January 2006 Archives

Well I was half-joking this morning when I said that the real big event for the day would be Google's earning's report. Turns out that was definitely the case. The action in the broader market was muted today but things heated up in the after-hours session. GOOG is down about 63 points (only about 15%) after missing their earnings estimate. It's dragging some other stocks, and the QQQQ, down with it. Yahoo (YHOO), for example, is back near its January lows and the QQQQ is now below its 50-day moving average. It's looking like a tough day for selected tech stocks tomorrow. (AAPL is back under its 50 DMA in the after-hours session too.)

Here's the Nasdaq chart, which looks like it's due for a pullback. It's got overbought stochastic and has been hovering under that resistance around 2310.

The futures are basically flat this morning and I wouldn't expect much out of the indices until after the Fed decision at 2:15. But the real big event will be GOOG's earnings report after hours! ;-) And speaking of Google, these GOOG for Napster rumors have launched NAPS into orbit. I wonder if it can get back to double digits. Hmm, maybe I won't take the day off after all...

Here's the current Nasdaq chart. I'm watching that red line of resistance which is holding the index back from new highs.

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

It's relatively quiet this morning. The futures are just a bit above fair value and there are less gappers than we've had the last several days. (And AAPL is selling off again!) A couple of Cramer's Mad Money mentions from Friday are toward the top of the % gainers list this monring. Isn't that just silly?

Anyway, I'm taking tomorrow off, as I always do for Fed decision days. Unless I see some very compelling movers early in today's session I'll be taking today off as well.

Hmm, Maybe GOOG will make me hang around. I want to see how it reacts to this, which I just saw on Briefing.com:

According to the NY Post, Google's long-simmering click-fraud problem could explode into a billion-dollar headache for the Web giant, some Web marketing experts are warning. In fact, a growing number of Google-watchers claim the search giant is ignoring the click-fraud issue because it's so large. Click-fraud happens when surfers click on Goggle advertisers with no desire to get to the advertiser's site. Knowing Google charges advertisers based on how many surfers click on their ads, the fraudsters click on the ads simply to drive up the advertiser's costs. The fraud also falsely inflated Google's revenues. The estimates on the Street, if even close to being true, could rock the stock market darling, set to announce fourth-quarter results Tuesday. "If Google were to implement a method for stopping click fraud today, it would lose 30 percent of its revenue overnight," said Joseph Holcomb, a search marketing expert. Holcomb estimates that almost one-third of all clicks on Google's network are suspect, thanks to sophisticated software programs known as "click bots" or "hit bots" that mimic human activity and fool search engines into believing the clicks are legit. With Google set to report about $6 billion in annual revenue, Holcomb's estimate would put $2 billion in top-line revenue at risk. Google denies the problem is that large.

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

I was surprised to see so many bearish candlesticks made on Friday given the strength in the indices. (You can see how many more bearish patterns were made Friday.) Maybe it was just people getting flat ahead of Tuesday's Fed decision. I won't be surprised if trading is somewhat muted tomorrow as traders keep their wallets on their hips ahead of Tuesday. That's exactly where my wallet will be because I'm taking a couple of days off. I'll get back to trading on Wednesday.

Below are charts of the Nasdaq, S&P 500 and the SOX. The SOX is looking really good, despite the weakness in INTC -- I guess there is some benefit to price-weighted indices. Here's -- the SOX is basically flat while INTEL is down over 30%. It'd be interesting to see what the SOX would look like if it were market cap weighted... Anyway, the point is that there are plenty of semiconductor stocks on fire. I'll continue to keep a select group of semis on my screen.

Oh yeah, I have to post a chart of Apple, which has been showing terrible relative strength the last few days. Somebody is really unloading their AAPL shares. But now the stock's about 16% off its all-time high and is 'trapped' between support and its 50-day moving average. I'll be watching and waiting for it to climb back above its 50-day moving average.

You guessed it, another gap up this morning. This time the QQQQ is above yesterday's high (41.68) and its 50-day moving average (41.69). The Qs have actually dropped a bit after the 8:30 economic numbers and now appear to be heading for a test of support. So I'm looking for them to bounce off of the 50-day moving average...

Some stocks that I'm watching that aren't on the gappers list below:

SIMO
SPWR
SPIL
LLTC
AMAT
XLNX

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

Today was obviously a good day for the bulls with the Nasdaq up 1% and the S&P 500 up 0.72%, both on increasing volume. Because the Nasdaq has broken above its December highs, its chart looks slightly better than the S&P to me. I think any hopes the bears had of the 50-day moving averages breaking have to be slipping away. (And so much for that falling three methods pattern!) However, the NDX/QQQQ and Dow are still beneath their 50-day moving averages. That may change tomorrow, especially for the QQQQ, thanks to the post-earnings action in MSFT and BRCM in after hours trading tonight. So all of a sudden things are looking much better. It almost looks like clear sailing to the January highs. The one hurdle that all the aforementioned charts have in common is the January downward sloping trendline (see the blue lines on the charts below).

The earnings calendar is light for tomorrow so I don't much threat from negative earnings news in the morning. It could be a wild one in the semiconductor sector tomorrow based on how BRCM's trading tonight...

What was that I said about 'Groundhog Day' yesterday? Let's see, I can simply modify a sentence from yesterday to -- We're gapping up again and for the second third day in a row and the QQQQ is bumping up against the previous day's highs in the pre-market. This is why I always avoided swing-trading through earnings season. These gap opening would drive me nuts, even if I was positioned on the correct side of the gap it seemed that the gaps more often than not got faded.

Anyway, I'll be watching yesterday's highs on the QQQQ for a breakout.

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

Here's a chart of DNA for Mike:

This is one of my "no man's (person's) land" stocks. It's between the 50 and 200-day moving averages which signals to me an intermediate term downtrend and a long(er) term uptrend. Or you could say that it's just been going sideways for months -- it's right where it was last July. So the outlook largely depends on one's time frame.

The stock is at a critical juncture now though. It tested its 200-day moving average on Monday and Tuesday. IMHO, if any stock is health it should find support at the 200. I think the recent action is a great low risk buy point for long term oriented people. The recent lows give you a nice, tight stop-loss point.

Will wrote:

Wondering what your opinion is of nelnet (NNI)? It's an interesting chart that has shown a lot of strength when its peers have not.

My opinion is simply "hang on"! Of course, that is if you're already long it. It's obviously a great performing stock. If I wasn't in I'd be looking for a low risk spot to jump onboard.

I have even less than usual to say about the market today. My view is petty much exactly the same as yesterday -- and my falling three methods is still intact. :-)

Here's the Nasdaq chart:

On another note, this is the first time I've actually tried shorting on of Cramer's "Mad Money" mentions in the after-hours session. Only because I happened to still have my Briefing.com running did I even notice that he mentioned SMDI and popped it about 30%. I had to short it -- easiest money I've ever made! One could make a career out of shorting into the Cramer induced mania each night. Hmm...

Update: I keep forgetting to post the QQQQ chart. It looks a lot like the Nasdaq chart with the major exception being that it's beneath its 50-day moving average. I'm actually amazed that its October trendline hasn't been broken yet given the action in the likes of INTC and YHOO. MSFT reports earnings tomorrow night, that may be the make-or-break event for the Qs...

Well I was half-joking this morning when I said that the real big event for the day would be Google's earning's report. Turns out that was definitely the case. The action in the broader market was muted today but things heated up in the after-hours session. GOOG is down about 63 points (only about 15%) after missing their earnings estimate. It's dragging some other stocks, and the QQQQ, down with it. Yahoo (YHOO), for example, is back near its January lows and the QQQQ is now below its 50-day moving average. It's looking like a tough day for selected tech stocks tomorrow. (AAPL is back under its 50 DMA in the after-hours session too.)

Here's the Nasdaq chart, which looks like it's due for a pullback. It's got overbought stochastic and has been hovering under that resistance around 2310.

The futures are basically flat this morning and I wouldn't expect much out of the indices until after the Fed decision at 2:15. But the real big event will be GOOG's earnings report after hours! ;-) And speaking of Google, these GOOG for Napster rumors have launched NAPS into orbit. I wonder if it can get back to double digits. Hmm, maybe I won't take the day off after all...

Here's the current Nasdaq chart. I'm watching that red line of resistance which is holding the index back from new highs.

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

It's relatively quiet this morning. The futures are just a bit above fair value and there are less gappers than we've had the last several days. (And AAPL is selling off again!) A couple of Cramer's Mad Money mentions from Friday are toward the top of the % gainers list this monring. Isn't that just silly?

Anyway, I'm taking tomorrow off, as I always do for Fed decision days. Unless I see some very compelling movers early in today's session I'll be taking today off as well.

Hmm, Maybe GOOG will make me hang around. I want to see how it reacts to this, which I just saw on Briefing.com:

According to the NY Post, Google's long-simmering click-fraud problem could explode into a billion-dollar headache for the Web giant, some Web marketing experts are warning. In fact, a growing number of Google-watchers claim the search giant is ignoring the click-fraud issue because it's so large. Click-fraud happens when surfers click on Goggle advertisers with no desire to get to the advertiser's site. Knowing Google charges advertisers based on how many surfers click on their ads, the fraudsters click on the ads simply to drive up the advertiser's costs. The fraud also falsely inflated Google's revenues. The estimates on the Street, if even close to being true, could rock the stock market darling, set to announce fourth-quarter results Tuesday. "If Google were to implement a method for stopping click fraud today, it would lose 30 percent of its revenue overnight," said Joseph Holcomb, a search marketing expert. Holcomb estimates that almost one-third of all clicks on Google's network are suspect, thanks to sophisticated software programs known as "click bots" or "hit bots" that mimic human activity and fool search engines into believing the clicks are legit. With Google set to report about $6 billion in annual revenue, Holcomb's estimate would put $2 billion in top-line revenue at risk. Google denies the problem is that large.

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

I was surprised to see so many bearish candlesticks made on Friday given the strength in the indices. (You can see how many more bearish patterns were made Friday.) Maybe it was just people getting flat ahead of Tuesday's Fed decision. I won't be surprised if trading is somewhat muted tomorrow as traders keep their wallets on their hips ahead of Tuesday. That's exactly where my wallet will be because I'm taking a couple of days off. I'll get back to trading on Wednesday.

Below are charts of the Nasdaq, S&P 500 and the SOX. The SOX is looking really good, despite the weakness in INTC -- I guess there is some benefit to price-weighted indices. Here's -- the SOX is basically flat while INTEL is down over 30%. It'd be interesting to see what the SOX would look like if it were market cap weighted... Anyway, the point is that there are plenty of semiconductor stocks on fire. I'll continue to keep a select group of semis on my screen.

Oh yeah, I have to post a chart of Apple, which has been showing terrible relative strength the last few days. Somebody is really unloading their AAPL shares. But now the stock's about 16% off its all-time high and is 'trapped' between support and its 50-day moving average. I'll be watching and waiting for it to climb back above its 50-day moving average.

You guessed it, another gap up this morning. This time the QQQQ is above yesterday's high (41.68) and its 50-day moving average (41.69). The Qs have actually dropped a bit after the 8:30 economic numbers and now appear to be heading for a test of support. So I'm looking for them to bounce off of the 50-day moving average...

Some stocks that I'm watching that aren't on the gappers list below:

SIMO
SPWR
SPIL
LLTC
AMAT
XLNX

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

Today was obviously a good day for the bulls with the Nasdaq up 1% and the S&P 500 up 0.72%, both on increasing volume. Because the Nasdaq has broken above its December highs, its chart looks slightly better than the S&P to me. I think any hopes the bears had of the 50-day moving averages breaking have to be slipping away. (And so much for that falling three methods pattern!) However, the NDX/QQQQ and Dow are still beneath their 50-day moving averages. That may change tomorrow, especially for the QQQQ, thanks to the post-earnings action in MSFT and BRCM in after hours trading tonight. So all of a sudden things are looking much better. It almost looks like clear sailing to the January highs. The one hurdle that all the aforementioned charts have in common is the January downward sloping trendline (see the blue lines on the charts below).

The earnings calendar is light for tomorrow so I don't much threat from negative earnings news in the morning. It could be a wild one in the semiconductor sector tomorrow based on how BRCM's trading tonight...

What was that I said about 'Groundhog Day' yesterday? Let's see, I can simply modify a sentence from yesterday to -- We're gapping up again and for the second third day in a row and the QQQQ is bumping up against the previous day's highs in the pre-market. This is why I always avoided swing-trading through earnings season. These gap opening would drive me nuts, even if I was positioned on the correct side of the gap it seemed that the gaps more often than not got faded.

Anyway, I'll be watching yesterday's highs on the QQQQ for a breakout.

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

Here's a chart of DNA for Mike:

This is one of my "no man's (person's) land" stocks. It's between the 50 and 200-day moving averages which signals to me an intermediate term downtrend and a long(er) term uptrend. Or you could say that it's just been going sideways for months -- it's right where it was last July. So the outlook largely depends on one's time frame.

The stock is at a critical juncture now though. It tested its 200-day moving average on Monday and Tuesday. IMHO, if any stock is health it should find support at the 200. I think the recent action is a great low risk buy point for long term oriented people. The recent lows give you a nice, tight stop-loss point.

Will wrote:

Wondering what your opinion is of nelnet (NNI)? It's an interesting chart that has shown a lot of strength when its peers have not.

My opinion is simply "hang on"! Of course, that is if you're already long it. It's obviously a great performing stock. If I wasn't in I'd be looking for a low risk spot to jump onboard.

I have even less than usual to say about the market today. My view is petty much exactly the same as yesterday -- and my falling three methods is still intact. :-)

Here's the Nasdaq chart:

On another note, this is the first time I've actually tried shorting on of Cramer's "Mad Money" mentions in the after-hours session. Only because I happened to still have my Briefing.com running did I even notice that he mentioned SMDI and popped it about 30%. I had to short it -- easiest money I've ever made! One could make a career out of shorting into the Cramer induced mania each night. Hmm...

Update: I keep forgetting to post the QQQQ chart. It looks a lot like the Nasdaq chart with the major exception being that it's beneath its 50-day moving average. I'm actually amazed that its October trendline hasn't been broken yet given the action in the likes of INTC and YHOO. MSFT reports earnings tomorrow night, that may be the make-or-break event for the Qs...

Well I was half-joking this morning when I said that the real big event for the day would be Google's earning's report. Turns out that was definitely the case. The action in the broader market was muted today but things heated up in the after-hours session. GOOG is down about 63 points (only about 15%) after missing their earnings estimate. It's dragging some other stocks, and the QQQQ, down with it. Yahoo (YHOO), for example, is back near its January lows and the QQQQ is now below its 50-day moving average. It's looking like a tough day for selected tech stocks tomorrow. (AAPL is back under its 50 DMA in the after-hours session too.)

Here's the Nasdaq chart, which looks like it's due for a pullback. It's got overbought stochastic and has been hovering under that resistance around 2310.

The futures are basically flat this morning and I wouldn't expect much out of the indices until after the Fed decision at 2:15. But the real big event will be GOOG's earnings report after hours! ;-) And speaking of Google, these GOOG for Napster rumors have launched NAPS into orbit. I wonder if it can get back to double digits. Hmm, maybe I won't take the day off after all...

Here's the current Nasdaq chart. I'm watching that red line of resistance which is holding the index back from new highs.

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

It's relatively quiet this morning. The futures are just a bit above fair value and there are less gappers than we've had the last several days. (And AAPL is selling off again!) A couple of Cramer's Mad Money mentions from Friday are toward the top of the % gainers list this monring. Isn't that just silly?

Anyway, I'm taking tomorrow off, as I always do for Fed decision days. Unless I see some very compelling movers early in today's session I'll be taking today off as well.

Hmm, Maybe GOOG will make me hang around. I want to see how it reacts to this, which I just saw on Briefing.com:

According to the NY Post, Google's long-simmering click-fraud problem could explode into a billion-dollar headache for the Web giant, some Web marketing experts are warning. In fact, a growing number of Google-watchers claim the search giant is ignoring the click-fraud issue because it's so large. Click-fraud happens when surfers click on Goggle advertisers with no desire to get to the advertiser's site. Knowing Google charges advertisers based on how many surfers click on their ads, the fraudsters click on the ads simply to drive up the advertiser's costs. The fraud also falsely inflated Google's revenues. The estimates on the Street, if even close to being true, could rock the stock market darling, set to announce fourth-quarter results Tuesday. "If Google were to implement a method for stopping click fraud today, it would lose 30 percent of its revenue overnight," said Joseph Holcomb, a search marketing expert. Holcomb estimates that almost one-third of all clicks on Google's network are suspect, thanks to sophisticated software programs known as "click bots" or "hit bots" that mimic human activity and fool search engines into believing the clicks are legit. With Google set to report about $6 billion in annual revenue, Holcomb's estimate would put $2 billion in top-line revenue at risk. Google denies the problem is that large.

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

I was surprised to see so many bearish candlesticks made on Friday given the strength in the indices. (You can see how many more bearish patterns were made Friday.) Maybe it was just people getting flat ahead of Tuesday's Fed decision. I won't be surprised if trading is somewhat muted tomorrow as traders keep their wallets on their hips ahead of Tuesday. That's exactly where my wallet will be because I'm taking a couple of days off. I'll get back to trading on Wednesday.

Below are charts of the Nasdaq, S&P 500 and the SOX. The SOX is looking really good, despite the weakness in INTC -- I guess there is some benefit to price-weighted indices. Here's -- the SOX is basically flat while INTEL is down over 30%. It'd be interesting to see what the SOX would look like if it were market cap weighted... Anyway, the point is that there are plenty of semiconductor stocks on fire. I'll continue to keep a select group of semis on my screen.

Oh yeah, I have to post a chart of Apple, which has been showing terrible relative strength the last few days. Somebody is really unloading their AAPL shares. But now the stock's about 16% off its all-time high and is 'trapped' between support and its 50-day moving average. I'll be watching and waiting for it to climb back above its 50-day moving average.

You guessed it, another gap up this morning. This time the QQQQ is above yesterday's high (41.68) and its 50-day moving average (41.69). The Qs have actually dropped a bit after the 8:30 economic numbers and now appear to be heading for a test of support. So I'm looking for them to bounce off of the 50-day moving average...

