The Freak’ing Market Nears The Top ($SPX, $SPY, $USD, $UUP)
Every day we see the market swing higher and higher and higher and then one day it swings lower we tend to get fooled into the belief that the market has topped. If you have never felt that way you either must work for Gold in Sachs (they seem to have a golden goose) or are some genius and my hats off to you!
The charts I will be presenting to you further down I have kept a close eye on for months (yeah months!) but only recently has there been an urge to share the potential move that’s coming. Weekly charts will be used because I am not timing the market by the minute but merely where its heading based on my observations. There is no one way to play the market or so use this in conjunction with your own research and observations. An old saying comes to mind: “Ask 7 or 8 opinions but make your own decision.”
To keep me motivated into watching the following charts I decided to purchase an UUP option call expiring January 2012 with a strike of 23 a good while back. That position is up more than 30% but having it on my position screen has kept me aware on moves that the dollar has made.
In the UUP weekly chart there seems to be a Descending Triangle Pattern in the works which is a bearish formation. That being said this is the weekly chart so I don’t expect UUP to break below $22 range for months and years to come. Short Term UUP has resistance at the 50 week moving average (23.43) and if it is able to break through it has a better chance for a swing to the expected 25 area.
(Click Chart to Enlarge)
Wait! So does this mean the dollar is destined for doomsday in a few years due to this pattern? I will not give an answer to that mainly because on this next chart of the US Dollar Index ($USD) the opposite pattern seems to emerge. The Ascending Triangle is a bullish formation and this points to a break to the upside (suggesting dollar appreciates more in few years). One thing to keep in mind while reading this blog is that lines are drawn differently by different people and if a daily, monthly or yearly chart was used the patterns might point elsewhere but weekly is my choice. As with the UUP short term view, $USD also is stuck just below its 50 week moving average of 80.42 and a break and hold (of the weekly) over that resistance would put the dollar index on a better position of heading back to the top of the pattern which is around 88 area.
(Click Chart to Enlarge)
So far I’ve talked about the dollar and yet the title claimed to be calling a market top. I will not disappoint my fellow readers that easily. On the last of the trio charts I have drawn plenty of lines and will attempt to describe with words what dollar strength and breaking over its resistance would mean for the market ($SPX).
The top part of the chart has $USD again showing its price performance (irrelevant since I’m just looking at the pattern). The top red line has been drawn to indicate an important area where when the USD breaks below (weakens) it tends to send the market into “party” mode and when the opposite is true things go into “doomsday” mode (for the most part). The top green lines are a more reserved prediction just in case the red line acts as resistance and dollar would go sideways for some time but eventually break up since the pattern is the aforementioned Ascending Triangle bullish pattern. If we break out of the resistance zone more rapidly (blue dashed line) then I call a market top late January-February 2011. It could come at the current highs or the market could make one last push for $1300 (since the moves aren’t 100% mirrors of each other).
(Click Chart to Enlarge)
So there you have it! I have called a Freak’ing Market top 700 words and 3 charts later (and many months of patiently observing the weeklies). My conservative guess if I was forced to make one would be a correction to 1030-1075 area. That’s around 16-19% correction from the current highs.
There you have it! I hope you all had a Happy New Year and enjoyed reading this post and many others before it (although they’ve been sparse due to realities of the busy life).
Remember to chant the InvestingFreak phrase whenever in doubt “See it, Call it, Trade it, Buy it” 
Happy trading and money making!
-K
S&P 500 SPDR ($SPY) weekly puts trade completed.
For those new to options, a call is a bet that a certain stock will go up and a put is a bet that it will go down. So by buying a put option in this post I was looking for a move lower.
At the time of this writing I have taken a 56% profit after commission on some weekly SPY 127 puts that expire today. Entered in at 0.16/contract and exited at 0.28.
As you will see in the chart included, I have placed my entry and exits with yellow stars and my ideal target exit with a green star. The yellow dots in between some of the candles are times where I created an order to exit the trade and cancelled. I wanted to exit twice when I had generated 20% profit and once when I had over 25% loss.
