in the group. It is also, until now, the only one consistently in the top 25% of it's 52 week range. It dropped out of that range last week, so this is now a zero. Unfortunately this group is just too small to give any meaningful data.

Options Data

Today's unusual options trading, from whatstrading.com.


I have been trying to continue the experiment I have been doing in trying to predict closing price of certain instruments at options expiration based on open interest. The calculations I have done in the past were strictly open interest, ignoring options values, which is probably not the most accurate way to do it. I was going to modify the method to take options values into account, but being mathematically challenged, I haven't come up with a method yet. That is a minor problem which I will get solved soon, However, I have noticed another problem which is beyond my control: I am getting different options expiration dates from Yahoo finance than I had last week. For instance, they say AAPL September options are expiring September 2, which is in 4 days.
SPY options have an expiration date of September 29. All the others expire September 17, which is the "normall" expiration date. I have no idea what is going on there, but that could throw a wrench into my project. Anyway, I have ome up with some preliminary targets based on my original method of calculation:

AAPL 240
DIA  101
GLD 118
GS 145
SPY 105

I will post revisions as they come up.

Market Leadership

Ticker	50-Day Simple Moving Average	200-Day Simple Moving Average	Change	Shares Float	Institutional Transactions	Float Short	Relative Volume
ARST	53.59%	54.85%	-2.24%	28.56	2.91%	10.50%	3.08
BIDU	0.29%	29.11%	-1.83%	330.68	-1.62%	3.04%	0.81
CMG	4.46%	25.97%	-1.24%	30.5	-5.01%	10.48%	0.79
HANS	6.94%	12.70%	-0.76%	72.12	-2.76%	1.96%	0.24
IGTE	5.89%	40.40%	-2.31%	28.53	24.03%	3.86%	0.68
MELI	5.90%	27.49%	-1.79%	30.37	1.91%	17.25%	0.21
NFLX	4.98%	43.59%	-2.35%	50.58	-14.41%	20.56%	0.76
PCLN	22.98%	29.46%	-1.64%	47.93	-0.20%	8.15%	0.41
PRGO	0.04%	11.20%	-0.72%	81.72	5.38%	5.71%	0.38
VRX	5.61%	35.06%	-0.99%	75.16	-11.82%	7.21%	0.54

This week's first look at the new market leadership. Once again I have included institutional transactions, but don't know how up to date that data is, but it does lend some credence that some of these are close to topping. ARST is a dubious addition to the list: it's recent strength has come as a result of it's status as a takeover candidate.

Here is a link to the charts.

Breakouts

Here are today's top 4 relative volume breakouts. FOSL is on a stock buyback, I have no news on the others.

This Week's Economic Reports

We have a big week ahead for economic reports.

By contrast, the Treasury auction schedule is quite light.

Today's Pivot Points

Floor		Woodie's		Camarilla		Demark
R3	1098.81	R2	1084.03	R4	1078.62	High	1077.66
R2	1082.01	R1	1077.35	R3	1071.61	Low	1052.15
R1	1073.3	P	1058.52	R2	1069.27
P	1056.5	S1	1051.84	R1	1066.93
S1	1047.79	S2	1033.01	S1	1062.25
S2	1030.99			S2	1059.91
S3	1022.28			S3	1057.57
				S4	1050.56

Monday Morning Update

The only level to leap out at me this morning on the chart was 1065, which so far has been today's high. 1055 was where the last little dip took us to, and it looks about as good as a support level as any, making 1075 the top of the range. The market has been swan diving for the last half hour (it is 10:30 eastern time as I write this), so something happened at 7am that spooked the market. XLP and XLE are the leading sectors, XLF the laggard. The Nasdaq is about even with the SPX, but the Russell 2000 is way behind. Oil and gold are both down. Treasury yield gapped down, and instead of the usual "fill the gap" action, continued to fall, with the TNX below 26 again.