Some stocks that I'm watching that aren't on the gappers list below:

SIMO
SPWR
SPIL
LLTC
AMAT
XLNX

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

Today was obviously a good day for the bulls with the Nasdaq up 1% and the S&P 500 up 0.72%, both on increasing volume. Because the Nasdaq has broken above its December highs, its chart looks slightly better than the S&P to me. I think any hopes the bears had of the 50-day moving averages breaking have to be slipping away. (And so much for that falling three methods pattern!) However, the NDX/QQQQ and Dow are still beneath their 50-day moving averages. That may change tomorrow, especially for the QQQQ, thanks to the post-earnings action in MSFT and BRCM in after hours trading tonight. So all of a sudden things are looking much better. It almost looks like clear sailing to the January highs. The one hurdle that all the aforementioned charts have in common is the January downward sloping trendline (see the blue lines on the charts below).

The earnings calendar is light for tomorrow so I don't much threat from negative earnings news in the morning. It could be a wild one in the semiconductor sector tomorrow based on how BRCM's trading tonight...

What was that I said about 'Groundhog Day' yesterday? Let's see, I can simply modify a sentence from yesterday to -- We're gapping up again and for the second third day in a row and the QQQQ is bumping up against the previous day's highs in the pre-market. This is why I always avoided swing-trading through earnings season. These gap opening would drive me nuts, even if I was positioned on the correct side of the gap it seemed that the gaps more often than not got faded.

Anyway, I'll be watching yesterday's highs on the QQQQ for a breakout.

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

Here's a chart of DNA for Mike:

This is one of my "no man's (person's) land" stocks. It's between the 50 and 200-day moving averages which signals to me an intermediate term downtrend and a long(er) term uptrend. Or you could say that it's just been going sideways for months -- it's right where it was last July. So the outlook largely depends on one's time frame.

The stock is at a critical juncture now though. It tested its 200-day moving average on Monday and Tuesday. IMHO, if any stock is health it should find support at the 200. I think the recent action is a great low risk buy point for long term oriented people. The recent lows give you a nice, tight stop-loss point.

Will wrote:

Wondering what your opinion is of nelnet (NNI)? It's an interesting chart that has shown a lot of strength when its peers have not.

My opinion is simply "hang on"! Of course, that is if you're already long it. It's obviously a great performing stock. If I wasn't in I'd be looking for a low risk spot to jump onboard.

I have even less than usual to say about the market today. My view is petty much exactly the same as yesterday -- and my falling three methods is still intact. :-)

Here's the Nasdaq chart:

On another note, this is the first time I've actually tried shorting on of Cramer's "Mad Money" mentions in the after-hours session. Only because I happened to still have my Briefing.com running did I even notice that he mentioned SMDI and popped it about 30%. I had to short it -- easiest money I've ever made! One could make a career out of shorting into the Cramer induced mania each night. Hmm...

Update: I keep forgetting to post the QQQQ chart. It looks a lot like the Nasdaq chart with the major exception being that it's beneath its 50-day moving average. I'm actually amazed that its October trendline hasn't been broken yet given the action in the likes of INTC and YHOO. MSFT reports earnings tomorrow night, that may be the make-or-break event for the Qs...

Well I was half-joking this morning when I said that the real big event for the day would be Google's earning's report. Turns out that was definitely the case. The action in the broader market was muted today but things heated up in the after-hours session. GOOG is down about 63 points (only about 15%) after missing their earnings estimate. It's dragging some other stocks, and the QQQQ, down with it. Yahoo (YHOO), for example, is back near its January lows and the QQQQ is now below its 50-day moving average. It's looking like a tough day for selected tech stocks tomorrow. (AAPL is back under its 50 DMA in the after-hours session too.)

Here's the Nasdaq chart, which looks like it's due for a pullback. It's got overbought stochastic and has been hovering under that resistance around 2310.

The futures are basically flat this morning and I wouldn't expect much out of the indices until after the Fed decision at 2:15. But the real big event will be GOOG's earnings report after hours! ;-) And speaking of Google, these GOOG for Napster rumors have launched NAPS into orbit. I wonder if it can get back to double digits. Hmm, maybe I won't take the day off after all...

Here's the current Nasdaq chart. I'm watching that red line of resistance which is holding the index back from new highs.

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

It's relatively quiet this morning. The futures are just a bit above fair value and there are less gappers than we've had the last several days. (And AAPL is selling off again!) A couple of Cramer's Mad Money mentions from Friday are toward the top of the % gainers list this monring. Isn't that just silly?

Anyway, I'm taking tomorrow off, as I always do for Fed decision days. Unless I see some very compelling movers early in today's session I'll be taking today off as well.

Hmm, Maybe GOOG will make me hang around. I want to see how it reacts to this, which I just saw on Briefing.com:

According to the NY Post, Google's long-simmering click-fraud problem could explode into a billion-dollar headache for the Web giant, some Web marketing experts are warning. In fact, a growing number of Google-watchers claim the search giant is ignoring the click-fraud issue because it's so large. Click-fraud happens when surfers click on Goggle advertisers with no desire to get to the advertiser's site. Knowing Google charges advertisers based on how many surfers click on their ads, the fraudsters click on the ads simply to drive up the advertiser's costs. The fraud also falsely inflated Google's revenues. The estimates on the Street, if even close to being true, could rock the stock market darling, set to announce fourth-quarter results Tuesday. "If Google were to implement a method for stopping click fraud today, it would lose 30 percent of its revenue overnight," said Joseph Holcomb, a search marketing expert. Holcomb estimates that almost one-third of all clicks on Google's network are suspect, thanks to sophisticated software programs known as "click bots" or "hit bots" that mimic human activity and fool search engines into believing the clicks are legit. With Google set to report about $6 billion in annual revenue, Holcomb's estimate would put $2 billion in top-line revenue at risk. Google denies the problem is that large.

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

I was surprised to see so many bearish candlesticks made on Friday given the strength in the indices. (You can see how many more bearish patterns were made Friday.) Maybe it was just people getting flat ahead of Tuesday's Fed decision. I won't be surprised if trading is somewhat muted tomorrow as traders keep their wallets on their hips ahead of Tuesday. That's exactly where my wallet will be because I'm taking a couple of days off. I'll get back to trading on Wednesday.

Below are charts of the Nasdaq, S&P 500 and the SOX. The SOX is looking really good, despite the weakness in INTC -- I guess there is some benefit to price-weighted indices. Here's -- the SOX is basically flat while INTEL is down over 30%. It'd be interesting to see what the SOX would look like if it were market cap weighted... Anyway, the point is that there are plenty of semiconductor stocks on fire. I'll continue to keep a select group of semis on my screen.

Oh yeah, I have to post a chart of Apple, which has been showing terrible relative strength the last few days. Somebody is really unloading their AAPL shares. But now the stock's about 16% off its all-time high and is 'trapped' between support and its 50-day moving average. I'll be watching and waiting for it to climb back above its 50-day moving average.

You guessed it, another gap up this morning. This time the QQQQ is above yesterday's high (41.68) and its 50-day moving average (41.69). The Qs have actually dropped a bit after the 8:30 economic numbers and now appear to be heading for a test of support. So I'm looking for them to bounce off of the 50-day moving average...

Some stocks that I'm watching that aren't on the gappers list below:

SIMO
SPWR
SPIL
LLTC
AMAT
XLNX

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

Today was obviously a good day for the bulls with the Nasdaq up 1% and the S&P 500 up 0.72%, both on increasing volume. Because the Nasdaq has broken above its December highs, its chart looks slightly better than the S&P to me. I think any hopes the bears had of the 50-day moving averages breaking have to be slipping away. (And so much for that falling three methods pattern!) However, the NDX/QQQQ and Dow are still beneath their 50-day moving averages. That may change tomorrow, especially for the QQQQ, thanks to the post-earnings action in MSFT and BRCM in after hours trading tonight. So all of a sudden things are looking much better. It almost looks like clear sailing to the January highs. The one hurdle that all the aforementioned charts have in common is the January downward sloping trendline (see the blue lines on the charts below).

The earnings calendar is light for tomorrow so I don't much threat from negative earnings news in the morning. It could be a wild one in the semiconductor sector tomorrow based on how BRCM's trading tonight...

What was that I said about 'Groundhog Day' yesterday? Let's see, I can simply modify a sentence from yesterday to -- We're gapping up again and for the second third day in a row and the QQQQ is bumping up against the previous day's highs in the pre-market. This is why I always avoided swing-trading through earnings season. These gap opening would drive me nuts, even if I was positioned on the correct side of the gap it seemed that the gaps more often than not got faded.

Anyway, I'll be watching yesterday's highs on the QQQQ for a breakout.

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

Here's a chart of DNA for Mike:

This is one of my "no man's (person's) land" stocks. It's between the 50 and 200-day moving averages which signals to me an intermediate term downtrend and a long(er) term uptrend. Or you could say that it's just been going sideways for months -- it's right where it was last July. So the outlook largely depends on one's time frame.

The stock is at a critical juncture now though. It tested its 200-day moving average on Monday and Tuesday. IMHO, if any stock is health it should find support at the 200. I think the recent action is a great low risk buy point for long term oriented people. The recent lows give you a nice, tight stop-loss point.

Will wrote:

Wondering what your opinion is of nelnet (NNI)? It's an interesting chart that has shown a lot of strength when its peers have not.

My opinion is simply "hang on"! Of course, that is if you're already long it. It's obviously a great performing stock. If I wasn't in I'd be looking for a low risk spot to jump onboard.

I have even less than usual to say about the market today. My view is petty much exactly the same as yesterday -- and my falling three methods is still intact. :-)

Here's the Nasdaq chart:

On another note, this is the first time I've actually tried shorting on of Cramer's "Mad Money" mentions in the after-hours session. Only because I happened to still have my Briefing.com running did I even notice that he mentioned SMDI and popped it about 30%. I had to short it -- easiest money I've ever made! One could make a career out of shorting into the Cramer induced mania each night. Hmm...

Update: I keep forgetting to post the QQQQ chart. It looks a lot like the Nasdaq chart with the major exception being that it's beneath its 50-day moving average. I'm actually amazed that its October trendline hasn't been broken yet given the action in the likes of INTC and YHOO. MSFT reports earnings tomorrow night, that may be the make-or-break event for the Qs...

Well I was half-joking this morning when I said that the real big event for the day would be Google's earning's report. Turns out that was definitely the case. The action in the broader market was muted today but things heated up in the after-hours session. GOOG is down about 63 points (only about 15%) after missing their earnings estimate. It's dragging some other stocks, and the QQQQ, down with it. Yahoo (YHOO), for example, is back near its January lows and the QQQQ is now below its 50-day moving average. It's looking like a tough day for selected tech stocks tomorrow. (AAPL is back under its 50 DMA in the after-hours session too.)

Here's the Nasdaq chart, which looks like it's due for a pullback. It's got overbought stochastic and has been hovering under that resistance around 2310.

The futures are basically flat this morning and I wouldn't expect much out of the indices until after the Fed decision at 2:15. But the real big event will be GOOG's earnings report after hours! ;-) And speaking of Google, these GOOG for Napster rumors have launched NAPS into orbit. I wonder if it can get back to double digits. Hmm, maybe I won't take the day off after all...

Here's the current Nasdaq chart. I'm watching that red line of resistance which is holding the index back from new highs.

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

It's relatively quiet this morning. The futures are just a bit above fair value and there are less gappers than we've had the last several days. (And AAPL is selling off again!) A couple of Cramer's Mad Money mentions from Friday are toward the top of the % gainers list this monring. Isn't that just silly?

Anyway, I'm taking tomorrow off, as I always do for Fed decision days. Unless I see some very compelling movers early in today's session I'll be taking today off as well.

Hmm, Maybe GOOG will make me hang around. I want to see how it reacts to this, which I just saw on Briefing.com:

According to the NY Post, Google's long-simmering click-fraud problem could explode into a billion-dollar headache for the Web giant, some Web marketing experts are warning. In fact, a growing number of Google-watchers claim the search giant is ignoring the click-fraud issue because it's so large. Click-fraud happens when surfers click on Goggle advertisers with no desire to get to the advertiser's site. Knowing Google charges advertisers based on how many surfers click on their ads, the fraudsters click on the ads simply to drive up the advertiser's costs. The fraud also falsely inflated Google's revenues. The estimates on the Street, if even close to being true, could rock the stock market darling, set to announce fourth-quarter results Tuesday. "If Google were to implement a method for stopping click fraud today, it would lose 30 percent of its revenue overnight," said Joseph Holcomb, a search marketing expert. Holcomb estimates that almost one-third of all clicks on Google's network are suspect, thanks to sophisticated software programs known as "click bots" or "hit bots" that mimic human activity and fool search engines into believing the clicks are legit. With Google set to report about $6 billion in annual revenue, Holcomb's estimate would put $2 billion in top-line revenue at risk. Google denies the problem is that large.

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

I was surprised to see so many bearish candlesticks made on Friday given the strength in the indices. (You can see how many more bearish patterns were made Friday.) Maybe it was just people getting flat ahead of Tuesday's Fed decision. I won't be surprised if trading is somewhat muted tomorrow as traders keep their wallets on their hips ahead of Tuesday. That's exactly where my wallet will be because I'm taking a couple of days off. I'll get back to trading on Wednesday.

Below are charts of the Nasdaq, S&P 500 and the SOX. The SOX is looking really good, despite the weakness in INTC -- I guess there is some benefit to price-weighted indices. Here's -- the SOX is basically flat while INTEL is down over 30%. It'd be interesting to see what the SOX would look like if it were market cap weighted... Anyway, the point is that there are plenty of semiconductor stocks on fire. I'll continue to keep a select group of semis on my screen.

Oh yeah, I have to post a chart of Apple, which has been showing terrible relative strength the last few days. Somebody is really unloading their AAPL shares. But now the stock's about 16% off its all-time high and is 'trapped' between support and its 50-day moving average. I'll be watching and waiting for it to climb back above its 50-day moving average.

You guessed it, another gap up this morning. This time the QQQQ is above yesterday's high (41.68) and its 50-day moving average (41.69). The Qs have actually dropped a bit after the 8:30 economic numbers and now appear to be heading for a test of support. So I'm looking for them to bounce off of the 50-day moving average...

Some stocks that I'm watching that aren't on the gappers list below:

SIMO
SPWR
SPIL
LLTC
AMAT
XLNX

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

Today was obviously a good day for the bulls with the Nasdaq up 1% and the S&P 500 up 0.72%, both on increasing volume. Because the Nasdaq has broken above its December highs, its chart looks slightly better than the S&P to me. I think any hopes the bears had of the 50-day moving averages breaking have to be slipping away. (And so much for that falling three methods pattern!) However, the NDX/QQQQ and Dow are still beneath their 50-day moving averages. That may change tomorrow, especially for the QQQQ, thanks to the post-earnings action in MSFT and BRCM in after hours trading tonight. So all of a sudden things are looking much better. It almost looks like clear sailing to the January highs. The one hurdle that all the aforementioned charts have in common is the January downward sloping trendline (see the blue lines on the charts below).

The earnings calendar is light for tomorrow so I don't much threat from negative earnings news in the morning. It could be a wild one in the semiconductor sector tomorrow based on how BRCM's trading tonight...

What was that I said about 'Groundhog Day' yesterday? Let's see, I can simply modify a sentence from yesterday to -- We're gapping up again and for the second third day in a row and the QQQQ is bumping up against the previous day's highs in the pre-market. This is why I always avoided swing-trading through earnings season. These gap opening would drive me nuts, even if I was positioned on the correct side of the gap it seemed that the gaps more often than not got faded.

Anyway, I'll be watching yesterday's highs on the QQQQ for a breakout.

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

Here's a chart of DNA for Mike:

This is one of my "no man's (person's) land" stocks. It's between the 50 and 200-day moving averages which signals to me an intermediate term downtrend and a long(er) term uptrend. Or you could say that it's just been going sideways for months -- it's right where it was last July. So the outlook largely depends on one's time frame.

The stock is at a critical juncture now though. It tested its 200-day moving average on Monday and Tuesday. IMHO, if any stock is health it should find support at the 200. I think the recent action is a great low risk buy point for long term oriented people. The recent lows give you a nice, tight stop-loss point.

Will wrote:

Wondering what your opinion is of nelnet (NNI)? It's an interesting chart that has shown a lot of strength when its peers have not.

My opinion is simply "hang on"! Of course, that is if you're already long it. It's obviously a great performing stock. If I wasn't in I'd be looking for a low risk spot to jump onboard.

I have even less than usual to say about the market today. My view is petty much exactly the same as yesterday -- and my falling three methods is still intact. :-)

Here's the Nasdaq chart:

On another note, this is the first time I've actually tried shorting on of Cramer's "Mad Money" mentions in the after-hours session. Only because I happened to still have my Briefing.com running did I even notice that he mentioned SMDI and popped it about 30%. I had to short it -- easiest money I've ever made! One could make a career out of shorting into the Cramer induced mania each night. Hmm...

Update: I keep forgetting to post the QQQQ chart. It looks a lot like the Nasdaq chart with the major exception being that it's beneath its 50-day moving average. I'm actually amazed that its October trendline hasn't been broken yet given the action in the likes of INTC and YHOO. MSFT reports earnings tomorrow night, that may be the make-or-break event for the Qs...

Well I was half-joking this morning when I said that the real big event for the day would be Google's earning's report. Turns out that was definitely the case. The action in the broader market was muted today but things heated up in the after-hours session. GOOG is down about 63 points (only about 15%) after missing their earnings estimate. It's dragging some other stocks, and the QQQQ, down with it. Yahoo (YHOO), for example, is back near its January lows and the QQQQ is now below its 50-day moving average. It's looking like a tough day for selected tech stocks tomorrow. (AAPL is back under its 50 DMA in the after-hours session too.)

Here's the Nasdaq chart, which looks like it's due for a pullback. It's got overbought stochastic and has been hovering under that resistance around 2310.

The futures are basically flat this morning and I wouldn't expect much out of the indices until after the Fed decision at 2:15. But the real big event will be GOOG's earnings report after hours! ;-) And speaking of Google, these GOOG for Napster rumors have launched NAPS into orbit. I wonder if it can get back to double digits. Hmm, maybe I won't take the day off after all...