(Click Chart to Enlarge)
My Entry (first yellow star) was just where I wanted it (below the daily pivot). I am still working on my exit execution and controlling of emotions. I usually write out how I feel about the market action or trade via either sharing with another trader via text, chat, twitter etc. When those aren’t my preferred choice I write it down on a notebook. It’s not foolproof but it helps me personally stick to my strategy and most of the time a trade.
I will provide more info about the chart for the curious ones… The purple dots represent the daily pivot point. The red dots represent resistance levels and the grey dots are support levels. The two red lines represent yesterday’s highs and lows so I would have an idea when that tight trend that developed yesterday would be broken. Also the chart is 5 minute to show the entries better but I prefer to use 15 minutes when day trading.
This is mainly on here for me to reflect on as an online public journal, they say when you publicly share something you are more committed to keeping it (in this case sticking to my strategy that works for me and just working on getting better at exits and emotions).
Update: As of 11:35AM Eastern it looks like my ideal exit has been hit and the put options were worth 0.49 a contract. Had I executed that the profits would have been 187% after commission but that’s in an ideal world. Another influencer in my premature exit (pun intended) was that Obama was set to speak around 11:35AM and I wanted to avoid any spikes that would ruin my trade.
As of 12:50PM SPY hit lower than the second support line in my chart. Emotions got the best of me and I did exit too early indeed (would have been 400% since my entry). Its hard to think of it that way. If i had exited at -25% loss (as mentioned earlier) I would be devastated for the day.
As the new InvestingFreak tag says: See it, Call it, Trade it, Bank it.
I Saw the potential for a down day, Called it by texting a fellow trader (will work on tweeting realtime to share ideas), Traded it, and well... Banked it.
Make some moneyyy!!
-K
A Tale of two Companies: Netflix ($NFLX) and Blockbuster (BLOAQ)
If you are reading this blog that means you are part of the online revolution which has sped up the way we conduct business and also the way we spend our leisure time.
The recent years have brought user generated videos, tv episodes and even full movies to the web. Gone are the VHS and DVD days where it cost $6-7 to rent a movie and in are the $10-15/month to watch unlimited movies. The company that revolutionized this was Netflix a few years back and that caused dear ol' brick and mortar Blockbuster to go belly-up.
Well Gentlemen and Ladies the beast is awakening from its two year sleep. In what might turn out to be a lengthy blog post I will be evaluating both Netflix and Blockbuster because in another week (December 15th) Blockbuster is expected to file its reorganization plan.
Lets start with Netflix $NFLX king which Since January 2010 alone is up a whopping 245% from $55 to $190 a share. Being a technical analysis freak I always look at the chart to see how the stock has done in the past and whether its shot up too far from the ground (my moving averages trio) and as you can see below the real ground is the 110 ema which right now stands at 151.37. I also use two shorter term averages in case I don't want to wait for a stock to go that low but with Netflix being $40+ above ground I am willing to wait. (Click Image to Enlarge)
Sure sure technicals are one thing but I also like to look under the hood at fundamentals. I plug balance sheet, income statement and other data into my system and what I get is an all in one visual of different ratios. The profit margins have increased over the years and that is a positive thing but Netflix's equity multiplier has increased from 1.78 to 3.41 which is basically doubled within the year and that signals to leveraging, all the profitability ratios are also good, but when we get to Liquidity ratios such as current and quick ratios we see a different story, Netflix has become more illiquid for better or worse. Lastly Long term debt to total assets has gone up significantly from 6% to 35% within a year so that might be a warning shot. And Finally the past few day Netflix has been under the influence of mostly negative news and especially tonight's after-hours news of its CFO "retiring".
Netflix receives a score of 57% (out of 100 of course) based on my hybrid system of technical analysis, fundamental and news and on we move into Blockbuster.
When was the last time you heard about Blockbuster? My educated guess would be around 2007 when they stopped advertising (started going belly-up). Well I do have some news for you and the news is that the Yellow and Blue logo is making a comeback but first lets keep the layout somewhat organized (neat freak) and start off with a chart.
