Citigroup (C) - Quick Takes Pro Chart of the Day

April 17, 2012 - Citigroup (C)

Random Thoughts

It's a little ugly out there. The Quack sold off fairly hard out of a "micro" First Thrust. The S&P remains set up as the same pattern. And, the Rusty remains set up as a Bowtie down.

Again, I hope these patterns don't work this time. As I've been preaching, a few big up days would fix this.

Even though the recent market action scores as a bummer, now's not the time to make any big picture predictions and bet the farm (which for me, would be a literal thing).

So, what do we do? For now, the plan remains the same with the addition of #4:

1)Honor your stops on existing positions just in case this turns into something bigger.

2)Be selective on new positions. Trade the best and leave the rest.

3)Wait for entries on new positions. Again, as I preach, this can often keep you out of new trouble.

4)Start thinking about firing off a short or two but keep #2 and #3 in mind.

Again, don't make any big picture decisions. If the market begins to roll over, there should be plenty of time to get short. There's no need to be a hero. Yeah, fire off one or two if the opportunity presents itself but don't dump your longs and become a Ursidae Shortalotagus.

Futures are firm pre-market.

Click here to watch today's Market in a Minute.

Best of luck with your trading today!

Barchart.com's Chart of the Day - Essex Property Trust (ESS) for Apr 17, 2012

The "Chart of the Day" is Essex Property Trust (ESS), which showed up on Monday's Barchart "All-Time High" list. Essex on Monday rallied to a new all-time high of $154.62 and closed up 1.92%. TrendSpotter has been Long since March 13 at $148.74. In recent news on the stock, Essex on Feb 23 raised its quarterly dividend by 5.8% to $1.10. Stifel Nicolaus on March 14 downgraded Essex to Hold from Buy based on valuation. Essex Property Trust, with a market cap of $5 billion, is a real estate investment trust specializing in multifamily residential and retail properties.

Holy banked some coin on COIN today. Textbook play. I'm doing a video re-cap for members which will be posted a little later tonight. Great one to learn from. Here's what I'm watching for Tuesday:

ADY AFTC ALTI BCLE CCGY COIN CYBI EGT EVDR GMXR HAUP IBIO ICPA LEE LIVE LUXR NGHT OPWV PSDV RHCO RSRS SEFE SMSI SNAX SNPK SQNM SWSH TTEG USAT VRNG ZAAP ZOOM

LNG just got approval for there NG plant from government only one in the country has went up over 10% in the week + almost 2% in aftermarket
bought for a cool 15$!

After spending years developing automated intraday trading strategies for the futures markets, I have switched gears to focusing on swing trading with a 5-20 day holding period. Although my strategies on intraday markets are profitable, commissions and slippage eat up too much of the profits. By switching to swing trading, I am able to produce better risk adjusted returns.

I still utilize most of the techniques I developed for day trading. For example, instead of filtering stocks based on unproven filters or based on my gut, my software automatically scores all 500 S&P stocks based on hundreds of patterns it has identified as containing a statistical edge.

This scoring produces several stocks daily, which I then further analyze to determine which I will buy the following day. I just recently switched to this trading style, but I am recording all my picks and analysis on my personal blog. http://www.mystockanalysis.com

I will start posting daily updates here as well. These updates will have the stocks I am looking to buy, as well as updates on my overall progress. I invite you to ask questions or make suggestions.

Great Seminar to start the week off tonight. I'll post the chat log to the members only forum section soon. Here's what I'm watching for Monday:

ALXA CAGR CATA CNIT COIN COYN DRWN ENTB GBHL GTIM HPGS NVIV PLPE QTMM RHCO SATC SHMX SNAX

KGJI COGO FONR LPH JOEZ SNSS FFEX PSDV QPSA VRML AMRS

This thread is for discussing long term highest probability investments using options only.

This thread is for discussion of IPOs.

http://antichartjunk.com/2012/04/16/week-16/


Buy or Sell: Sell

Long into Week 16: ISRG (short term into Tuesday ER)

Add to watchlist as initial or secondary buys, but do not buy until market shows buy signals:

BIDU ? 142.59 to 149.72

FUL ? 31.72 to 33.31

MELI ? 103.08 to 108.23

SAVE ? 20.76 to 21.80

TDG ? 118.31 to 124.23

TNGO ? 20 to 21

TRIP ? 35.02 to 36.77

VMW ? 111.53 to 117.11 (note 5 year chart)

UA ? 99.20 to 104.16

Add to watchlist as secondary buys only, but do not buy until market shows buy signals:

AAPL ? bounce from 50-day

ALXN ? bounce from 50-day

BWLD ? bounce from 50-day

CF ? bounce from 50-day

CLR ? bounce from 50-day

GNC ? 33.80

HLF ? bounce from 50-day

KORS ? bounce from 50-day

LULU ? bounce from 50-day

MELI ? bounce from 50-day

QCOR ? bounce from 50-day

RAX ? bounce from 50-day

SWI ? bounce from 50-day

VFC ? 150.1

VRX ? 55.69

And dozens of other quality stocks at their 50-day moving average (or 10-week moving average), but remember now is a risky time to be buying

?Chartjunk refers to all visual elements in charts and graphs that are not necessary to comprehend the information represented on the graph, or that distract the viewer from this information.?- as defined by Wikipedia and Edward R. Tufte

Antichartjunk
http://antichartjunk.com