Here's the current Nasdaq chart. I'm watching that red line of resistance which is holding the index back from new highs.

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

It's relatively quiet this morning. The futures are just a bit above fair value and there are less gappers than we've had the last several days. (And AAPL is selling off again!) A couple of Cramer's Mad Money mentions from Friday are toward the top of the % gainers list this monring. Isn't that just silly?

Anyway, I'm taking tomorrow off, as I always do for Fed decision days. Unless I see some very compelling movers early in today's session I'll be taking today off as well.

Hmm, Maybe GOOG will make me hang around. I want to see how it reacts to this, which I just saw on Briefing.com:

According to the NY Post, Google's long-simmering click-fraud problem could explode into a billion-dollar headache for the Web giant, some Web marketing experts are warning. In fact, a growing number of Google-watchers claim the search giant is ignoring the click-fraud issue because it's so large. Click-fraud happens when surfers click on Goggle advertisers with no desire to get to the advertiser's site. Knowing Google charges advertisers based on how many surfers click on their ads, the fraudsters click on the ads simply to drive up the advertiser's costs. The fraud also falsely inflated Google's revenues. The estimates on the Street, if even close to being true, could rock the stock market darling, set to announce fourth-quarter results Tuesday. "If Google were to implement a method for stopping click fraud today, it would lose 30 percent of its revenue overnight," said Joseph Holcomb, a search marketing expert. Holcomb estimates that almost one-third of all clicks on Google's network are suspect, thanks to sophisticated software programs known as "click bots" or "hit bots" that mimic human activity and fool search engines into believing the clicks are legit. With Google set to report about $6 billion in annual revenue, Holcomb's estimate would put $2 billion in top-line revenue at risk. Google denies the problem is that large.

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

I was surprised to see so many bearish candlesticks made on Friday given the strength in the indices. (You can see how many more bearish patterns were made Friday.) Maybe it was just people getting flat ahead of Tuesday's Fed decision. I won't be surprised if trading is somewhat muted tomorrow as traders keep their wallets on their hips ahead of Tuesday. That's exactly where my wallet will be because I'm taking a couple of days off. I'll get back to trading on Wednesday.

Below are charts of the Nasdaq, S&P 500 and the SOX. The SOX is looking really good, despite the weakness in INTC -- I guess there is some benefit to price-weighted indices. Here's -- the SOX is basically flat while INTEL is down over 30%. It'd be interesting to see what the SOX would look like if it were market cap weighted... Anyway, the point is that there are plenty of semiconductor stocks on fire. I'll continue to keep a select group of semis on my screen.

Oh yeah, I have to post a chart of Apple, which has been showing terrible relative strength the last few days. Somebody is really unloading their AAPL shares. But now the stock's about 16% off its all-time high and is 'trapped' between support and its 50-day moving average. I'll be watching and waiting for it to climb back above its 50-day moving average.

You guessed it, another gap up this morning. This time the QQQQ is above yesterday's high (41.68) and its 50-day moving average (41.69). The Qs have actually dropped a bit after the 8:30 economic numbers and now appear to be heading for a test of support. So I'm looking for them to bounce off of the 50-day moving average...

Some stocks that I'm watching that aren't on the gappers list below:

SIMO
SPWR
SPIL
LLTC
AMAT
XLNX

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

Today was obviously a good day for the bulls with the Nasdaq up 1% and the S&P 500 up 0.72%, both on increasing volume. Because the Nasdaq has broken above its December highs, its chart looks slightly better than the S&P to me. I think any hopes the bears had of the 50-day moving averages breaking have to be slipping away. (And so much for that falling three methods pattern!) However, the NDX/QQQQ and Dow are still beneath their 50-day moving averages. That may change tomorrow, especially for the QQQQ, thanks to the post-earnings action in MSFT and BRCM in after hours trading tonight. So all of a sudden things are looking much better. It almost looks like clear sailing to the January highs. The one hurdle that all the aforementioned charts have in common is the January downward sloping trendline (see the blue lines on the charts below).

The earnings calendar is light for tomorrow so I don't much threat from negative earnings news in the morning. It could be a wild one in the semiconductor sector tomorrow based on how BRCM's trading tonight...

What was that I said about 'Groundhog Day' yesterday? Let's see, I can simply modify a sentence from yesterday to -- We're gapping up again and for the second third day in a row and the QQQQ is bumping up against the previous day's highs in the pre-market. This is why I always avoided swing-trading through earnings season. These gap opening would drive me nuts, even if I was positioned on the correct side of the gap it seemed that the gaps more often than not got faded.

Anyway, I'll be watching yesterday's highs on the QQQQ for a breakout.

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

Here's a chart of DNA for Mike:

This is one of my "no man's (person's) land" stocks. It's between the 50 and 200-day moving averages which signals to me an intermediate term downtrend and a long(er) term uptrend. Or you could say that it's just been going sideways for months -- it's right where it was last July. So the outlook largely depends on one's time frame.

The stock is at a critical juncture now though. It tested its 200-day moving average on Monday and Tuesday. IMHO, if any stock is health it should find support at the 200. I think the recent action is a great low risk buy point for long term oriented people. The recent lows give you a nice, tight stop-loss point.

Will wrote:

Wondering what your opinion is of nelnet (NNI)? It's an interesting chart that has shown a lot of strength when its peers have not.

My opinion is simply "hang on"! Of course, that is if you're already long it. It's obviously a great performing stock. If I wasn't in I'd be looking for a low risk spot to jump onboard.

I have even less than usual to say about the market today. My view is petty much exactly the same as yesterday -- and my falling three methods is still intact. :-)

Here's the Nasdaq chart:

On another note, this is the first time I've actually tried shorting on of Cramer's "Mad Money" mentions in the after-hours session. Only because I happened to still have my Briefing.com running did I even notice that he mentioned SMDI and popped it about 30%. I had to short it -- easiest money I've ever made! One could make a career out of shorting into the Cramer induced mania each night. Hmm...

Update: I keep forgetting to post the QQQQ chart. It looks a lot like the Nasdaq chart with the major exception being that it's beneath its 50-day moving average. I'm actually amazed that its October trendline hasn't been broken yet given the action in the likes of INTC and YHOO. MSFT reports earnings tomorrow night, that may be the make-or-break event for the Qs...

Well I was half-joking this morning when I said that the real big event for the day would be Google's earning's report. Turns out that was definitely the case. The action in the broader market was muted today but things heated up in the after-hours session. GOOG is down about 63 points (only about 15%) after missing their earnings estimate. It's dragging some other stocks, and the QQQQ, down with it. Yahoo (YHOO), for example, is back near its January lows and the QQQQ is now below its 50-day moving average. It's looking like a tough day for selected tech stocks tomorrow. (AAPL is back under its 50 DMA in the after-hours session too.)

Here's the Nasdaq chart, which looks like it's due for a pullback. It's got overbought stochastic and has been hovering under that resistance around 2310.

The futures are basically flat this morning and I wouldn't expect much out of the indices until after the Fed decision at 2:15. But the real big event will be GOOG's earnings report after hours! ;-) And speaking of Google, these GOOG for Napster rumors have launched NAPS into orbit. I wonder if it can get back to double digits. Hmm, maybe I won't take the day off after all...

Here's the current Nasdaq chart. I'm watching that red line of resistance which is holding the index back from new highs.

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

It's relatively quiet this morning. The futures are just a bit above fair value and there are less gappers than we've had the last several days. (And AAPL is selling off again!) A couple of Cramer's Mad Money mentions from Friday are toward the top of the % gainers list this monring. Isn't that just silly?

Anyway, I'm taking tomorrow off, as I always do for Fed decision days. Unless I see some very compelling movers early in today's session I'll be taking today off as well.

Hmm, Maybe GOOG will make me hang around. I want to see how it reacts to this, which I just saw on Briefing.com:

According to the NY Post, Google's long-simmering click-fraud problem could explode into a billion-dollar headache for the Web giant, some Web marketing experts are warning. In fact, a growing number of Google-watchers claim the search giant is ignoring the click-fraud issue because it's so large. Click-fraud happens when surfers click on Goggle advertisers with no desire to get to the advertiser's site. Knowing Google charges advertisers based on how many surfers click on their ads, the fraudsters click on the ads simply to drive up the advertiser's costs. The fraud also falsely inflated Google's revenues. The estimates on the Street, if even close to being true, could rock the stock market darling, set to announce fourth-quarter results Tuesday. "If Google were to implement a method for stopping click fraud today, it would lose 30 percent of its revenue overnight," said Joseph Holcomb, a search marketing expert. Holcomb estimates that almost one-third of all clicks on Google's network are suspect, thanks to sophisticated software programs known as "click bots" or "hit bots" that mimic human activity and fool search engines into believing the clicks are legit. With Google set to report about $6 billion in annual revenue, Holcomb's estimate would put $2 billion in top-line revenue at risk. Google denies the problem is that large.

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

I was surprised to see so many bearish candlesticks made on Friday given the strength in the indices. (You can see how many more bearish patterns were made Friday.) Maybe it was just people getting flat ahead of Tuesday's Fed decision. I won't be surprised if trading is somewhat muted tomorrow as traders keep their wallets on their hips ahead of Tuesday. That's exactly where my wallet will be because I'm taking a couple of days off. I'll get back to trading on Wednesday.

Below are charts of the Nasdaq, S&P 500 and the SOX. The SOX is looking really good, despite the weakness in INTC -- I guess there is some benefit to price-weighted indices. Here's -- the SOX is basically flat while INTEL is down over 30%. It'd be interesting to see what the SOX would look like if it were market cap weighted... Anyway, the point is that there are plenty of semiconductor stocks on fire. I'll continue to keep a select group of semis on my screen.

Oh yeah, I have to post a chart of Apple, which has been showing terrible relative strength the last few days. Somebody is really unloading their AAPL shares. But now the stock's about 16% off its all-time high and is 'trapped' between support and its 50-day moving average. I'll be watching and waiting for it to climb back above its 50-day moving average.

You guessed it, another gap up this morning. This time the QQQQ is above yesterday's high (41.68) and its 50-day moving average (41.69). The Qs have actually dropped a bit after the 8:30 economic numbers and now appear to be heading for a test of support. So I'm looking for them to bounce off of the 50-day moving average...

Some stocks that I'm watching that aren't on the gappers list below:

SIMO
SPWR
SPIL
LLTC
AMAT
XLNX

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

Today was obviously a good day for the bulls with the Nasdaq up 1% and the S&P 500 up 0.72%, both on increasing volume. Because the Nasdaq has broken above its December highs, its chart looks slightly better than the S&P to me. I think any hopes the bears had of the 50-day moving averages breaking have to be slipping away. (And so much for that falling three methods pattern!) However, the NDX/QQQQ and Dow are still beneath their 50-day moving averages. That may change tomorrow, especially for the QQQQ, thanks to the post-earnings action in MSFT and BRCM in after hours trading tonight. So all of a sudden things are looking much better. It almost looks like clear sailing to the January highs. The one hurdle that all the aforementioned charts have in common is the January downward sloping trendline (see the blue lines on the charts below).

The earnings calendar is light for tomorrow so I don't much threat from negative earnings news in the morning. It could be a wild one in the semiconductor sector tomorrow based on how BRCM's trading tonight...

What was that I said about 'Groundhog Day' yesterday? Let's see, I can simply modify a sentence from yesterday to -- We're gapping up again and for the second third day in a row and the QQQQ is bumping up against the previous day's highs in the pre-market. This is why I always avoided swing-trading through earnings season. These gap opening would drive me nuts, even if I was positioned on the correct side of the gap it seemed that the gaps more often than not got faded.

Anyway, I'll be watching yesterday's highs on the QQQQ for a breakout.

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

Here's a chart of DNA for Mike:

This is one of my "no man's (person's) land" stocks. It's between the 50 and 200-day moving averages which signals to me an intermediate term downtrend and a long(er) term uptrend. Or you could say that it's just been going sideways for months -- it's right where it was last July. So the outlook largely depends on one's time frame.

The stock is at a critical juncture now though. It tested its 200-day moving average on Monday and Tuesday. IMHO, if any stock is health it should find support at the 200. I think the recent action is a great low risk buy point for long term oriented people. The recent lows give you a nice, tight stop-loss point.

Will wrote:

Wondering what your opinion is of nelnet (NNI)? It's an interesting chart that has shown a lot of strength when its peers have not.

My opinion is simply "hang on"! Of course, that is if you're already long it. It's obviously a great performing stock. If I wasn't in I'd be looking for a low risk spot to jump onboard.

I have even less than usual to say about the market today. My view is petty much exactly the same as yesterday -- and my falling three methods is still intact. :-)

Here's the Nasdaq chart:

On another note, this is the first time I've actually tried shorting on of Cramer's "Mad Money" mentions in the after-hours session. Only because I happened to still have my Briefing.com running did I even notice that he mentioned SMDI and popped it about 30%. I had to short it -- easiest money I've ever made! One could make a career out of shorting into the Cramer induced mania each night. Hmm...

Update: I keep forgetting to post the QQQQ chart. It looks a lot like the Nasdaq chart with the major exception being that it's beneath its 50-day moving average. I'm actually amazed that its October trendline hasn't been broken yet given the action in the likes of INTC and YHOO. MSFT reports earnings tomorrow night, that may be the make-or-break event for the Qs...

Well I was half-joking this morning when I said that the real big event for the day would be Google's earning's report. Turns out that was definitely the case. The action in the broader market was muted today but things heated up in the after-hours session. GOOG is down about 63 points (only about 15%) after missing their earnings estimate. It's dragging some other stocks, and the QQQQ, down with it. Yahoo (YHOO), for example, is back near its January lows and the QQQQ is now below its 50-day moving average. It's looking like a tough day for selected tech stocks tomorrow. (AAPL is back under its 50 DMA in the after-hours session too.)

Here's the Nasdaq chart, which looks like it's due for a pullback. It's got overbought stochastic and has been hovering under that resistance around 2310.

The futures are basically flat this morning and I wouldn't expect much out of the indices until after the Fed decision at 2:15. But the real big event will be GOOG's earnings report after hours! ;-) And speaking of Google, these GOOG for Napster rumors have launched NAPS into orbit. I wonder if it can get back to double digits. Hmm, maybe I won't take the day off after all...

Here's the current Nasdaq chart. I'm watching that red line of resistance which is holding the index back from new highs.

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

It's relatively quiet this morning. The futures are just a bit above fair value and there are less gappers than we've had the last several days. (And AAPL is selling off again!) A couple of Cramer's Mad Money mentions from Friday are toward the top of the % gainers list this monring. Isn't that just silly?

Anyway, I'm taking tomorrow off, as I always do for Fed decision days. Unless I see some very compelling movers early in today's session I'll be taking today off as well.

Hmm, Maybe GOOG will make me hang around. I want to see how it reacts to this, which I just saw on Briefing.com:

According to the NY Post, Google's long-simmering click-fraud problem could explode into a billion-dollar headache for the Web giant, some Web marketing experts are warning. In fact, a growing number of Google-watchers claim the search giant is ignoring the click-fraud issue because it's so large. Click-fraud happens when surfers click on Goggle advertisers with no desire to get to the advertiser's site. Knowing Google charges advertisers based on how many surfers click on their ads, the fraudsters click on the ads simply to drive up the advertiser's costs. The fraud also falsely inflated Google's revenues. The estimates on the Street, if even close to being true, could rock the stock market darling, set to announce fourth-quarter results Tuesday. "If Google were to implement a method for stopping click fraud today, it would lose 30 percent of its revenue overnight," said Joseph Holcomb, a search marketing expert. Holcomb estimates that almost one-third of all clicks on Google's network are suspect, thanks to sophisticated software programs known as "click bots" or "hit bots" that mimic human activity and fool search engines into believing the clicks are legit. With Google set to report about $6 billion in annual revenue, Holcomb's estimate would put $2 billion in top-line revenue at risk. Google denies the problem is that large.

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

I was surprised to see so many bearish candlesticks made on Friday given the strength in the indices. (You can see how many more bearish patterns were made Friday.) Maybe it was just people getting flat ahead of Tuesday's Fed decision. I won't be surprised if trading is somewhat muted tomorrow as traders keep their wallets on their hips ahead of Tuesday. That's exactly where my wallet will be because I'm taking a couple of days off. I'll get back to trading on Wednesday.

Below are charts of the Nasdaq, S&P 500 and the SOX. The SOX is looking really good, despite the weakness in INTC -- I guess there is some benefit to price-weighted indices. Here's -- the SOX is basically flat while INTEL is down over 30%. It'd be interesting to see what the SOX would look like if it were market cap weighted... Anyway, the point is that there are plenty of semiconductor stocks on fire. I'll continue to keep a select group of semis on my screen.

Oh yeah, I have to post a chart of Apple, which has been showing terrible relative strength the last few days. Somebody is really unloading their AAPL shares. But now the stock's about 16% off its all-time high and is 'trapped' between support and its 50-day moving average. I'll be watching and waiting for it to climb back above its 50-day moving average.

You guessed it, another gap up this morning. This time the QQQQ is above yesterday's high (41.68) and its 50-day moving average (41.69). The Qs have actually dropped a bit after the 8:30 economic numbers and now appear to be heading for a test of support. So I'm looking for them to bounce off of the 50-day moving average...

Some stocks that I'm watching that aren't on the gappers list below:

SIMO
SPWR
SPIL
LLTC
AMAT
XLNX

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

Today was obviously a good day for the bulls with the Nasdaq up 1% and the S&P 500 up 0.72%, both on increasing volume. Because the Nasdaq has broken above its December highs, its chart looks slightly better than the S&P to me. I think any hopes the bears had of the 50-day moving averages breaking have to be slipping away. (And so much for that falling three methods pattern!) However, the NDX/QQQQ and Dow are still beneath their 50-day moving averages. That may change tomorrow, especially for the QQQQ, thanks to the post-earnings action in MSFT and BRCM in after hours trading tonight. So all of a sudden things are looking much better. It almost looks like clear sailing to the January highs. The one hurdle that all the aforementioned charts have in common is the January downward sloping trendline (see the blue lines on the charts below).

The earnings calendar is light for tomorrow so I don't much threat from negative earnings news in the morning. It could be a wild one in the semiconductor sector tomorrow based on how BRCM's trading tonight...