Below is a chart using the exact averages as above but this one isn't as pretty and Blockbuster (BLOAQ) former $BBI has been "under ground" for quite some time. Even with the recent doubling of its price from 5 cents to 10 cents the ground hog hasn't been able to stick its head above the 12 cent ground for long. Back in May the ground hog (Blockbuster) poked its head, didn't see a shadow and that resulted in 6 more months of winter. So technically speaking, 12 cents has to be broken before the stock goes anywhere gooood. (Click Below to Enlarge)
Just because Blockbuster stock is yet to break out, that doesn't mean that the company isn't making steps into a re-emergence from bankruptcy. As mentioned in the beginning of this article Blockbuster should be submitting its plan on December 15th, meanwhile they have just closed 18 more physical stores in a move from offline to online media. For those of you that like purchasing dvds at a physical location, NCR Corp operates RedBox-like kiosks with Blockbuster logo and movies. Tests on about 900 kiosks are being run now in San Francisco, Miami etc to see if people would pay $3.99 for the first night to rent a new movie 28 days before it comes out to Netflix. Going into bankruptcy it had $1 billion in debt and coming out it is expected to have $100 million or less.
Just a few weeks ago Blockbuster received court approval for $20 million in advertising, it had not advertised since 2007 and they have already begun with a few ads showing their competitive edge of providing movies 28 days earlier than Netflix the ad campaign is called "Less Waiting. More Watching."
Another thing i noticed while looking website statistics and info is that when you search "new releases" on Google Blockbuster.com is #3 ranked and Netflix is #10.
Ok so why would I (or You) as a consumer want to pay $11.99/month for the 1 Dvd plan when Netflix is $9.99/month right now?
Well there is a big reason why I highlighted "right now" because it is the main reason Blockbuster is the only one to offer movies 28 days earlier since it costs $3.99/movie.
With Netflix's recent fame in the stock market more companies such as the movie studios will want to suck more money out of them and they (Netflix) will pay higher prices for the movies. At this moment either Net profit margins will begin declining if the $9.99 price is still valid or Netflix will be forced to charge $10.99, 11.99 12.99 etc and that will drive users to other competitors since the price advantage is no longer valid.
With the new campaign, Blockbuster's ad spending next month is to be three times as high as it was last December. The final month of the year is traditionally one of the most lucrative for the company, as summer event movies come out on DVD and families watch movies together over the holidays.
I will leave you with Blockbuster's new ad campaign that came out less than a week ago.
What a crook I would be if I didn't disclose my holdings. Short NFLX via option puts and long Blockbuster.
Investimonials Inspiration for InvestingFreak
I would like to take a few short minutes to Thank all the Freak-y readers for their support.
You can check out Investingfreaks' Investimonial page and leave a review for others to see so we can get more visibility.
There are currently two 5 star reviews and one email from a reader that found us through investimonials as well.
Here are what is being said about this blog.
Danny: "funny, sharp, witty blog and really timely notifications"
the creator of this blog warned his subscribers to be extra careful a couple days before the flash crash! check it out. go to the website and go back to may 6th and before! its a really funny blog too.
theres a nice little community of sharp traders at investingfreak. they share their trades and other speculations. really cool site, i love it
Tommy: "I bookmarked this site!"
This blog is great. The few traders that write for this thing are on point and comedic. That really helps keep the reading light and interesting. I wish they updated the blog more, but with all the market action that has been going on since the start of September. I can't blame them for that. When you find guys that are willing to share great information, take advantage of it.
Fetcher (via email)
You have to know that I truly enjoy using your blog. it's very useful and really effective tool for everyone! Actually I found it via investimonials.com, according to it your blog has few reviews but I think your blog deserves to be rated higher. So it would be a big step to ask your readers/visitors to leave reviews in investimonials.com.
Again I appreciate the voiced opinions because as much as I ask for comments in order to improve the site and content many just don't want to be bothered and pitch in.
One last thing is an update and apology. The last blog post before this was back in October and that is unacceptable but as Tommy mentioned about the market he is correct. (By the way I am long Blockbuster $BLOAQ, a January 165 Netflix $NFLX put which I acquired when Netflix was up at the $205 area a few days back)
I should begin posting more in the next few weeks. But if you are a reader you are urged to go to investimonials.com and write a review if you have something good to say. 
-K
When ETF’s don’t work ($VXX, $VIX)
We are all caught up in the new bubble that I would like to call the Great "Enron Task Force" (ETF).