I have 43 new highs today, with breakouts in FOSL, AZK, SOL, and LOGM.  It must be Monday, because none of the stocks I have scheduled to report today have reported.

Earnings Schedule This Week

Here is what I have so far for an earnings schedule this week. The ones highlighte in yellow are the only ones I have been able to confirm.

Earnings Growth Charts

There was only one stock on the earnings list reporting last week, so I took the opportunity to get up to date on some charts I didn't get to earlier this quarter. There are still no changes to the charts: in the top panel, black is revenue growth rate, red is EPS growth rate; in the middle panel black is price, red is EPS, and blur is price relative to SPX, and at the bottom the black bars are volume.

CYBX was the only one to report this week. This has been pretty consistent is both earnings and revenue growth, so I am a bit surprised to see the weak rebound off the 2009 crash. This peaked out all the way back in 2005, but ayt the 2009 bottom th price relative line stopped dropping. It has shown flashes of outperformance since then, but it's going to have to really crank up the growth to get out of this hole.

The rest of these were graphed using data collected at the time they reported so in most cases it is about a month old, and some of these have dropped quite a bit since then. ALGT is currently about 5 points lower than it is in the chart. Earnings and revenue are decelerating to the point where there is almost no growth here.  The market seems to be waiting to see if this will become a growth story again, as it has pulled price down, but not to the point of collapse.

CKSW actually hasn't moved much since I gathered this data. Unfortunately this is one I have incomplete revenue data for, but earnings growth went negative this quarter. These charts are not very good for doing technical analysis, but it does appear to be in an important support zone here, so if earnings turn around it it can really take off.

DECK had a stock split this quarter, and I'm not sure yet if I have adjusted this for the split or not, but I strongly suspect I haven't, because of the sudden drop in EPS this quarter, especially wth a 33% increase in revenue.I will have to get this corrected.

ISRG has dropped since this data was gathered. It has decelerating earnings and revenue this quarter, and apparently the market is not anticipating much growth next quarter, but this is also in an important support zone, an has come a long way s a short period. This has been an on-off leader in the market, and I suspect it will be on again withing a few quarters.

I am still working on getting the splits adjusted and errors corrected. Last week I was going to upload the in-progress earnings spreadsheet, and forgot, so I will do it again. On page 3 I have highlighted in green the ticker symbols that have been verified correct. Hopefully I will have all of them done before the end of the quarter.

New Leadership Scan

Ticker	Price as a % of 52 Wk H-L Range	EPS growth past 5 years	Return on Equity	50-Day Simple Moving Average	200-Day Simple Moving Average	20 day v/ms	X
NFLX	88.26	0.43	0.55	0.08	0.48	117.23	0.4
PCLN	88.48	0.67	0.51	0.26	0.32	37.1	0.06
MELI	85.86	1.22	0.35	0.08	0.3	35.23	0.22
BIDU	79.87	1.51	0.45	0.02	0.32	28.01	0.3
CMG	93.93	0.75	0.22	0.06	0.28	16.26	0.22
ARST	100	1.01	0.27	0.59	0.59	16.23	0
HANS	91.57	0.59	0.34	0.08	0.14	12.9	0.06
IGTE	87.9	0.66	0.22	0.09	0.44	12.83	0.35
PRGO	80.29	0.35	0.22	0.01	0.12	12.6	0.11
VRX	95.18	0.61	0.78	0.07	0.37	11.83	0.3
HUM	78.22	0.3	0.2	0.03	0.06	10.91	0.03
CTSH	85.1	0.38	0.23	0.06	0.17	10.79	0.11
CACC	93.48	0.27	0.33	0.12	0.31	10.72	0.19
HOGS	96.71	0.36	0.19	0.18	0.22	10.6	0.04
TDG	96.28	0.6	0.19	0.09	0.14	10.06	0.05

This week's leadership scan yielded only 16 stocks, of which I will monitoring the top 10 in volume per million shares as a proxy for the market. Most notable is the disappearance of AAPL.