What was that I said about 'Groundhog Day' yesterday? Let's see, I can simply modify a sentence from yesterday to -- We're gapping up again and for the second third day in a row and the QQQQ is bumping up against the previous day's highs in the pre-market. This is why I always avoided swing-trading through earnings season. These gap opening would drive me nuts, even if I was positioned on the correct side of the gap it seemed that the gaps more often than not got faded.

Anyway, I'll be watching yesterday's highs on the QQQQ for a breakout.

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

Here's a chart of DNA for Mike:

This is one of my "no man's (person's) land" stocks. It's between the 50 and 200-day moving averages which signals to me an intermediate term downtrend and a long(er) term uptrend. Or you could say that it's just been going sideways for months -- it's right where it was last July. So the outlook largely depends on one's time frame.

The stock is at a critical juncture now though. It tested its 200-day moving average on Monday and Tuesday. IMHO, if any stock is health it should find support at the 200. I think the recent action is a great low risk buy point for long term oriented people. The recent lows give you a nice, tight stop-loss point.

Will wrote:

Wondering what your opinion is of nelnet (NNI)? It's an interesting chart that has shown a lot of strength when its peers have not.

My opinion is simply "hang on"! Of course, that is if you're already long it. It's obviously a great performing stock. If I wasn't in I'd be looking for a low risk spot to jump onboard.

I have even less than usual to say about the market today. My view is petty much exactly the same as yesterday -- and my falling three methods is still intact. :-)

Here's the Nasdaq chart:

On another note, this is the first time I've actually tried shorting on of Cramer's "Mad Money" mentions in the after-hours session. Only because I happened to still have my Briefing.com running did I even notice that he mentioned SMDI and popped it about 30%. I had to short it -- easiest money I've ever made! One could make a career out of shorting into the Cramer induced mania each night. Hmm...

Update: I keep forgetting to post the QQQQ chart. It looks a lot like the Nasdaq chart with the major exception being that it's beneath its 50-day moving average. I'm actually amazed that its October trendline hasn't been broken yet given the action in the likes of INTC and YHOO. MSFT reports earnings tomorrow night, that may be the make-or-break event for the Qs...

Well I was half-joking this morning when I said that the real big event for the day would be Google's earning's report. Turns out that was definitely the case. The action in the broader market was muted today but things heated up in the after-hours session. GOOG is down about 63 points (only about 15%) after missing their earnings estimate. It's dragging some other stocks, and the QQQQ, down with it. Yahoo (YHOO), for example, is back near its January lows and the QQQQ is now below its 50-day moving average. It's looking like a tough day for selected tech stocks tomorrow. (AAPL is back under its 50 DMA in the after-hours session too.)

Here's the Nasdaq chart, which looks like it's due for a pullback. It's got overbought stochastic and has been hovering under that resistance around 2310.

The futures are basically flat this morning and I wouldn't expect much out of the indices until after the Fed decision at 2:15. But the real big event will be GOOG's earnings report after hours! ;-) And speaking of Google, these GOOG for Napster rumors have launched NAPS into orbit. I wonder if it can get back to double digits. Hmm, maybe I won't take the day off after all...

Here's the current Nasdaq chart. I'm watching that red line of resistance which is holding the index back from new highs.

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

It's relatively quiet this morning. The futures are just a bit above fair value and there are less gappers than we've had the last several days. (And AAPL is selling off again!) A couple of Cramer's Mad Money mentions from Friday are toward the top of the % gainers list this monring. Isn't that just silly?

Anyway, I'm taking tomorrow off, as I always do for Fed decision days. Unless I see some very compelling movers early in today's session I'll be taking today off as well.

Hmm, Maybe GOOG will make me hang around. I want to see how it reacts to this, which I just saw on Briefing.com:

According to the NY Post, Google's long-simmering click-fraud problem could explode into a billion-dollar headache for the Web giant, some Web marketing experts are warning. In fact, a growing number of Google-watchers claim the search giant is ignoring the click-fraud issue because it's so large. Click-fraud happens when surfers click on Goggle advertisers with no desire to get to the advertiser's site. Knowing Google charges advertisers based on how many surfers click on their ads, the fraudsters click on the ads simply to drive up the advertiser's costs. The fraud also falsely inflated Google's revenues. The estimates on the Street, if even close to being true, could rock the stock market darling, set to announce fourth-quarter results Tuesday. "If Google were to implement a method for stopping click fraud today, it would lose 30 percent of its revenue overnight," said Joseph Holcomb, a search marketing expert. Holcomb estimates that almost one-third of all clicks on Google's network are suspect, thanks to sophisticated software programs known as "click bots" or "hit bots" that mimic human activity and fool search engines into believing the clicks are legit. With Google set to report about $6 billion in annual revenue, Holcomb's estimate would put $2 billion in top-line revenue at risk. Google denies the problem is that large.

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

I was surprised to see so many bearish candlesticks made on Friday given the strength in the indices. (You can see how many more bearish patterns were made Friday.) Maybe it was just people getting flat ahead of Tuesday's Fed decision. I won't be surprised if trading is somewhat muted tomorrow as traders keep their wallets on their hips ahead of Tuesday. That's exactly where my wallet will be because I'm taking a couple of days off. I'll get back to trading on Wednesday.

Below are charts of the Nasdaq, S&P 500 and the SOX. The SOX is looking really good, despite the weakness in INTC -- I guess there is some benefit to price-weighted indices. Here's -- the SOX is basically flat while INTEL is down over 30%. It'd be interesting to see what the SOX would look like if it were market cap weighted... Anyway, the point is that there are plenty of semiconductor stocks on fire. I'll continue to keep a select group of semis on my screen.

Oh yeah, I have to post a chart of Apple, which has been showing terrible relative strength the last few days. Somebody is really unloading their AAPL shares. But now the stock's about 16% off its all-time high and is 'trapped' between support and its 50-day moving average. I'll be watching and waiting for it to climb back above its 50-day moving average.

You guessed it, another gap up this morning. This time the QQQQ is above yesterday's high (41.68) and its 50-day moving average (41.69). The Qs have actually dropped a bit after the 8:30 economic numbers and now appear to be heading for a test of support. So I'm looking for them to bounce off of the 50-day moving average...

Some stocks that I'm watching that aren't on the gappers list below:

SIMO
SPWR
SPIL
LLTC
AMAT
XLNX

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

Today was obviously a good day for the bulls with the Nasdaq up 1% and the S&P 500 up 0.72%, both on increasing volume. Because the Nasdaq has broken above its December highs, its chart looks slightly better than the S&P to me. I think any hopes the bears had of the 50-day moving averages breaking have to be slipping away. (And so much for that falling three methods pattern!) However, the NDX/QQQQ and Dow are still beneath their 50-day moving averages. That may change tomorrow, especially for the QQQQ, thanks to the post-earnings action in MSFT and BRCM in after hours trading tonight. So all of a sudden things are looking much better. It almost looks like clear sailing to the January highs. The one hurdle that all the aforementioned charts have in common is the January downward sloping trendline (see the blue lines on the charts below).

The earnings calendar is light for tomorrow so I don't much threat from negative earnings news in the morning. It could be a wild one in the semiconductor sector tomorrow based on how BRCM's trading tonight...

What was that I said about 'Groundhog Day' yesterday? Let's see, I can simply modify a sentence from yesterday to -- We're gapping up again and for the second third day in a row and the QQQQ is bumping up against the previous day's highs in the pre-market. This is why I always avoided swing-trading through earnings season. These gap opening would drive me nuts, even if I was positioned on the correct side of the gap it seemed that the gaps more often than not got faded.

Anyway, I'll be watching yesterday's highs on the QQQQ for a breakout.

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

Here's a chart of DNA for Mike:

This is one of my "no man's (person's) land" stocks. It's between the 50 and 200-day moving averages which signals to me an intermediate term downtrend and a long(er) term uptrend. Or you could say that it's just been going sideways for months -- it's right where it was last July. So the outlook largely depends on one's time frame.

The stock is at a critical juncture now though. It tested its 200-day moving average on Monday and Tuesday. IMHO, if any stock is health it should find support at the 200. I think the recent action is a great low risk buy point for long term oriented people. The recent lows give you a nice, tight stop-loss point.

Will wrote:

Wondering what your opinion is of nelnet (NNI)? It's an interesting chart that has shown a lot of strength when its peers have not.

My opinion is simply "hang on"! Of course, that is if you're already long it. It's obviously a great performing stock. If I wasn't in I'd be looking for a low risk spot to jump onboard.

I have even less than usual to say about the market today. My view is petty much exactly the same as yesterday -- and my falling three methods is still intact. :-)

Here's the Nasdaq chart:

On another note, this is the first time I've actually tried shorting on of Cramer's "Mad Money" mentions in the after-hours session. Only because I happened to still have my Briefing.com running did I even notice that he mentioned SMDI and popped it about 30%. I had to short it -- easiest money I've ever made! One could make a career out of shorting into the Cramer induced mania each night. Hmm...

Update: I keep forgetting to post the QQQQ chart. It looks a lot like the Nasdaq chart with the major exception being that it's beneath its 50-day moving average. I'm actually amazed that its October trendline hasn't been broken yet given the action in the likes of INTC and YHOO. MSFT reports earnings tomorrow night, that may be the make-or-break event for the Qs...

Well I was half-joking this morning when I said that the real big event for the day would be Google's earning's report. Turns out that was definitely the case. The action in the broader market was muted today but things heated up in the after-hours session. GOOG is down about 63 points (only about 15%) after missing their earnings estimate. It's dragging some other stocks, and the QQQQ, down with it. Yahoo (YHOO), for example, is back near its January lows and the QQQQ is now below its 50-day moving average. It's looking like a tough day for selected tech stocks tomorrow. (AAPL is back under its 50 DMA in the after-hours session too.)

Here's the Nasdaq chart, which looks like it's due for a pullback. It's got overbought stochastic and has been hovering under that resistance around 2310.

The futures are basically flat this morning and I wouldn't expect much out of the indices until after the Fed decision at 2:15. But the real big event will be GOOG's earnings report after hours! ;-) And speaking of Google, these GOOG for Napster rumors have launched NAPS into orbit. I wonder if it can get back to double digits. Hmm, maybe I won't take the day off after all...

Here's the current Nasdaq chart. I'm watching that red line of resistance which is holding the index back from new highs.

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

It's relatively quiet this morning. The futures are just a bit above fair value and there are less gappers than we've had the last several days. (And AAPL is selling off again!) A couple of Cramer's Mad Money mentions from Friday are toward the top of the % gainers list this monring. Isn't that just silly?

Anyway, I'm taking tomorrow off, as I always do for Fed decision days. Unless I see some very compelling movers early in today's session I'll be taking today off as well.

Hmm, Maybe GOOG will make me hang around. I want to see how it reacts to this, which I just saw on Briefing.com:

According to the NY Post, Google's long-simmering click-fraud problem could explode into a billion-dollar headache for the Web giant, some Web marketing experts are warning. In fact, a growing number of Google-watchers claim the search giant is ignoring the click-fraud issue because it's so large. Click-fraud happens when surfers click on Goggle advertisers with no desire to get to the advertiser's site. Knowing Google charges advertisers based on how many surfers click on their ads, the fraudsters click on the ads simply to drive up the advertiser's costs. The fraud also falsely inflated Google's revenues. The estimates on the Street, if even close to being true, could rock the stock market darling, set to announce fourth-quarter results Tuesday. "If Google were to implement a method for stopping click fraud today, it would lose 30 percent of its revenue overnight," said Joseph Holcomb, a search marketing expert. Holcomb estimates that almost one-third of all clicks on Google's network are suspect, thanks to sophisticated software programs known as "click bots" or "hit bots" that mimic human activity and fool search engines into believing the clicks are legit. With Google set to report about $6 billion in annual revenue, Holcomb's estimate would put $2 billion in top-line revenue at risk. Google denies the problem is that large.

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

I was surprised to see so many bearish candlesticks made on Friday given the strength in the indices. (You can see how many more bearish patterns were made Friday.) Maybe it was just people getting flat ahead of Tuesday's Fed decision. I won't be surprised if trading is somewhat muted tomorrow as traders keep their wallets on their hips ahead of Tuesday. That's exactly where my wallet will be because I'm taking a couple of days off. I'll get back to trading on Wednesday.

Below are charts of the Nasdaq, S&P 500 and the SOX. The SOX is looking really good, despite the weakness in INTC -- I guess there is some benefit to price-weighted indices. Here's -- the SOX is basically flat while INTEL is down over 30%. It'd be interesting to see what the SOX would look like if it were market cap weighted... Anyway, the point is that there are plenty of semiconductor stocks on fire. I'll continue to keep a select group of semis on my screen.

Oh yeah, I have to post a chart of Apple, which has been showing terrible relative strength the last few days. Somebody is really unloading their AAPL shares. But now the stock's about 16% off its all-time high and is 'trapped' between support and its 50-day moving average. I'll be watching and waiting for it to climb back above its 50-day moving average.

You guessed it, another gap up this morning. This time the QQQQ is above yesterday's high (41.68) and its 50-day moving average (41.69). The Qs have actually dropped a bit after the 8:30 economic numbers and now appear to be heading for a test of support. So I'm looking for them to bounce off of the 50-day moving average...

Some stocks that I'm watching that aren't on the gappers list below:

SIMO
SPWR
SPIL
LLTC
AMAT
XLNX

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

Today was obviously a good day for the bulls with the Nasdaq up 1% and the S&P 500 up 0.72%, both on increasing volume. Because the Nasdaq has broken above its December highs, its chart looks slightly better than the S&P to me. I think any hopes the bears had of the 50-day moving averages breaking have to be slipping away. (And so much for that falling three methods pattern!) However, the NDX/QQQQ and Dow are still beneath their 50-day moving averages. That may change tomorrow, especially for the QQQQ, thanks to the post-earnings action in MSFT and BRCM in after hours trading tonight. So all of a sudden things are looking much better. It almost looks like clear sailing to the January highs. The one hurdle that all the aforementioned charts have in common is the January downward sloping trendline (see the blue lines on the charts below).

The earnings calendar is light for tomorrow so I don't much threat from negative earnings news in the morning. It could be a wild one in the semiconductor sector tomorrow based on how BRCM's trading tonight...

What was that I said about 'Groundhog Day' yesterday? Let's see, I can simply modify a sentence from yesterday to -- We're gapping up again and for the second third day in a row and the QQQQ is bumping up against the previous day's highs in the pre-market. This is why I always avoided swing-trading through earnings season. These gap opening would drive me nuts, even if I was positioned on the correct side of the gap it seemed that the gaps more often than not got faded.

Anyway, I'll be watching yesterday's highs on the QQQQ for a breakout.

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

Here's a chart of DNA for Mike:

This is one of my "no man's (person's) land" stocks. It's between the 50 and 200-day moving averages which signals to me an intermediate term downtrend and a long(er) term uptrend. Or you could say that it's just been going sideways for months -- it's right where it was last July. So the outlook largely depends on one's time frame.

The stock is at a critical juncture now though. It tested its 200-day moving average on Monday and Tuesday. IMHO, if any stock is health it should find support at the 200. I think the recent action is a great low risk buy point for long term oriented people. The recent lows give you a nice, tight stop-loss point.

Will wrote:

Wondering what your opinion is of nelnet (NNI)? It's an interesting chart that has shown a lot of strength when its peers have not.

My opinion is simply "hang on"! Of course, that is if you're already long it. It's obviously a great performing stock. If I wasn't in I'd be looking for a low risk spot to jump onboard.

I have even less than usual to say about the market today. My view is petty much exactly the same as yesterday -- and my falling three methods is still intact. :-)

Here's the Nasdaq chart:

On another note, this is the first time I've actually tried shorting on of Cramer's "Mad Money" mentions in the after-hours session. Only because I happened to still have my Briefing.com running did I even notice that he mentioned SMDI and popped it about 30%. I had to short it -- easiest money I've ever made! One could make a career out of shorting into the Cramer induced mania each night. Hmm...

Update: I keep forgetting to post the QQQQ chart. It looks a lot like the Nasdaq chart with the major exception being that it's beneath its 50-day moving average. I'm actually amazed that its October trendline hasn't been broken yet given the action in the likes of INTC and YHOO. MSFT reports earnings tomorrow night, that may be the make-or-break event for the Qs...

Well I was half-joking this morning when I said that the real big event for the day would be Google's earning's report. Turns out that was definitely the case. The action in the broader market was muted today but things heated up in the after-hours session. GOOG is down about 63 points (only about 15%) after missing their earnings estimate. It's dragging some other stocks, and the QQQQ, down with it. Yahoo (YHOO), for example, is back near its January lows and the QQQQ is now below its 50-day moving average. It's looking like a tough day for selected tech stocks tomorrow. (AAPL is back under its 50 DMA in the after-hours session too.)

Here's the Nasdaq chart, which looks like it's due for a pullback. It's got overbought stochastic and has been hovering under that resistance around 2310.

The futures are basically flat this morning and I wouldn't expect much out of the indices until after the Fed decision at 2:15. But the real big event will be GOOG's earnings report after hours! ;-) And speaking of Google, these GOOG for Napster rumors have launched NAPS into orbit. I wonder if it can get back to double digits. Hmm, maybe I won't take the day off after all...

Here's the current Nasdaq chart. I'm watching that red line of resistance which is holding the index back from new highs.

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

It's relatively quiet this morning. The futures are just a bit above fair value and there are less gappers than we've had the last several days. (And AAPL is selling off again!) A couple of Cramer's Mad Money mentions from Friday are toward the top of the % gainers list this monring. Isn't that just silly?

Anyway, I'm taking tomorrow off, as I always do for Fed decision days. Unless I see some very compelling movers early in today's session I'll be taking today off as well.