Basically ETF's are usually set up to mimic indices that we cannot directly buy. That is a great way to stay invested and diversified if you believe the stock market in general will do good or bad. The number of Enron Task Forces is now reaching the gazillions and "investors" are so drawn into them that they are getting bigger and bigger and bigger (can you guess already?).
Here is SPY ETF compared to the index that it tries to replicate. (Click To Enlarge)
As you can see the mirroring effect is almost so perfect that by owning SPY shares you will make nearly the same percentage as how the S&P 500 has performed. Thats GREAT! It takes pain away from doing individual stock research. Of course if you still want to invest in specific stocks with minimal effort and AMAZING returns I would recommend Bear Sterns. After you have made millions in Bear Sterns get your attention back to this useless post.
Hey I have an Idea! I believe Volatility will increase and VIX index will keep going higher again. Hmm "Google Google on the wall whats the best ETF of them All?" Google: VXX for the win! So there you have it, if you want volatility there is an ETF for that. Alright time to cut to the chase because its nearing midnight. Click Below to Enlarge the Comparison between VIX and VXX.
Notice a Difference between the SPY comparison and the the VXX comparison? Gosh I hope so or get the FREAK out of here! They don't mirror each other AT ALL. They Barely did before last august and from then on its a whole different story. Speaking of stories... Thanks Dan for the heads up in the comments about the "VXX Reverse Split 1:4" story.
For those that are new to stock splits a quick search can yield a lot of information but I will spare that for you by explaining in my own words what will happen here.
When VXX reverse splits in the first week of November (lets assume its at $13 on that day) it will start showing up as a $52 instead. How can they just change the price? Well If you owned 4 shares of VXX now you will own just 1 later thats how.
Ok finally getting to the finish. A reverse split is bad because instead of increasing the amount of shares outstanding, the company is making this move to make the stock look like it has more value when in fact is the same crappy thing. I will not be playing VXX but seeing the "oh so perfect" mirroring effect it has done so far I congratulate those who will keep shorting it via whatever method works for them and reaping profits until VXX slashes in half once again.
Thats it for now and I hope that helped clear your question Dan. Volatility will not get a spark just because Barclays "Enron Task Force" will have a "higher price". If you're still confused or stumble upon other interesting things that you would like to share, the boxes are right below the post most of the time.
Happy Trading all and to all a good night!
-K
SPY’der Pig Spy’der Pig!
Well it surely has been a lifetime (one month) since I last posted but don't blame me much because life has become much busier and time consuming. Don't worry though I won't leave fellow freaks without some delicious charts before I return to the freakishly busy life of mine .
First off for some humor Here's my Inspiration to the awesome title.
Ok so without even mentioning any recent news because I really don't care if the Economy officially came out of recession last summer or if Larry Summers will finally leave his post at the end of the year because I am a technical trader and I like to trade what I see rather than what I hear. If I traded what I heard then I would be a BOOOYAH Cramerica Fan which would have made me millionaire by now if I had invested billions.
Lets start off with an hourly chart for the past 20 days of the SPY so we can see what happened while the blog was inactive.
I will not reveal the indicators of lines used in the chart but with some trial and error you might be able to figure it out . As you can see starting September 1st the market broke above the blue line while at the same time volume picked up and a special indicator went from red to green. SPY at the time was around 107 and today it reached a high of nearly 115.
Thats great and all as we see what happened in the past but what about the "Freak"ing future? I am not calling a market top yet but I must make my intentions known that if either 115 or 113 are broken on the hourly while the volume is there then that will determine the future. If I were to call it? I would say the volume increased the last two hours of today's trading thanks to Ben Balloonhead and the special indicator below is heading downhill (but still green). My ideal trade would be when SPY cuts below 113 and the indicator turns red. Remember that even if what I am preaching does not happen at least it is a more informed decision than pressing a "Buy Buy Buy, Sell Sell Sell" button. (Click Image below to Enlarge)
Next up we will visit something I like to call the Bollinger Bands and again I will not reveal the inputs but I hope you are understanding (you can always figure it out with some hard work), as you can see I have also shown the signals my system has given to me. I am awaiting for that Sell signal which might send SPY to 110's at the very least if it displays me that lovely red "S". of course there have been times where the market just consolidates along the blue lines and then moves up in which case I wouldn't enter until I see my system print the signals while I also evaluate the chart already posted above.
