Category: Stock Picks

The S&P 500 ($SPX.X) started last year with a blink by dipping below its few months of an upward trend.  That dip shows on my weekly price chart for the past three years of SPX.  That blink turned into a tick that kept coming back throughout the past year.  Finally, when we feel like shutting our eyes and just waiting until it’s all over there might be hope, at least in the short term again.  I have a few reasons …

Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc (FCX) has been getting spanked and I’ve been along for the ride for most of the $60 decline.  I got out with a full profit with shear luck when FCX spiked briefly after 100 shares were assigned to me at $105 with July options’ expiration.  I paused and got back in with an FCX September 85 naked put that is now deep in the money.  Using options, I was in …

I’m taking more of a beating than expected lately.  I was down slightly more than the usual ups and downs of my account’s ebbs and flows last week and then this week I’ve be absolutely waxed.  I’ve had a few of these spells over the past couple of years and once it feels like the bottom is falling out (aka yesterday and today) that tends to be the turning point.  This is the hardest part of investing to me - …

Last week I charted the NASDAQ Comp Index and the only words I bolded were “bearish cross over”.  This is the prime reason I chart indexes, too see these macro trends which help me avoid certain sectors.  The NASDAQ fell almost 5% last week immediately after its bearish cross over of its 10 and 20 day moving averages.

This week I’m charting the Dow Jones Industrial Average ($DJI) aka DJIA.  It’s not quite as easy to …

I’ve been watching Celgene Corp (CELG) ever since my last naked puts expired and yesterday morning I put in a limit order to sell new ones if it dropped deeper.  I’m nervous about all sectors right now the way the economy is looking, but figured if a safer haven can be found it might be in Healthcare - Biotechnology and Drugs.

While CELG was trading at $66.49, five minutes before bottoming for the day (so far) at $64.63 my order hit …

Joy Global (JOYG) gapped down today after beating estimates, but with aid from tax related gains and that didn’t please the masses.  Their outlook is still good, but the market didn’t treat it that way.  I own 100 shares that I bought much higher after being assigned an earlier naked put at $75.00.  I’ve sold covered calls since then and reduced my cost to around $57.50 with today’s trade, but with the gap down today I’m sitting on a paper loss …

I’ve spent some time this morning trying to find a new trade, but can’t zero in on anything that seems like a good move. I went back to this week’s Barron’s and saw that even the strategists they polled can’t come up with a good consensus of what’s hot and what’s not.

Six of them say to avoid Consumer Discretionary stocks and three say they favor the same sector.
Four say to avoid Financials and two favor Financials.
None of them says to …

I charted the NASDAQ NMS Composite Index ($COMP) for the past year’s daily price action ending August 29th, 2008.  At a glance this chart could look like it’s leaning bullish, but when you zero in on some details that bull might not be a good buy.

At a glance you could see that the Naz broke the downward trend line of lower highs, but when you look closer you see that break was only intraday and could not have a repeat close …

My Sunday series of index charts continues today with the S&P 500 ($SPX).  This time I took a shorter view and only went back three months to see a daily view of the price changes.  The SPX is getting to an interesting place in its trend line movement.  The longer term downward trend of lower highs is coming to a point soon with the upward trend of higher lows.  One of the trend lines of higher lows broke last …