Hmm, Maybe GOOG will make me hang around. I want to see how it reacts to this, which I just saw on Briefing.com:

According to the NY Post, Google's long-simmering click-fraud problem could explode into a billion-dollar headache for the Web giant, some Web marketing experts are warning. In fact, a growing number of Google-watchers claim the search giant is ignoring the click-fraud issue because it's so large. Click-fraud happens when surfers click on Goggle advertisers with no desire to get to the advertiser's site. Knowing Google charges advertisers based on how many surfers click on their ads, the fraudsters click on the ads simply to drive up the advertiser's costs. The fraud also falsely inflated Google's revenues. The estimates on the Street, if even close to being true, could rock the stock market darling, set to announce fourth-quarter results Tuesday. "If Google were to implement a method for stopping click fraud today, it would lose 30 percent of its revenue overnight," said Joseph Holcomb, a search marketing expert. Holcomb estimates that almost one-third of all clicks on Google's network are suspect, thanks to sophisticated software programs known as "click bots" or "hit bots" that mimic human activity and fool search engines into believing the clicks are legit. With Google set to report about $6 billion in annual revenue, Holcomb's estimate would put $2 billion in top-line revenue at risk. Google denies the problem is that large.

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

I was surprised to see so many bearish candlesticks made on Friday given the strength in the indices. (You can see how many more bearish patterns were made Friday.) Maybe it was just people getting flat ahead of Tuesday's Fed decision. I won't be surprised if trading is somewhat muted tomorrow as traders keep their wallets on their hips ahead of Tuesday. That's exactly where my wallet will be because I'm taking a couple of days off. I'll get back to trading on Wednesday.

Below are charts of the Nasdaq, S&P 500 and the SOX. The SOX is looking really good, despite the weakness in INTC -- I guess there is some benefit to price-weighted indices. Here's -- the SOX is basically flat while INTEL is down over 30%. It'd be interesting to see what the SOX would look like if it were market cap weighted... Anyway, the point is that there are plenty of semiconductor stocks on fire. I'll continue to keep a select group of semis on my screen.

Oh yeah, I have to post a chart of Apple, which has been showing terrible relative strength the last few days. Somebody is really unloading their AAPL shares. But now the stock's about 16% off its all-time high and is 'trapped' between support and its 50-day moving average. I'll be watching and waiting for it to climb back above its 50-day moving average.

You guessed it, another gap up this morning. This time the QQQQ is above yesterday's high (41.68) and its 50-day moving average (41.69). The Qs have actually dropped a bit after the 8:30 economic numbers and now appear to be heading for a test of support. So I'm looking for them to bounce off of the 50-day moving average...

Some stocks that I'm watching that aren't on the gappers list below:

SIMO
SPWR
SPIL
LLTC
AMAT
XLNX

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

Today was obviously a good day for the bulls with the Nasdaq up 1% and the S&P 500 up 0.72%, both on increasing volume. Because the Nasdaq has broken above its December highs, its chart looks slightly better than the S&P to me. I think any hopes the bears had of the 50-day moving averages breaking have to be slipping away. (And so much for that falling three methods pattern!) However, the NDX/QQQQ and Dow are still beneath their 50-day moving averages. That may change tomorrow, especially for the QQQQ, thanks to the post-earnings action in MSFT and BRCM in after hours trading tonight. So all of a sudden things are looking much better. It almost looks like clear sailing to the January highs. The one hurdle that all the aforementioned charts have in common is the January downward sloping trendline (see the blue lines on the charts below).

The earnings calendar is light for tomorrow so I don't much threat from negative earnings news in the morning. It could be a wild one in the semiconductor sector tomorrow based on how BRCM's trading tonight...

What was that I said about 'Groundhog Day' yesterday? Let's see, I can simply modify a sentence from yesterday to -- We're gapping up again and for the second third day in a row and the QQQQ is bumping up against the previous day's highs in the pre-market. This is why I always avoided swing-trading through earnings season. These gap opening would drive me nuts, even if I was positioned on the correct side of the gap it seemed that the gaps more often than not got faded.

Anyway, I'll be watching yesterday's highs on the QQQQ for a breakout.

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

Here's a chart of DNA for Mike:

This is one of my "no man's (person's) land" stocks. It's between the 50 and 200-day moving averages which signals to me an intermediate term downtrend and a long(er) term uptrend. Or you could say that it's just been going sideways for months -- it's right where it was last July. So the outlook largely depends on one's time frame.

The stock is at a critical juncture now though. It tested its 200-day moving average on Monday and Tuesday. IMHO, if any stock is health it should find support at the 200. I think the recent action is a great low risk buy point for long term oriented people. The recent lows give you a nice, tight stop-loss point.

Will wrote:

Wondering what your opinion is of nelnet (NNI)? It's an interesting chart that has shown a lot of strength when its peers have not.

My opinion is simply "hang on"! Of course, that is if you're already long it. It's obviously a great performing stock. If I wasn't in I'd be looking for a low risk spot to jump onboard.

I have even less than usual to say about the market today. My view is petty much exactly the same as yesterday -- and my falling three methods is still intact. :-)

Here's the Nasdaq chart:

On another note, this is the first time I've actually tried shorting on of Cramer's "Mad Money" mentions in the after-hours session. Only because I happened to still have my Briefing.com running did I even notice that he mentioned SMDI and popped it about 30%. I had to short it -- easiest money I've ever made! One could make a career out of shorting into the Cramer induced mania each night. Hmm...

Update: I keep forgetting to post the QQQQ chart. It looks a lot like the Nasdaq chart with the major exception being that it's beneath its 50-day moving average. I'm actually amazed that its October trendline hasn't been broken yet given the action in the likes of INTC and YHOO. MSFT reports earnings tomorrow night, that may be the make-or-break event for the Qs...

Well I was half-joking this morning when I said that the real big event for the day would be Google's earning's report. Turns out that was definitely the case. The action in the broader market was muted today but things heated up in the after-hours session. GOOG is down about 63 points (only about 15%) after missing their earnings estimate. It's dragging some other stocks, and the QQQQ, down with it. Yahoo (YHOO), for example, is back near its January lows and the QQQQ is now below its 50-day moving average. It's looking like a tough day for selected tech stocks tomorrow. (AAPL is back under its 50 DMA in the after-hours session too.)

Here's the Nasdaq chart, which looks like it's due for a pullback. It's got overbought stochastic and has been hovering under that resistance around 2310.

The futures are basically flat this morning and I wouldn't expect much out of the indices until after the Fed decision at 2:15. But the real big event will be GOOG's earnings report after hours! ;-) And speaking of Google, these GOOG for Napster rumors have launched NAPS into orbit. I wonder if it can get back to double digits. Hmm, maybe I won't take the day off after all...

Here's the current Nasdaq chart. I'm watching that red line of resistance which is holding the index back from new highs.

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

It's relatively quiet this morning. The futures are just a bit above fair value and there are less gappers than we've had the last several days. (And AAPL is selling off again!) A couple of Cramer's Mad Money mentions from Friday are toward the top of the % gainers list this monring. Isn't that just silly?

Anyway, I'm taking tomorrow off, as I always do for Fed decision days. Unless I see some very compelling movers early in today's session I'll be taking today off as well.

Hmm, Maybe GOOG will make me hang around. I want to see how it reacts to this, which I just saw on Briefing.com:

According to the NY Post, Google's long-simmering click-fraud problem could explode into a billion-dollar headache for the Web giant, some Web marketing experts are warning. In fact, a growing number of Google-watchers claim the search giant is ignoring the click-fraud issue because it's so large. Click-fraud happens when surfers click on Goggle advertisers with no desire to get to the advertiser's site. Knowing Google charges advertisers based on how many surfers click on their ads, the fraudsters click on the ads simply to drive up the advertiser's costs. The fraud also falsely inflated Google's revenues. The estimates on the Street, if even close to being true, could rock the stock market darling, set to announce fourth-quarter results Tuesday. "If Google were to implement a method for stopping click fraud today, it would lose 30 percent of its revenue overnight," said Joseph Holcomb, a search marketing expert. Holcomb estimates that almost one-third of all clicks on Google's network are suspect, thanks to sophisticated software programs known as "click bots" or "hit bots" that mimic human activity and fool search engines into believing the clicks are legit. With Google set to report about $6 billion in annual revenue, Holcomb's estimate would put $2 billion in top-line revenue at risk. Google denies the problem is that large.

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

I was surprised to see so many bearish candlesticks made on Friday given the strength in the indices. (You can see how many more bearish patterns were made Friday.) Maybe it was just people getting flat ahead of Tuesday's Fed decision. I won't be surprised if trading is somewhat muted tomorrow as traders keep their wallets on their hips ahead of Tuesday. That's exactly where my wallet will be because I'm taking a couple of days off. I'll get back to trading on Wednesday.

Below are charts of the Nasdaq, S&P 500 and the SOX. The SOX is looking really good, despite the weakness in INTC -- I guess there is some benefit to price-weighted indices. Here's -- the SOX is basically flat while INTEL is down over 30%. It'd be interesting to see what the SOX would look like if it were market cap weighted... Anyway, the point is that there are plenty of semiconductor stocks on fire. I'll continue to keep a select group of semis on my screen.

Oh yeah, I have to post a chart of Apple, which has been showing terrible relative strength the last few days. Somebody is really unloading their AAPL shares. But now the stock's about 16% off its all-time high and is 'trapped' between support and its 50-day moving average. I'll be watching and waiting for it to climb back above its 50-day moving average.

You guessed it, another gap up this morning. This time the QQQQ is above yesterday's high (41.68) and its 50-day moving average (41.69). The Qs have actually dropped a bit after the 8:30 economic numbers and now appear to be heading for a test of support. So I'm looking for them to bounce off of the 50-day moving average...

Some stocks that I'm watching that aren't on the gappers list below:

SIMO
SPWR
SPIL
LLTC
AMAT
XLNX

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

Today was obviously a good day for the bulls with the Nasdaq up 1% and the S&P 500 up 0.72%, both on increasing volume. Because the Nasdaq has broken above its December highs, its chart looks slightly better than the S&P to me. I think any hopes the bears had of the 50-day moving averages breaking have to be slipping away. (And so much for that falling three methods pattern!) However, the NDX/QQQQ and Dow are still beneath their 50-day moving averages. That may change tomorrow, especially for the QQQQ, thanks to the post-earnings action in MSFT and BRCM in after hours trading tonight. So all of a sudden things are looking much better. It almost looks like clear sailing to the January highs. The one hurdle that all the aforementioned charts have in common is the January downward sloping trendline (see the blue lines on the charts below).

The earnings calendar is light for tomorrow so I don't much threat from negative earnings news in the morning. It could be a wild one in the semiconductor sector tomorrow based on how BRCM's trading tonight...

What was that I said about 'Groundhog Day' yesterday? Let's see, I can simply modify a sentence from yesterday to -- We're gapping up again and for the second third day in a row and the QQQQ is bumping up against the previous day's highs in the pre-market. This is why I always avoided swing-trading through earnings season. These gap opening would drive me nuts, even if I was positioned on the correct side of the gap it seemed that the gaps more often than not got faded.

Anyway, I'll be watching yesterday's highs on the QQQQ for a breakout.

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

Here's a chart of DNA for Mike:

This is one of my "no man's (person's) land" stocks. It's between the 50 and 200-day moving averages which signals to me an intermediate term downtrend and a long(er) term uptrend. Or you could say that it's just been going sideways for months -- it's right where it was last July. So the outlook largely depends on one's time frame.

The stock is at a critical juncture now though. It tested its 200-day moving average on Monday and Tuesday. IMHO, if any stock is health it should find support at the 200. I think the recent action is a great low risk buy point for long term oriented people. The recent lows give you a nice, tight stop-loss point.

Will wrote:

Wondering what your opinion is of nelnet (NNI)? It's an interesting chart that has shown a lot of strength when its peers have not.

My opinion is simply "hang on"! Of course, that is if you're already long it. It's obviously a great performing stock. If I wasn't in I'd be looking for a low risk spot to jump onboard.

I have even less than usual to say about the market today. My view is petty much exactly the same as yesterday -- and my falling three methods is still intact. :-)

Here's the Nasdaq chart:

On another note, this is the first time I've actually tried shorting on of Cramer's "Mad Money" mentions in the after-hours session. Only because I happened to still have my Briefing.com running did I even notice that he mentioned SMDI and popped it about 30%. I had to short it -- easiest money I've ever made! One could make a career out of shorting into the Cramer induced mania each night. Hmm...

Update: I keep forgetting to post the QQQQ chart. It looks a lot like the Nasdaq chart with the major exception being that it's beneath its 50-day moving average. I'm actually amazed that its October trendline hasn't been broken yet given the action in the likes of INTC and YHOO. MSFT reports earnings tomorrow night, that may be the make-or-break event for the Qs...

Well I was half-joking this morning when I said that the real big event for the day would be Google's earning's report. Turns out that was definitely the case. The action in the broader market was muted today but things heated up in the after-hours session. GOOG is down about 63 points (only about 15%) after missing their earnings estimate. It's dragging some other stocks, and the QQQQ, down with it. Yahoo (YHOO), for example, is back near its January lows and the QQQQ is now below its 50-day moving average. It's looking like a tough day for selected tech stocks tomorrow. (AAPL is back under its 50 DMA in the after-hours session too.)

Here's the Nasdaq chart, which looks like it's due for a pullback. It's got overbought stochastic and has been hovering under that resistance around 2310.

The futures are basically flat this morning and I wouldn't expect much out of the indices until after the Fed decision at 2:15. But the real big event will be GOOG's earnings report after hours! ;-) And speaking of Google, these GOOG for Napster rumors have launched NAPS into orbit. I wonder if it can get back to double digits. Hmm, maybe I won't take the day off after all...

Here's the current Nasdaq chart. I'm watching that red line of resistance which is holding the index back from new highs.

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

It's relatively quiet this morning. The futures are just a bit above fair value and there are less gappers than we've had the last several days. (And AAPL is selling off again!) A couple of Cramer's Mad Money mentions from Friday are toward the top of the % gainers list this monring. Isn't that just silly?

Anyway, I'm taking tomorrow off, as I always do for Fed decision days. Unless I see some very compelling movers early in today's session I'll be taking today off as well.

Hmm, Maybe GOOG will make me hang around. I want to see how it reacts to this, which I just saw on Briefing.com:

According to the NY Post, Google's long-simmering click-fraud problem could explode into a billion-dollar headache for the Web giant, some Web marketing experts are warning. In fact, a growing number of Google-watchers claim the search giant is ignoring the click-fraud issue because it's so large. Click-fraud happens when surfers click on Goggle advertisers with no desire to get to the advertiser's site. Knowing Google charges advertisers based on how many surfers click on their ads, the fraudsters click on the ads simply to drive up the advertiser's costs. The fraud also falsely inflated Google's revenues. The estimates on the Street, if even close to being true, could rock the stock market darling, set to announce fourth-quarter results Tuesday. "If Google were to implement a method for stopping click fraud today, it would lose 30 percent of its revenue overnight," said Joseph Holcomb, a search marketing expert. Holcomb estimates that almost one-third of all clicks on Google's network are suspect, thanks to sophisticated software programs known as "click bots" or "hit bots" that mimic human activity and fool search engines into believing the clicks are legit. With Google set to report about $6 billion in annual revenue, Holcomb's estimate would put $2 billion in top-line revenue at risk. Google denies the problem is that large.

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

I was surprised to see so many bearish candlesticks made on Friday given the strength in the indices. (You can see how many more bearish patterns were made Friday.) Maybe it was just people getting flat ahead of Tuesday's Fed decision. I won't be surprised if trading is somewhat muted tomorrow as traders keep their wallets on their hips ahead of Tuesday. That's exactly where my wallet will be because I'm taking a couple of days off. I'll get back to trading on Wednesday.

Below are charts of the Nasdaq, S&P 500 and the SOX. The SOX is looking really good, despite the weakness in INTC -- I guess there is some benefit to price-weighted indices. Here's -- the SOX is basically flat while INTEL is down over 30%. It'd be interesting to see what the SOX would look like if it were market cap weighted... Anyway, the point is that there are plenty of semiconductor stocks on fire. I'll continue to keep a select group of semis on my screen.

Oh yeah, I have to post a chart of Apple, which has been showing terrible relative strength the last few days. Somebody is really unloading their AAPL shares. But now the stock's about 16% off its all-time high and is 'trapped' between support and its 50-day moving average. I'll be watching and waiting for it to climb back above its 50-day moving average.

You guessed it, another gap up this morning. This time the QQQQ is above yesterday's high (41.68) and its 50-day moving average (41.69). The Qs have actually dropped a bit after the 8:30 economic numbers and now appear to be heading for a test of support. So I'm looking for them to bounce off of the 50-day moving average...

Some stocks that I'm watching that aren't on the gappers list below:

SIMO
SPWR
SPIL
LLTC
AMAT
XLNX

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

Today was obviously a good day for the bulls with the Nasdaq up 1% and the S&P 500 up 0.72%, both on increasing volume. Because the Nasdaq has broken above its December highs, its chart looks slightly better than the S&P to me. I think any hopes the bears had of the 50-day moving averages breaking have to be slipping away. (And so much for that falling three methods pattern!) However, the NDX/QQQQ and Dow are still beneath their 50-day moving averages. That may change tomorrow, especially for the QQQQ, thanks to the post-earnings action in MSFT and BRCM in after hours trading tonight. So all of a sudden things are looking much better. It almost looks like clear sailing to the January highs. The one hurdle that all the aforementioned charts have in common is the January downward sloping trendline (see the blue lines on the charts below).

The earnings calendar is light for tomorrow so I don't much threat from negative earnings news in the morning. It could be a wild one in the semiconductor sector tomorrow based on how BRCM's trading tonight...

What was that I said about 'Groundhog Day' yesterday? Let's see, I can simply modify a sentence from yesterday to -- We're gapping up again and for the second third day in a row and the QQQQ is bumping up against the previous day's highs in the pre-market. This is why I always avoided swing-trading through earnings season. These gap opening would drive me nuts, even if I was positioned on the correct side of the gap it seemed that the gaps more often than not got faded.

Anyway, I'll be watching yesterday's highs on the QQQQ for a breakout.

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

Here's a chart of DNA for Mike:

This is one of my "no man's (person's) land" stocks. It's between the 50 and 200-day moving averages which signals to me an intermediate term downtrend and a long(er) term uptrend. Or you could say that it's just been going sideways for months -- it's right where it was last July. So the outlook largely depends on one's time frame.

The stock is at a critical juncture now though. It tested its 200-day moving average on Monday and Tuesday. IMHO, if any stock is health it should find support at the 200. I think the recent action is a great low risk buy point for long term oriented people. The recent lows give you a nice, tight stop-loss point.