Are you falling asleep yet? If so you aren't a real Investing Freak because only the elite know that without doing your homework you will go into the market like a headless chicken and come out a loser. Now Time to introduce the updated Investing Freak special chart which I last displayed back in June. If you click on the link and go to that post you will see a "price line" drawn near 1152 (it's really just a bit over 1150 if you get microscopical), I mention that because today the market reached up to 1048.59 and retreated a full 10 points! 10 points is a sweet intra-day move which you can make a killing on if you play it right. Anyways here is the updated chart since I can see you falling asleep. (Click below to Enlarge)
Recap: I've been busy, market has been behaving according to plan and is not showing more negative signs than positive but no definite reversal has been noticed so just use the charts above for reference. If they are helpful, you are welcome to post comments so we can liven up the blog again.
Until next post.... Enjoy Making money!!
-K
Existing Home Sales Plunge, Unemployment to do the reverse
Existing Home Sales which are more important than the new home sales data plunged over 27% year over year, the amount of sales was the lowest since 1995. At the current pace it will take over 1 year (yes 12+ months) to sell the existing houses out there.
People have begun losing their jobs once again after a few months of lowering unemployment claims. How do I back this up? No data other than I now have more than one close acquaintance that within the next 2-3 weeks will receive a pink slip. They survived during the worst of it all and now employers are deciding its time to let go. Thats amazing! Keep your profits because you wont be making as much money in the future with 15% of the american workforce unable to afford staples such as bread without a food stamp.
On the currency front according to ZeroHedge
And once again, all of Europe is dumping its deposits in Switzerland, running away from domestic banking centers, and making the lives of Hungarian CHF-denominated debtors a living hell. The EURCHF just hit an all time low of 1.3066. The Bank intervention sonar just went apeshit as both the BoJ and the SNB are fully expected to intervene at any moment.
Technically Speaking? See for yourself how the market has acted recently especially since I officially returned from break August 6th.
K- August 6th, 2010
vacation just ended today so it will take me at least a week to slowly get the groove back. be patient this time...
Euro/Usd and SPX have been in a water slide since. Its hard getting from Information overload mode to 2 month no internet and back to information overload so I tire out by all the information I once processed in a usual day so the recovery process puts me on tract to return trading right after labor day and the Special chart that hasn't been posted here in a bit as well. (Click to Enlarge)
Happy Trading and make money trading not listening to baldies at CNBC unless he entertains you and the advice isnt followed.
-K
The Perfectly Timed Vacation
It's been six weeks and the stockless and unwired vacation has wound down. To my surprise I see that BP bottomed right when I covered my July puts at a profit and since its nearly 39% up. Euro went from 1.22's to 1.33's and so on. Its time for me to find the reigns and take control of the market once more.
It will be a week or two until I get my trading groove on but for now i've updated the Current Pick's page on top.
here are the main indices.
Market Indices
| Symbol | Description | Buy Date | Sell Date |
|---|---|---|---|
|
$SPX
|
S&P 500 INDEX
|
7-7-2010
|
|
|
SPY
|
SPDR S&P 500 ETF
|
7-7-2010
|
|
|
$INDU
|
Dow Jones Industrial Average
|
7-7-2010
|
|
|
$COMPX
|
NASDAQ Composite
|
7-8-2010
|
|
|
QQQQ
|
PowerShares QQQ (ETF)
|
7-8-2010
|
|
|
IWM
|
iShares Russell 2000 Index (ETF)
|
8-6-2010
|
Hope its been a profitable 100 point market move for my fellow readers and here's to more fun swings to come.
-K
First Day of Summer
Its June 21st and officially first day of summer. With that being said a summer vacation is in the works which might result in some inactivity on here.
But until then I will not stop improving and updating the blog. Last week I managed to get the blog running from 7 second load page to less than 2 which is 3x faster.
Next up was the much neglected Current Picks page that wasn't updated since May 15th. That is now checked off the list and also an improvement in the look of the current picks page was done. Here is a before and after shot.