Will wrote:

Wondering what your opinion is of nelnet (NNI)? It's an interesting chart that has shown a lot of strength when its peers have not.

My opinion is simply "hang on"! Of course, that is if you're already long it. It's obviously a great performing stock. If I wasn't in I'd be looking for a low risk spot to jump onboard.

I have even less than usual to say about the market today. My view is petty much exactly the same as yesterday -- and my falling three methods is still intact. :-)

Here's the Nasdaq chart:

On another note, this is the first time I've actually tried shorting on of Cramer's "Mad Money" mentions in the after-hours session. Only because I happened to still have my Briefing.com running did I even notice that he mentioned SMDI and popped it about 30%. I had to short it -- easiest money I've ever made! One could make a career out of shorting into the Cramer induced mania each night. Hmm...

Update: I keep forgetting to post the QQQQ chart. It looks a lot like the Nasdaq chart with the major exception being that it's beneath its 50-day moving average. I'm actually amazed that its October trendline hasn't been broken yet given the action in the likes of INTC and YHOO. MSFT reports earnings tomorrow night, that may be the make-or-break event for the Qs...

Well I was half-joking this morning when I said that the real big event for the day would be Google's earning's report. Turns out that was definitely the case. The action in the broader market was muted today but things heated up in the after-hours session. GOOG is down about 63 points (only about 15%) after missing their earnings estimate. It's dragging some other stocks, and the QQQQ, down with it. Yahoo (YHOO), for example, is back near its January lows and the QQQQ is now below its 50-day moving average. It's looking like a tough day for selected tech stocks tomorrow. (AAPL is back under its 50 DMA in the after-hours session too.)

Here's the Nasdaq chart, which looks like it's due for a pullback. It's got overbought stochastic and has been hovering under that resistance around 2310.

The futures are basically flat this morning and I wouldn't expect much out of the indices until after the Fed decision at 2:15. But the real big event will be GOOG's earnings report after hours! ;-) And speaking of Google, these GOOG for Napster rumors have launched NAPS into orbit. I wonder if it can get back to double digits. Hmm, maybe I won't take the day off after all...

Here's the current Nasdaq chart. I'm watching that red line of resistance which is holding the index back from new highs.

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

It's relatively quiet this morning. The futures are just a bit above fair value and there are less gappers than we've had the last several days. (And AAPL is selling off again!) A couple of Cramer's Mad Money mentions from Friday are toward the top of the % gainers list this monring. Isn't that just silly?

Anyway, I'm taking tomorrow off, as I always do for Fed decision days. Unless I see some very compelling movers early in today's session I'll be taking today off as well.

Hmm, Maybe GOOG will make me hang around. I want to see how it reacts to this, which I just saw on Briefing.com:

According to the NY Post, Google's long-simmering click-fraud problem could explode into a billion-dollar headache for the Web giant, some Web marketing experts are warning. In fact, a growing number of Google-watchers claim the search giant is ignoring the click-fraud issue because it's so large. Click-fraud happens when surfers click on Goggle advertisers with no desire to get to the advertiser's site. Knowing Google charges advertisers based on how many surfers click on their ads, the fraudsters click on the ads simply to drive up the advertiser's costs. The fraud also falsely inflated Google's revenues. The estimates on the Street, if even close to being true, could rock the stock market darling, set to announce fourth-quarter results Tuesday. "If Google were to implement a method for stopping click fraud today, it would lose 30 percent of its revenue overnight," said Joseph Holcomb, a search marketing expert. Holcomb estimates that almost one-third of all clicks on Google's network are suspect, thanks to sophisticated software programs known as "click bots" or "hit bots" that mimic human activity and fool search engines into believing the clicks are legit. With Google set to report about $6 billion in annual revenue, Holcomb's estimate would put $2 billion in top-line revenue at risk. Google denies the problem is that large.

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

I was surprised to see so many bearish candlesticks made on Friday given the strength in the indices. (You can see how many more bearish patterns were made Friday.) Maybe it was just people getting flat ahead of Tuesday's Fed decision. I won't be surprised if trading is somewhat muted tomorrow as traders keep their wallets on their hips ahead of Tuesday. That's exactly where my wallet will be because I'm taking a couple of days off. I'll get back to trading on Wednesday.

Below are charts of the Nasdaq, S&P 500 and the SOX. The SOX is looking really good, despite the weakness in INTC -- I guess there is some benefit to price-weighted indices. Here's -- the SOX is basically flat while INTEL is down over 30%. It'd be interesting to see what the SOX would look like if it were market cap weighted... Anyway, the point is that there are plenty of semiconductor stocks on fire. I'll continue to keep a select group of semis on my screen.

Oh yeah, I have to post a chart of Apple, which has been showing terrible relative strength the last few days. Somebody is really unloading their AAPL shares. But now the stock's about 16% off its all-time high and is 'trapped' between support and its 50-day moving average. I'll be watching and waiting for it to climb back above its 50-day moving average.

You guessed it, another gap up this morning. This time the QQQQ is above yesterday's high (41.68) and its 50-day moving average (41.69). The Qs have actually dropped a bit after the 8:30 economic numbers and now appear to be heading for a test of support. So I'm looking for them to bounce off of the 50-day moving average...

Some stocks that I'm watching that aren't on the gappers list below:

SIMO
SPWR
SPIL
LLTC
AMAT
XLNX

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

Today was obviously a good day for the bulls with the Nasdaq up 1% and the S&P 500 up 0.72%, both on increasing volume. Because the Nasdaq has broken above its December highs, its chart looks slightly better than the S&P to me. I think any hopes the bears had of the 50-day moving averages breaking have to be slipping away. (And so much for that falling three methods pattern!) However, the NDX/QQQQ and Dow are still beneath their 50-day moving averages. That may change tomorrow, especially for the QQQQ, thanks to the post-earnings action in MSFT and BRCM in after hours trading tonight. So all of a sudden things are looking much better. It almost looks like clear sailing to the January highs. The one hurdle that all the aforementioned charts have in common is the January downward sloping trendline (see the blue lines on the charts below).

The earnings calendar is light for tomorrow so I don't much threat from negative earnings news in the morning. It could be a wild one in the semiconductor sector tomorrow based on how BRCM's trading tonight...

What was that I said about 'Groundhog Day' yesterday? Let's see, I can simply modify a sentence from yesterday to -- We're gapping up again and for the second third day in a row and the QQQQ is bumping up against the previous day's highs in the pre-market. This is why I always avoided swing-trading through earnings season. These gap opening would drive me nuts, even if I was positioned on the correct side of the gap it seemed that the gaps more often than not got faded.

Anyway, I'll be watching yesterday's highs on the QQQQ for a breakout.

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

Here's a chart of DNA for Mike:

This is one of my "no man's (person's) land" stocks. It's between the 50 and 200-day moving averages which signals to me an intermediate term downtrend and a long(er) term uptrend. Or you could say that it's just been going sideways for months -- it's right where it was last July. So the outlook largely depends on one's time frame.

The stock is at a critical juncture now though. It tested its 200-day moving average on Monday and Tuesday. IMHO, if any stock is health it should find support at the 200. I think the recent action is a great low risk buy point for long term oriented people. The recent lows give you a nice, tight stop-loss point.

Will wrote:

Wondering what your opinion is of nelnet (NNI)? It's an interesting chart that has shown a lot of strength when its peers have not.

My opinion is simply "hang on"! Of course, that is if you're already long it. It's obviously a great performing stock. If I wasn't in I'd be looking for a low risk spot to jump onboard.

I have even less than usual to say about the market today. My view is petty much exactly the same as yesterday -- and my falling three methods is still intact. :-)

Here's the Nasdaq chart:

On another note, this is the first time I've actually tried shorting on of Cramer's "Mad Money" mentions in the after-hours session. Only because I happened to still have my Briefing.com running did I even notice that he mentioned SMDI and popped it about 30%. I had to short it -- easiest money I've ever made! One could make a career out of shorting into the Cramer induced mania each night. Hmm...

Update: I keep forgetting to post the QQQQ chart. It looks a lot like the Nasdaq chart with the major exception being that it's beneath its 50-day moving average. I'm actually amazed that its October trendline hasn't been broken yet given the action in the likes of INTC and YHOO. MSFT reports earnings tomorrow night, that may be the make-or-break event for the Qs...

Well I was half-joking this morning when I said that the real big event for the day would be Google's earning's report. Turns out that was definitely the case. The action in the broader market was muted today but things heated up in the after-hours session. GOOG is down about 63 points (only about 15%) after missing their earnings estimate. It's dragging some other stocks, and the QQQQ, down with it. Yahoo (YHOO), for example, is back near its January lows and the QQQQ is now below its 50-day moving average. It's looking like a tough day for selected tech stocks tomorrow. (AAPL is back under its 50 DMA in the after-hours session too.)

Here's the Nasdaq chart, which looks like it's due for a pullback. It's got overbought stochastic and has been hovering under that resistance around 2310.

The futures are basically flat this morning and I wouldn't expect much out of the indices until after the Fed decision at 2:15. But the real big event will be GOOG's earnings report after hours! ;-) And speaking of Google, these GOOG for Napster rumors have launched NAPS into orbit. I wonder if it can get back to double digits. Hmm, maybe I won't take the day off after all...

Here's the current Nasdaq chart. I'm watching that red line of resistance which is holding the index back from new highs.

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

It's relatively quiet this morning. The futures are just a bit above fair value and there are less gappers than we've had the last several days. (And AAPL is selling off again!) A couple of Cramer's Mad Money mentions from Friday are toward the top of the % gainers list this monring. Isn't that just silly?

Anyway, I'm taking tomorrow off, as I always do for Fed decision days. Unless I see some very compelling movers early in today's session I'll be taking today off as well.

Hmm, Maybe GOOG will make me hang around. I want to see how it reacts to this, which I just saw on Briefing.com:

According to the NY Post, Google's long-simmering click-fraud problem could explode into a billion-dollar headache for the Web giant, some Web marketing experts are warning. In fact, a growing number of Google-watchers claim the search giant is ignoring the click-fraud issue because it's so large. Click-fraud happens when surfers click on Goggle advertisers with no desire to get to the advertiser's site. Knowing Google charges advertisers based on how many surfers click on their ads, the fraudsters click on the ads simply to drive up the advertiser's costs. The fraud also falsely inflated Google's revenues. The estimates on the Street, if even close to being true, could rock the stock market darling, set to announce fourth-quarter results Tuesday. "If Google were to implement a method for stopping click fraud today, it would lose 30 percent of its revenue overnight," said Joseph Holcomb, a search marketing expert. Holcomb estimates that almost one-third of all clicks on Google's network are suspect, thanks to sophisticated software programs known as "click bots" or "hit bots" that mimic human activity and fool search engines into believing the clicks are legit. With Google set to report about $6 billion in annual revenue, Holcomb's estimate would put $2 billion in top-line revenue at risk. Google denies the problem is that large.

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

I was surprised to see so many bearish candlesticks made on Friday given the strength in the indices. (You can see how many more bearish patterns were made Friday.) Maybe it was just people getting flat ahead of Tuesday's Fed decision. I won't be surprised if trading is somewhat muted tomorrow as traders keep their wallets on their hips ahead of Tuesday. That's exactly where my wallet will be because I'm taking a couple of days off. I'll get back to trading on Wednesday.

Below are charts of the Nasdaq, S&P 500 and the SOX. The SOX is looking really good, despite the weakness in INTC -- I guess there is some benefit to price-weighted indices. Here's -- the SOX is basically flat while INTEL is down over 30%. It'd be interesting to see what the SOX would look like if it were market cap weighted... Anyway, the point is that there are plenty of semiconductor stocks on fire. I'll continue to keep a select group of semis on my screen.

Oh yeah, I have to post a chart of Apple, which has been showing terrible relative strength the last few days. Somebody is really unloading their AAPL shares. But now the stock's about 16% off its all-time high and is 'trapped' between support and its 50-day moving average. I'll be watching and waiting for it to climb back above its 50-day moving average.

You guessed it, another gap up this morning. This time the QQQQ is above yesterday's high (41.68) and its 50-day moving average (41.69). The Qs have actually dropped a bit after the 8:30 economic numbers and now appear to be heading for a test of support. So I'm looking for them to bounce off of the 50-day moving average...

Some stocks that I'm watching that aren't on the gappers list below:

SIMO
SPWR
SPIL
LLTC
AMAT
XLNX

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

Today was obviously a good day for the bulls with the Nasdaq up 1% and the S&P 500 up 0.72%, both on increasing volume. Because the Nasdaq has broken above its December highs, its chart looks slightly better than the S&P to me. I think any hopes the bears had of the 50-day moving averages breaking have to be slipping away. (And so much for that falling three methods pattern!) However, the NDX/QQQQ and Dow are still beneath their 50-day moving averages. That may change tomorrow, especially for the QQQQ, thanks to the post-earnings action in MSFT and BRCM in after hours trading tonight. So all of a sudden things are looking much better. It almost looks like clear sailing to the January highs. The one hurdle that all the aforementioned charts have in common is the January downward sloping trendline (see the blue lines on the charts below).

The earnings calendar is light for tomorrow so I don't much threat from negative earnings news in the morning. It could be a wild one in the semiconductor sector tomorrow based on how BRCM's trading tonight...

What was that I said about 'Groundhog Day' yesterday? Let's see, I can simply modify a sentence from yesterday to -- We're gapping up again and for the second third day in a row and the QQQQ is bumping up against the previous day's highs in the pre-market. This is why I always avoided swing-trading through earnings season. These gap opening would drive me nuts, even if I was positioned on the correct side of the gap it seemed that the gaps more often than not got faded.

Anyway, I'll be watching yesterday's highs on the QQQQ for a breakout.

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

Here's a chart of DNA for Mike:

This is one of my "no man's (person's) land" stocks. It's between the 50 and 200-day moving averages which signals to me an intermediate term downtrend and a long(er) term uptrend. Or you could say that it's just been going sideways for months -- it's right where it was last July. So the outlook largely depends on one's time frame.

The stock is at a critical juncture now though. It tested its 200-day moving average on Monday and Tuesday. IMHO, if any stock is health it should find support at the 200. I think the recent action is a great low risk buy point for long term oriented people. The recent lows give you a nice, tight stop-loss point.

Will wrote:

Wondering what your opinion is of nelnet (NNI)? It's an interesting chart that has shown a lot of strength when its peers have not.

My opinion is simply "hang on"! Of course, that is if you're already long it. It's obviously a great performing stock. If I wasn't in I'd be looking for a low risk spot to jump onboard.

I have even less than usual to say about the market today. My view is petty much exactly the same as yesterday -- and my falling three methods is still intact. :-)

Here's the Nasdaq chart:

On another note, this is the first time I've actually tried shorting on of Cramer's "Mad Money" mentions in the after-hours session. Only because I happened to still have my Briefing.com running did I even notice that he mentioned SMDI and popped it about 30%. I had to short it -- easiest money I've ever made! One could make a career out of shorting into the Cramer induced mania each night. Hmm...

Update: I keep forgetting to post the QQQQ chart. It looks a lot like the Nasdaq chart with the major exception being that it's beneath its 50-day moving average. I'm actually amazed that its October trendline hasn't been broken yet given the action in the likes of INTC and YHOO. MSFT reports earnings tomorrow night, that may be the make-or-break event for the Qs...

Well I was half-joking this morning when I said that the real big event for the day would be Google's earning's report. Turns out that was definitely the case. The action in the broader market was muted today but things heated up in the after-hours session. GOOG is down about 63 points (only about 15%) after missing their earnings estimate. It's dragging some other stocks, and the QQQQ, down with it. Yahoo (YHOO), for example, is back near its January lows and the QQQQ is now below its 50-day moving average. It's looking like a tough day for selected tech stocks tomorrow. (AAPL is back under its 50 DMA in the after-hours session too.)

Here's the Nasdaq chart, which looks like it's due for a pullback. It's got overbought stochastic and has been hovering under that resistance around 2310.

The futures are basically flat this morning and I wouldn't expect much out of the indices until after the Fed decision at 2:15. But the real big event will be GOOG's earnings report after hours! ;-) And speaking of Google, these GOOG for Napster rumors have launched NAPS into orbit. I wonder if it can get back to double digits. Hmm, maybe I won't take the day off after all...

Here's the current Nasdaq chart. I'm watching that red line of resistance which is holding the index back from new highs.

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

It's relatively quiet this morning. The futures are just a bit above fair value and there are less gappers than we've had the last several days. (And AAPL is selling off again!) A couple of Cramer's Mad Money mentions from Friday are toward the top of the % gainers list this monring. Isn't that just silly?

Anyway, I'm taking tomorrow off, as I always do for Fed decision days. Unless I see some very compelling movers early in today's session I'll be taking today off as well.

Hmm, Maybe GOOG will make me hang around. I want to see how it reacts to this, which I just saw on Briefing.com:

According to the NY Post, Google's long-simmering click-fraud problem could explode into a billion-dollar headache for the Web giant, some Web marketing experts are warning. In fact, a growing number of Google-watchers claim the search giant is ignoring the click-fraud issue because it's so large. Click-fraud happens when surfers click on Goggle advertisers with no desire to get to the advertiser's site. Knowing Google charges advertisers based on how many surfers click on their ads, the fraudsters click on the ads simply to drive up the advertiser's costs. The fraud also falsely inflated Google's revenues. The estimates on the Street, if even close to being true, could rock the stock market darling, set to announce fourth-quarter results Tuesday. "If Google were to implement a method for stopping click fraud today, it would lose 30 percent of its revenue overnight," said Joseph Holcomb, a search marketing expert. Holcomb estimates that almost one-third of all clicks on Google's network are suspect, thanks to sophisticated software programs known as "click bots" or "hit bots" that mimic human activity and fool search engines into believing the clicks are legit. With Google set to report about $6 billion in annual revenue, Holcomb's estimate would put $2 billion in top-line revenue at risk. Google denies the problem is that large.

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

I was surprised to see so many bearish candlesticks made on Friday given the strength in the indices. (You can see how many more bearish patterns were made Friday.) Maybe it was just people getting flat ahead of Tuesday's Fed decision. I won't be surprised if trading is somewhat muted tomorrow as traders keep their wallets on their hips ahead of Tuesday. That's exactly where my wallet will be because I'm taking a couple of days off. I'll get back to trading on Wednesday.

Below are charts of the Nasdaq, S&P 500 and the SOX. The SOX is looking really good, despite the weakness in INTC -- I guess there is some benefit to price-weighted indices. Here's -- the SOX is basically flat while INTEL is down over 30%. It'd be interesting to see what the SOX would look like if it were market cap weighted... Anyway, the point is that there are plenty of semiconductor stocks on fire. I'll continue to keep a select group of semis on my screen.

Oh yeah, I have to post a chart of Apple, which has been showing terrible relative strength the last few days. Somebody is really unloading their AAPL shares. But now the stock's about 16% off its all-time high and is 'trapped' between support and its 50-day moving average. I'll be watching and waiting for it to climb back above its 50-day moving average.

You guessed it, another gap up this morning. This time the QQQQ is above yesterday's high (41.68) and its 50-day moving average (41.69). The Qs have actually dropped a bit after the 8:30 economic numbers and now appear to be heading for a test of support. So I'm looking for them to bounce off of the 50-day moving average...

Some stocks that I'm watching that aren't on the gappers list below:

SIMO
SPWR
SPIL
LLTC
AMAT
XLNX

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

Today was obviously a good day for the bulls with the Nasdaq up 1% and the S&P 500 up 0.72%, both on increasing volume. Because the Nasdaq has broken above its December highs, its chart looks slightly better than the S&P to me. I think any hopes the bears had of the 50-day moving averages breaking have to be slipping away. (And so much for that falling three methods pattern!) However, the NDX/QQQQ and Dow are still beneath their 50-day moving averages. That may change tomorrow, especially for the QQQQ, thanks to the post-earnings action in MSFT and BRCM in after hours trading tonight. So all of a sudden things are looking much better. It almost looks like clear sailing to the January highs. The one hurdle that all the aforementioned charts have in common is the January downward sloping trendline (see the blue lines on the charts below).

The earnings calendar is light for tomorrow so I don't much threat from negative earnings news in the morning. It could be a wild one in the semiconductor sector tomorrow based on how BRCM's trading tonight...

What was that I said about 'Groundhog Day' yesterday? Let's see, I can simply modify a sentence from yesterday to -- We're gapping up again and for the second third day in a row and the QQQQ is bumping up against the previous day's highs in the pre-market. This is why I always avoided swing-trading through earnings season. These gap opening would drive me nuts, even if I was positioned on the correct side of the gap it seemed that the gaps more often than not got faded.

Anyway, I'll be watching yesterday's highs on the QQQQ for a breakout.

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

Here's a chart of DNA for Mike:

This is one of my "no man's (person's) land" stocks. It's between the 50 and 200-day moving averages which signals to me an intermediate term downtrend and a long(er) term uptrend. Or you could say that it's just been going sideways for months -- it's right where it was last July. So the outlook largely depends on one's time frame.

The stock is at a critical juncture now though. It tested its 200-day moving average on Monday and Tuesday. IMHO, if any stock is health it should find support at the 200. I think the recent action is a great low risk buy point for long term oriented people. The recent lows give you a nice, tight stop-loss point.

Will wrote:

Wondering what your opinion is of nelnet (NNI)? It's an interesting chart that has shown a lot of strength when its peers have not.

My opinion is simply "hang on"! Of course, that is if you're already long it. It's obviously a great performing stock. If I wasn't in I'd be looking for a low risk spot to jump onboard.

I have even less than usual to say about the market today. My view is petty much exactly the same as yesterday -- and my falling three methods is still intact. :-)

Here's the Nasdaq chart:

On another note, this is the first time I've actually tried shorting on of Cramer's "Mad Money" mentions in the after-hours session. Only because I happened to still have my Briefing.com running did I even notice that he mentioned SMDI and popped it about 30%. I had to short it -- easiest money I've ever made! One could make a career out of shorting into the Cramer induced mania each night. Hmm...

Update: I keep forgetting to post the QQQQ chart. It looks a lot like the Nasdaq chart with the major exception being that it's beneath its 50-day moving average. I'm actually amazed that its October trendline hasn't been broken yet given the action in the likes of INTC and YHOO. MSFT reports earnings tomorrow night, that may be the make-or-break event for the Qs...

Well I was half-joking this morning when I said that the real big event for the day would be Google's earning's report. Turns out that was definitely the case. The action in the broader market was muted today but things heated up in the after-hours session. GOOG is down about 63 points (only about 15%) after missing their earnings estimate. It's dragging some other stocks, and the QQQQ, down with it. Yahoo (YHOO), for example, is back near its January lows and the QQQQ is now below its 50-day moving average. It's looking like a tough day for selected tech stocks tomorrow. (AAPL is back under its 50 DMA in the after-hours session too.)

Here's the Nasdaq chart, which looks like it's due for a pullback. It's got overbought stochastic and has been hovering under that resistance around 2310.

The futures are basically flat this morning and I wouldn't expect much out of the indices until after the Fed decision at 2:15. But the real big event will be GOOG's earnings report after hours! ;-) And speaking of Google, these GOOG for Napster rumors have launched NAPS into orbit. I wonder if it can get back to double digits. Hmm, maybe I won't take the day off after all...

Here's the current Nasdaq chart. I'm watching that red line of resistance which is holding the index back from new highs.

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

It's relatively quiet this morning. The futures are just a bit above fair value and there are less gappers than we've had the last several days. (And AAPL is selling off again!) A couple of Cramer's Mad Money mentions from Friday are toward the top of the % gainers list this monring. Isn't that just silly?

Anyway, I'm taking tomorrow off, as I always do for Fed decision days. Unless I see some very compelling movers early in today's session I'll be taking today off as well.

Hmm, Maybe GOOG will make me hang around. I want to see how it reacts to this, which I just saw on Briefing.com:

According to the NY Post, Google's long-simmering click-fraud problem could explode into a billion-dollar headache for the Web giant, some Web marketing experts are warning. In fact, a growing number of Google-watchers claim the search giant is ignoring the click-fraud issue because it's so large. Click-fraud happens when surfers click on Goggle advertisers with no desire to get to the advertiser's site. Knowing Google charges advertisers based on how many surfers click on their ads, the fraudsters click on the ads simply to drive up the advertiser's costs. The fraud also falsely inflated Google's revenues. The estimates on the Street, if even close to being true, could rock the stock market darling, set to announce fourth-quarter results Tuesday. "If Google were to implement a method for stopping click fraud today, it would lose 30 percent of its revenue overnight," said Joseph Holcomb, a search marketing expert. Holcomb estimates that almost one-third of all clicks on Google's network are suspect, thanks to sophisticated software programs known as "click bots" or "hit bots" that mimic human activity and fool search engines into believing the clicks are legit. With Google set to report about $6 billion in annual revenue, Holcomb's estimate would put $2 billion in top-line revenue at risk. Google denies the problem is that large.

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

I was surprised to see so many bearish candlesticks made on Friday given the strength in the indices. (You can see how many more bearish patterns were made Friday.) Maybe it was just people getting flat ahead of Tuesday's Fed decision. I won't be surprised if trading is somewhat muted tomorrow as traders keep their wallets on their hips ahead of Tuesday. That's exactly where my wallet will be because I'm taking a couple of days off. I'll get back to trading on Wednesday.

Below are charts of the Nasdaq, S&P 500 and the SOX. The SOX is looking really good, despite the weakness in INTC -- I guess there is some benefit to price-weighted indices. Here's -- the SOX is basically flat while INTEL is down over 30%. It'd be interesting to see what the SOX would look like if it were market cap weighted... Anyway, the point is that there are plenty of semiconductor stocks on fire. I'll continue to keep a select group of semis on my screen.

Oh yeah, I have to post a chart of Apple, which has been showing terrible relative strength the last few days. Somebody is really unloading their AAPL shares. But now the stock's about 16% off its all-time high and is 'trapped' between support and its 50-day moving average. I'll be watching and waiting for it to climb back above its 50-day moving average.

You guessed it, another gap up this morning. This time the QQQQ is above yesterday's high (41.68) and its 50-day moving average (41.69). The Qs have actually dropped a bit after the 8:30 economic numbers and now appear to be heading for a test of support. So I'm looking for them to bounce off of the 50-day moving average...

Some stocks that I'm watching that aren't on the gappers list below:

SIMO
SPWR
SPIL
LLTC
AMAT
XLNX

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

Today was obviously a good day for the bulls with the Nasdaq up 1% and the S&P 500 up 0.72%, both on increasing volume. Because the Nasdaq has broken above its December highs, its chart looks slightly better than the S&P to me. I think any hopes the bears had of the 50-day moving averages breaking have to be slipping away. (And so much for that falling three methods pattern!) However, the NDX/QQQQ and Dow are still beneath their 50-day moving averages. That may change tomorrow, especially for the QQQQ, thanks to the post-earnings action in MSFT and BRCM in after hours trading tonight. So all of a sudden things are looking much better. It almost looks like clear sailing to the January highs. The one hurdle that all the aforementioned charts have in common is the January downward sloping trendline (see the blue lines on the charts below).

The earnings calendar is light for tomorrow so I don't much threat from negative earnings news in the morning. It could be a wild one in the semiconductor sector tomorrow based on how BRCM's trading tonight...

What was that I said about 'Groundhog Day' yesterday? Let's see, I can simply modify a sentence from yesterday to -- We're gapping up again and for the second third day in a row and the QQQQ is bumping up against the previous day's highs in the pre-market. This is why I always avoided swing-trading through earnings season. These gap opening would drive me nuts, even if I was positioned on the correct side of the gap it seemed that the gaps more often than not got faded.

Anyway, I'll be watching yesterday's highs on the QQQQ for a breakout.

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

Here's a chart of DNA for Mike:

This is one of my "no man's (person's) land" stocks. It's between the 50 and 200-day moving averages which signals to me an intermediate term downtrend and a long(er) term uptrend. Or you could say that it's just been going sideways for months -- it's right where it was last July. So the outlook largely depends on one's time frame.

The stock is at a critical juncture now though. It tested its 200-day moving average on Monday and Tuesday. IMHO, if any stock is health it should find support at the 200. I think the recent action is a great low risk buy point for long term oriented people. The recent lows give you a nice, tight stop-loss point.

Will wrote:

Wondering what your opinion is of nelnet (NNI)? It's an interesting chart that has shown a lot of strength when its peers have not.

My opinion is simply "hang on"! Of course, that is if you're already long it. It's obviously a great performing stock. If I wasn't in I'd be looking for a low risk spot to jump onboard.

I have even less than usual to say about the market today. My view is petty much exactly the same as yesterday -- and my falling three methods is still intact. :-)

Here's the Nasdaq chart:

On another note, this is the first time I've actually tried shorting on of Cramer's "Mad Money" mentions in the after-hours session. Only because I happened to still have my Briefing.com running did I even notice that he mentioned SMDI and popped it about 30%. I had to short it -- easiest money I've ever made! One could make a career out of shorting into the Cramer induced mania each night. Hmm...

Update: I keep forgetting to post the QQQQ chart. It looks a lot like the Nasdaq chart with the major exception being that it's beneath its 50-day moving average. I'm actually amazed that its October trendline hasn't been broken yet given the action in the likes of INTC and YHOO. MSFT reports earnings tomorrow night, that may be the make-or-break event for the Qs...

Well I was half-joking this morning when I said that the real big event for the day would be Google's earning's report. Turns out that was definitely the case. The action in the broader market was muted today but things heated up in the after-hours session. GOOG is down about 63 points (only about 15%) after missing their earnings estimate. It's dragging some other stocks, and the QQQQ, down with it. Yahoo (YHOO), for example, is back near its January lows and the QQQQ is now below its 50-day moving average. It's looking like a tough day for selected tech stocks tomorrow. (AAPL is back under its 50 DMA in the after-hours session too.)

Here's the Nasdaq chart, which looks like it's due for a pullback. It's got overbought stochastic and has been hovering under that resistance around 2310.

The futures are basically flat this morning and I wouldn't expect much out of the indices until after the Fed decision at 2:15. But the real big event will be GOOG's earnings report after hours! ;-) And speaking of Google, these GOOG for Napster rumors have launched NAPS into orbit. I wonder if it can get back to double digits. Hmm, maybe I won't take the day off after all...

Here's the current Nasdaq chart. I'm watching that red line of resistance which is holding the index back from new highs.

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

It's relatively quiet this morning. The futures are just a bit above fair value and there are less gappers than we've had the last several days. (And AAPL is selling off again!) A couple of Cramer's Mad Money mentions from Friday are toward the top of the % gainers list this monring. Isn't that just silly?

Anyway, I'm taking tomorrow off, as I always do for Fed decision days. Unless I see some very compelling movers early in today's session I'll be taking today off as well.

Hmm, Maybe GOOG will make me hang around. I want to see how it reacts to this, which I just saw on Briefing.com:

According to the NY Post, Google's long-simmering click-fraud problem could explode into a billion-dollar headache for the Web giant, some Web marketing experts are warning. In fact, a growing number of Google-watchers claim the search giant is ignoring the click-fraud issue because it's so large. Click-fraud happens when surfers click on Goggle advertisers with no desire to get to the advertiser's site. Knowing Google charges advertisers based on how many surfers click on their ads, the fraudsters click on the ads simply to drive up the advertiser's costs. The fraud also falsely inflated Google's revenues. The estimates on the Street, if even close to being true, could rock the stock market darling, set to announce fourth-quarter results Tuesday. "If Google were to implement a method for stopping click fraud today, it would lose 30 percent of its revenue overnight," said Joseph Holcomb, a search marketing expert. Holcomb estimates that almost one-third of all clicks on Google's network are suspect, thanks to sophisticated software programs known as "click bots" or "hit bots" that mimic human activity and fool search engines into believing the clicks are legit. With Google set to report about $6 billion in annual revenue, Holcomb's estimate would put $2 billion in top-line revenue at risk. Google denies the problem is that large.

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

I was surprised to see so many bearish candlesticks made on Friday given the strength in the indices. (You can see how many more bearish patterns were made Friday.) Maybe it was just people getting flat ahead of Tuesday's Fed decision. I won't be surprised if trading is somewhat muted tomorrow as traders keep their wallets on their hips ahead of Tuesday. That's exactly where my wallet will be because I'm taking a couple of days off. I'll get back to trading on Wednesday.

Below are charts of the Nasdaq, S&P 500 and the SOX. The SOX is looking really good, despite the weakness in INTC -- I guess there is some benefit to price-weighted indices. Here's -- the SOX is basically flat while INTEL is down over 30%. It'd be interesting to see what the SOX would look like if it were market cap weighted... Anyway, the point is that there are plenty of semiconductor stocks on fire. I'll continue to keep a select group of semis on my screen.

Oh yeah, I have to post a chart of Apple, which has been showing terrible relative strength the last few days. Somebody is really unloading their AAPL shares. But now the stock's about 16% off its all-time high and is 'trapped' between support and its 50-day moving average. I'll be watching and waiting for it to climb back above its 50-day moving average.

You guessed it, another gap up this morning. This time the QQQQ is above yesterday's high (41.68) and its 50-day moving average (41.69). The Qs have actually dropped a bit after the 8:30 economic numbers and now appear to be heading for a test of support. So I'm looking for them to bounce off of the 50-day moving average...

Some stocks that I'm watching that aren't on the gappers list below:

SIMO
SPWR
SPIL
LLTC
AMAT
XLNX

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

Today was obviously a good day for the bulls with the Nasdaq up 1% and the S&P 500 up 0.72%, both on increasing volume. Because the Nasdaq has broken above its December highs, its chart looks slightly better than the S&P to me. I think any hopes the bears had of the 50-day moving averages breaking have to be slipping away. (And so much for that falling three methods pattern!) However, the NDX/QQQQ and Dow are still beneath their 50-day moving averages. That may change tomorrow, especially for the QQQQ, thanks to the post-earnings action in MSFT and BRCM in after hours trading tonight. So all of a sudden things are looking much better. It almost looks like clear sailing to the January highs. The one hurdle that all the aforementioned charts have in common is the January downward sloping trendline (see the blue lines on the charts below).

The earnings calendar is light for tomorrow so I don't much threat from negative earnings news in the morning. It could be a wild one in the semiconductor sector tomorrow based on how BRCM's trading tonight...

What was that I said about 'Groundhog Day' yesterday? Let's see, I can simply modify a sentence from yesterday to -- We're gapping up again and for the second third day in a row and the QQQQ is bumping up against the previous day's highs in the pre-market. This is why I always avoided swing-trading through earnings season. These gap opening would drive me nuts, even if I was positioned on the correct side of the gap it seemed that the gaps more often than not got faded.

Anyway, I'll be watching yesterday's highs on the QQQQ for a breakout.

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

Here's a chart of DNA for Mike:

This is one of my "no man's (person's) land" stocks. It's between the 50 and 200-day moving averages which signals to me an intermediate term downtrend and a long(er) term uptrend. Or you could say that it's just been going sideways for months -- it's right where it was last July. So the outlook largely depends on one's time frame.

The stock is at a critical juncture now though. It tested its 200-day moving average on Monday and Tuesday. IMHO, if any stock is health it should find support at the 200. I think the recent action is a great low risk buy point for long term oriented people. The recent lows give you a nice, tight stop-loss point.

Will wrote:

Wondering what your opinion is of nelnet (NNI)? It's an interesting chart that has shown a lot of strength when its peers have not.

My opinion is simply "hang on"! Of course, that is if you're already long it. It's obviously a great performing stock. If I wasn't in I'd be looking for a low risk spot to jump onboard.

I have even less than usual to say about the market today. My view is petty much exactly the same as yesterday -- and my falling three methods is still intact. :-)

Here's the Nasdaq chart:

On another note, this is the first time I've actually tried shorting on of Cramer's "Mad Money" mentions in the after-hours session. Only because I happened to still have my Briefing.com running did I even notice that he mentioned SMDI and popped it about 30%. I had to short it -- easiest money I've ever made! One could make a career out of shorting into the Cramer induced mania each night. Hmm...

Update: I keep forgetting to post the QQQQ chart. It looks a lot like the Nasdaq chart with the major exception being that it's beneath its 50-day moving average. I'm actually amazed that its October trendline hasn't been broken yet given the action in the likes of INTC and YHOO. MSFT reports earnings tomorrow night, that may be the make-or-break event for the Qs...