Next up on that page is to have a visual chart for at least the main indices but don't expect it anytime soon.
Getting away from general information and into market talk. It seems like 6-10-2010 was a turning date for the majority of the symbols that my system tracks. The S&P is up 31 points (nearly 3%) since then. One thing i noticed is that 1139 is strong resistance if it the market gets that high.
Seeing this i decided to have some fun by plugging in BP stock into the system and i'll let the chart speak for itself. Keep in mind BP rig exploded April 20th.
The Futures are up 13 points (1%). Only scheduled news is for Bennies counterpart Trichet to speak at 12:30pm. Unscheduled news? well the US navy moving around in the Red Sea and the Israeli crafting a new "do not bring into Gaza" list.
Update: Oh and what's this? Far offshore, crews drill into Gulf to stop oil (AP) Relief well? Ay Dios Mio!! The only little people left after this will be BP shareholders and pension funds. They dont know how much oil is underneath there... oh wait one relief well might not be enough because the aim has to be precise so lets drill about 50 and deplete the oil ASAP and when the bottom of the gulf becomes an empty cavity without the oil and collapses on itself it'll look like a humongous version of the Guatemalan Sinkhole and lets not mention the Mega Earthquake a crashing of the seafloor would create but wait lets add some tsunami for a topping . I realize i'm being a bit unrealistic as this takes time but lets put it this way,I might still be alive when it happens and it will not be pretty.
Make Money!!
-K
BP Cares about the small people
As you might have figured out by now, BP plc (ADR) Chairman and the CEO met with President Obama ONLY two months after the oil spill disaster.
Of course as I mentioned in the previous post BP now stands for Bad Publicity so nothing was unexpected on my end when the Chairman said: "I hear comments sometimes that large oil companies are greedy companies or don’t care, but that is not the case with BP. We care about the small people." Bad publicity this time will cause BP to buy google ads for keywords such as petite, small, midgets, oompa loompa. They needed a leprechaun to give them some lucky charms but now they insulted the small guy.
Did you hear that? BP cares about you so much that if you are in the Gulf of Mexico and for the next century your fishing or tourism business is doomed.. BP has put together $20 billion dollar fund for your damage It is truly truly truly sorry. Oh and If you weren't affected by BP but are part of US pension funds – including Calpers, the Teacher Retirement System of Texas and Ohio Public Employees Retirement System then BP is truly truly truly sorry for you as well because the 12% dividend yield that you saw a few days ago will be reduced to 0% so they can spread that wealth to the victims. You can enjoy your -50% gain in BP stock now.
But wait I forgot to mention one benefit of this disaster. BP has hired cleanup workers to clean things up and this good news for the people of the Gulf. Hey you just got promoted from fisherman to fish rescuer, Congrats!! Just sign here on the dotted line ........... and just make sure to not get sea sick from the delicious fumes because your complaints and health information will never be part of BP's record.
BP attempted to deny and conceal links of its oil spill to illnesses, after initial reports of oil cleanup workers who were getting sick due to extended exposure to oil and dispersants. Fishermen have complained of “severe headaches, dizziness, nausea and difficulty breathing” after working to clean up the spill, and one said BP did not provide protective equipment. But BP CEO Tony Hayward brushed off illness concerns, suggesting “food poisoning” might have been the culprit.
Although Louisiana state records indicate that at least 74 oil spill workers have complained of becoming sick after exposure to pollutants, BP’s own official recordkeeping notes just two such incidents.
You all should feel sorry for BP Because it will take anywhere from 100 days to 365 days for BP to make back the $20 billion in profit while the victims sit at home and receive checks.
Ok fine that's less than a year's worth of profits... But this is just a fund for economic damage, and won't protect it against all sorts of other legal costs. According to NYT legal costs and criminal fees could hit at least $63 billion. WHOOPS! Hey NYSE:BP stock... you will be missed when you hit $19 but on the bright side! You'll be a teenager again full of energy (pun intended) !
And now for a mini change of subject. Senate has now accepted an expanded Fed audit. The House proposal allows repeated future audits of discount window and open market transactions, whereas the Senate proposal had only allowed a one-time audit. Of course this is just a grain of salt and even when it's passed it might be years before we see any audits.