Well I was half-joking this morning when I said that the real big event for the day would be Google's earning's report. Turns out that was definitely the case. The action in the broader market was muted today but things heated up in the after-hours session. GOOG is down about 63 points (only about 15%) after missing their earnings estimate. It's dragging some other stocks, and the QQQQ, down with it. Yahoo (YHOO), for example, is back near its January lows and the QQQQ is now below its 50-day moving average. It's looking like a tough day for selected tech stocks tomorrow. (AAPL is back under its 50 DMA in the after-hours session too.)

Here's the Nasdaq chart, which looks like it's due for a pullback. It's got overbought stochastic and has been hovering under that resistance around 2310.

The futures are basically flat this morning and I wouldn't expect much out of the indices until after the Fed decision at 2:15. But the real big event will be GOOG's earnings report after hours! ;-) And speaking of Google, these GOOG for Napster rumors have launched NAPS into orbit. I wonder if it can get back to double digits. Hmm, maybe I won't take the day off after all...

Here's the current Nasdaq chart. I'm watching that red line of resistance which is holding the index back from new highs.

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

It's relatively quiet this morning. The futures are just a bit above fair value and there are less gappers than we've had the last several days. (And AAPL is selling off again!) A couple of Cramer's Mad Money mentions from Friday are toward the top of the % gainers list this monring. Isn't that just silly?

Anyway, I'm taking tomorrow off, as I always do for Fed decision days. Unless I see some very compelling movers early in today's session I'll be taking today off as well.

Hmm, Maybe GOOG will make me hang around. I want to see how it reacts to this, which I just saw on Briefing.com:

According to the NY Post, Google's long-simmering click-fraud problem could explode into a billion-dollar headache for the Web giant, some Web marketing experts are warning. In fact, a growing number of Google-watchers claim the search giant is ignoring the click-fraud issue because it's so large. Click-fraud happens when surfers click on Goggle advertisers with no desire to get to the advertiser's site. Knowing Google charges advertisers based on how many surfers click on their ads, the fraudsters click on the ads simply to drive up the advertiser's costs. The fraud also falsely inflated Google's revenues. The estimates on the Street, if even close to being true, could rock the stock market darling, set to announce fourth-quarter results Tuesday. "If Google were to implement a method for stopping click fraud today, it would lose 30 percent of its revenue overnight," said Joseph Holcomb, a search marketing expert. Holcomb estimates that almost one-third of all clicks on Google's network are suspect, thanks to sophisticated software programs known as "click bots" or "hit bots" that mimic human activity and fool search engines into believing the clicks are legit. With Google set to report about $6 billion in annual revenue, Holcomb's estimate would put $2 billion in top-line revenue at risk. Google denies the problem is that large.

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

I was surprised to see so many bearish candlesticks made on Friday given the strength in the indices. (You can see how many more bearish patterns were made Friday.) Maybe it was just people getting flat ahead of Tuesday's Fed decision. I won't be surprised if trading is somewhat muted tomorrow as traders keep their wallets on their hips ahead of Tuesday. That's exactly where my wallet will be because I'm taking a couple of days off. I'll get back to trading on Wednesday.

Below are charts of the Nasdaq, S&P 500 and the SOX. The SOX is looking really good, despite the weakness in INTC -- I guess there is some benefit to price-weighted indices. Here's -- the SOX is basically flat while INTEL is down over 30%. It'd be interesting to see what the SOX would look like if it were market cap weighted... Anyway, the point is that there are plenty of semiconductor stocks on fire. I'll continue to keep a select group of semis on my screen.

Oh yeah, I have to post a chart of Apple, which has been showing terrible relative strength the last few days. Somebody is really unloading their AAPL shares. But now the stock's about 16% off its all-time high and is 'trapped' between support and its 50-day moving average. I'll be watching and waiting for it to climb back above its 50-day moving average.

You guessed it, another gap up this morning. This time the QQQQ is above yesterday's high (41.68) and its 50-day moving average (41.69). The Qs have actually dropped a bit after the 8:30 economic numbers and now appear to be heading for a test of support. So I'm looking for them to bounce off of the 50-day moving average...

Some stocks that I'm watching that aren't on the gappers list below:

SIMO
SPWR
SPIL
LLTC
AMAT
XLNX

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

Today was obviously a good day for the bulls with the Nasdaq up 1% and the S&P 500 up 0.72%, both on increasing volume. Because the Nasdaq has broken above its December highs, its chart looks slightly better than the S&P to me. I think any hopes the bears had of the 50-day moving averages breaking have to be slipping away. (And so much for that falling three methods pattern!) However, the NDX/QQQQ and Dow are still beneath their 50-day moving averages. That may change tomorrow, especially for the QQQQ, thanks to the post-earnings action in MSFT and BRCM in after hours trading tonight. So all of a sudden things are looking much better. It almost looks like clear sailing to the January highs. The one hurdle that all the aforementioned charts have in common is the January downward sloping trendline (see the blue lines on the charts below).

The earnings calendar is light for tomorrow so I don't much threat from negative earnings news in the morning. It could be a wild one in the semiconductor sector tomorrow based on how BRCM's trading tonight...

What was that I said about 'Groundhog Day' yesterday? Let's see, I can simply modify a sentence from yesterday to -- We're gapping up again and for the second third day in a row and the QQQQ is bumping up against the previous day's highs in the pre-market. This is why I always avoided swing-trading through earnings season. These gap opening would drive me nuts, even if I was positioned on the correct side of the gap it seemed that the gaps more often than not got faded.

Anyway, I'll be watching yesterday's highs on the QQQQ for a breakout.

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

Here's a chart of DNA for Mike:

This is one of my "no man's (person's) land" stocks. It's between the 50 and 200-day moving averages which signals to me an intermediate term downtrend and a long(er) term uptrend. Or you could say that it's just been going sideways for months -- it's right where it was last July. So the outlook largely depends on one's time frame.

The stock is at a critical juncture now though. It tested its 200-day moving average on Monday and Tuesday. IMHO, if any stock is health it should find support at the 200. I think the recent action is a great low risk buy point for long term oriented people. The recent lows give you a nice, tight stop-loss point.

Will wrote:

Wondering what your opinion is of nelnet (NNI)? It's an interesting chart that has shown a lot of strength when its peers have not.

My opinion is simply "hang on"! Of course, that is if you're already long it. It's obviously a great performing stock. If I wasn't in I'd be looking for a low risk spot to jump onboard.

I have even less than usual to say about the market today. My view is petty much exactly the same as yesterday -- and my falling three methods is still intact. :-)

Here's the Nasdaq chart:

On another note, this is the first time I've actually tried shorting on of Cramer's "Mad Money" mentions in the after-hours session. Only because I happened to still have my Briefing.com running did I even notice that he mentioned SMDI and popped it about 30%. I had to short it -- easiest money I've ever made! One could make a career out of shorting into the Cramer induced mania each night. Hmm...

Update: I keep forgetting to post the QQQQ chart. It looks a lot like the Nasdaq chart with the major exception being that it's beneath its 50-day moving average. I'm actually amazed that its October trendline hasn't been broken yet given the action in the likes of INTC and YHOO. MSFT reports earnings tomorrow night, that may be the make-or-break event for the Qs...

Well I was half-joking this morning when I said that the real big event for the day would be Google's earning's report. Turns out that was definitely the case. The action in the broader market was muted today but things heated up in the after-hours session. GOOG is down about 63 points (only about 15%) after missing their earnings estimate. It's dragging some other stocks, and the QQQQ, down with it. Yahoo (YHOO), for example, is back near its January lows and the QQQQ is now below its 50-day moving average. It's looking like a tough day for selected tech stocks tomorrow. (AAPL is back under its 50 DMA in the after-hours session too.)

Here's the Nasdaq chart, which looks like it's due for a pullback. It's got overbought stochastic and has been hovering under that resistance around 2310.

The futures are basically flat this morning and I wouldn't expect much out of the indices until after the Fed decision at 2:15. But the real big event will be GOOG's earnings report after hours! ;-) And speaking of Google, these GOOG for Napster rumors have launched NAPS into orbit. I wonder if it can get back to double digits. Hmm, maybe I won't take the day off after all...

Here's the current Nasdaq chart. I'm watching that red line of resistance which is holding the index back from new highs.

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

It's relatively quiet this morning. The futures are just a bit above fair value and there are less gappers than we've had the last several days. (And AAPL is selling off again!) A couple of Cramer's Mad Money mentions from Friday are toward the top of the % gainers list this monring. Isn't that just silly?

Anyway, I'm taking tomorrow off, as I always do for Fed decision days. Unless I see some very compelling movers early in today's session I'll be taking today off as well.

Hmm, Maybe GOOG will make me hang around. I want to see how it reacts to this, which I just saw on Briefing.com:

According to the NY Post, Google's long-simmering click-fraud problem could explode into a billion-dollar headache for the Web giant, some Web marketing experts are warning. In fact, a growing number of Google-watchers claim the search giant is ignoring the click-fraud issue because it's so large. Click-fraud happens when surfers click on Goggle advertisers with no desire to get to the advertiser's site. Knowing Google charges advertisers based on how many surfers click on their ads, the fraudsters click on the ads simply to drive up the advertiser's costs. The fraud also falsely inflated Google's revenues. The estimates on the Street, if even close to being true, could rock the stock market darling, set to announce fourth-quarter results Tuesday. "If Google were to implement a method for stopping click fraud today, it would lose 30 percent of its revenue overnight," said Joseph Holcomb, a search marketing expert. Holcomb estimates that almost one-third of all clicks on Google's network are suspect, thanks to sophisticated software programs known as "click bots" or "hit bots" that mimic human activity and fool search engines into believing the clicks are legit. With Google set to report about $6 billion in annual revenue, Holcomb's estimate would put $2 billion in top-line revenue at risk. Google denies the problem is that large.

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

I was surprised to see so many bearish candlesticks made on Friday given the strength in the indices. (You can see how many more bearish patterns were made Friday.) Maybe it was just people getting flat ahead of Tuesday's Fed decision. I won't be surprised if trading is somewhat muted tomorrow as traders keep their wallets on their hips ahead of Tuesday. That's exactly where my wallet will be because I'm taking a couple of days off. I'll get back to trading on Wednesday.

Below are charts of the Nasdaq, S&P 500 and the SOX. The SOX is looking really good, despite the weakness in INTC -- I guess there is some benefit to price-weighted indices. Here's -- the SOX is basically flat while INTEL is down over 30%. It'd be interesting to see what the SOX would look like if it were market cap weighted... Anyway, the point is that there are plenty of semiconductor stocks on fire. I'll continue to keep a select group of semis on my screen.

Oh yeah, I have to post a chart of Apple, which has been showing terrible relative strength the last few days. Somebody is really unloading their AAPL shares. But now the stock's about 16% off its all-time high and is 'trapped' between support and its 50-day moving average. I'll be watching and waiting for it to climb back above its 50-day moving average.

You guessed it, another gap up this morning. This time the QQQQ is above yesterday's high (41.68) and its 50-day moving average (41.69). The Qs have actually dropped a bit after the 8:30 economic numbers and now appear to be heading for a test of support. So I'm looking for them to bounce off of the 50-day moving average...

Some stocks that I'm watching that aren't on the gappers list below:

SIMO
SPWR
SPIL
LLTC
AMAT
XLNX

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

Today was obviously a good day for the bulls with the Nasdaq up 1% and the S&P 500 up 0.72%, both on increasing volume. Because the Nasdaq has broken above its December highs, its chart looks slightly better than the S&P to me. I think any hopes the bears had of the 50-day moving averages breaking have to be slipping away. (And so much for that falling three methods pattern!) However, the NDX/QQQQ and Dow are still beneath their 50-day moving averages. That may change tomorrow, especially for the QQQQ, thanks to the post-earnings action in MSFT and BRCM in after hours trading tonight. So all of a sudden things are looking much better. It almost looks like clear sailing to the January highs. The one hurdle that all the aforementioned charts have in common is the January downward sloping trendline (see the blue lines on the charts below).

The earnings calendar is light for tomorrow so I don't much threat from negative earnings news in the morning. It could be a wild one in the semiconductor sector tomorrow based on how BRCM's trading tonight...

What was that I said about 'Groundhog Day' yesterday? Let's see, I can simply modify a sentence from yesterday to -- We're gapping up again and for the second third day in a row and the QQQQ is bumping up against the previous day's highs in the pre-market. This is why I always avoided swing-trading through earnings season. These gap opening would drive me nuts, even if I was positioned on the correct side of the gap it seemed that the gaps more often than not got faded.

Anyway, I'll be watching yesterday's highs on the QQQQ for a breakout.

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

Here's a chart of DNA for Mike:

This is one of my "no man's (person's) land" stocks. It's between the 50 and 200-day moving averages which signals to me an intermediate term downtrend and a long(er) term uptrend. Or you could say that it's just been going sideways for months -- it's right where it was last July. So the outlook largely depends on one's time frame.

The stock is at a critical juncture now though. It tested its 200-day moving average on Monday and Tuesday. IMHO, if any stock is health it should find support at the 200. I think the recent action is a great low risk buy point for long term oriented people. The recent lows give you a nice, tight stop-loss point.

Will wrote:

Wondering what your opinion is of nelnet (NNI)? It's an interesting chart that has shown a lot of strength when its peers have not.

My opinion is simply "hang on"! Of course, that is if you're already long it. It's obviously a great performing stock. If I wasn't in I'd be looking for a low risk spot to jump onboard.

I have even less than usual to say about the market today. My view is petty much exactly the same as yesterday -- and my falling three methods is still intact. :-)

Here's the Nasdaq chart:

On another note, this is the first time I've actually tried shorting on of Cramer's "Mad Money" mentions in the after-hours session. Only because I happened to still have my Briefing.com running did I even notice that he mentioned SMDI and popped it about 30%. I had to short it -- easiest money I've ever made! One could make a career out of shorting into the Cramer induced mania each night. Hmm...

Update: I keep forgetting to post the QQQQ chart. It looks a lot like the Nasdaq chart with the major exception being that it's beneath its 50-day moving average. I'm actually amazed that its October trendline hasn't been broken yet given the action in the likes of INTC and YHOO. MSFT reports earnings tomorrow night, that may be the make-or-break event for the Qs...

Well I was half-joking this morning when I said that the real big event for the day would be Google's earning's report. Turns out that was definitely the case. The action in the broader market was muted today but things heated up in the after-hours session. GOOG is down about 63 points (only about 15%) after missing their earnings estimate. It's dragging some other stocks, and the QQQQ, down with it. Yahoo (YHOO), for example, is back near its January lows and the QQQQ is now below its 50-day moving average. It's looking like a tough day for selected tech stocks tomorrow. (AAPL is back under its 50 DMA in the after-hours session too.)

Here's the Nasdaq chart, which looks like it's due for a pullback. It's got overbought stochastic and has been hovering under that resistance around 2310.

The futures are basically flat this morning and I wouldn't expect much out of the indices until after the Fed decision at 2:15. But the real big event will be GOOG's earnings report after hours! ;-) And speaking of Google, these GOOG for Napster rumors have launched NAPS into orbit. I wonder if it can get back to double digits. Hmm, maybe I won't take the day off after all...

Here's the current Nasdaq chart. I'm watching that red line of resistance which is holding the index back from new highs.

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

It's relatively quiet this morning. The futures are just a bit above fair value and there are less gappers than we've had the last several days. (And AAPL is selling off again!) A couple of Cramer's Mad Money mentions from Friday are toward the top of the % gainers list this monring. Isn't that just silly?

Anyway, I'm taking tomorrow off, as I always do for Fed decision days. Unless I see some very compelling movers early in today's session I'll be taking today off as well.

Hmm, Maybe GOOG will make me hang around. I want to see how it reacts to this, which I just saw on Briefing.com:

According to the NY Post, Google's long-simmering click-fraud problem could explode into a billion-dollar headache for the Web giant, some Web marketing experts are warning. In fact, a growing number of Google-watchers claim the search giant is ignoring the click-fraud issue because it's so large. Click-fraud happens when surfers click on Goggle advertisers with no desire to get to the advertiser's site. Knowing Google charges advertisers based on how many surfers click on their ads, the fraudsters click on the ads simply to drive up the advertiser's costs. The fraud also falsely inflated Google's revenues. The estimates on the Street, if even close to being true, could rock the stock market darling, set to announce fourth-quarter results Tuesday. "If Google were to implement a method for stopping click fraud today, it would lose 30 percent of its revenue overnight," said Joseph Holcomb, a search marketing expert. Holcomb estimates that almost one-third of all clicks on Google's network are suspect, thanks to sophisticated software programs known as "click bots" or "hit bots" that mimic human activity and fool search engines into believing the clicks are legit. With Google set to report about $6 billion in annual revenue, Holcomb's estimate would put $2 billion in top-line revenue at risk. Google denies the problem is that large.

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

I was surprised to see so many bearish candlesticks made on Friday given the strength in the indices. (You can see how many more bearish patterns were made Friday.) Maybe it was just people getting flat ahead of Tuesday's Fed decision. I won't be surprised if trading is somewhat muted tomorrow as traders keep their wallets on their hips ahead of Tuesday. That's exactly where my wallet will be because I'm taking a couple of days off. I'll get back to trading on Wednesday.

Below are charts of the Nasdaq, S&P 500 and the SOX. The SOX is looking really good, despite the weakness in INTC -- I guess there is some benefit to price-weighted indices. Here's -- the SOX is basically flat while INTEL is down over 30%. It'd be interesting to see what the SOX would look like if it were market cap weighted... Anyway, the point is that there are plenty of semiconductor stocks on fire. I'll continue to keep a select group of semis on my screen.

Oh yeah, I have to post a chart of Apple, which has been showing terrible relative strength the last few days. Somebody is really unloading their AAPL shares. But now the stock's about 16% off its all-time high and is 'trapped' between support and its 50-day moving average. I'll be watching and waiting for it to climb back above its 50-day moving average.

You guessed it, another gap up this morning. This time the QQQQ is above yesterday's high (41.68) and its 50-day moving average (41.69). The Qs have actually dropped a bit after the 8:30 economic numbers and now appear to be heading for a test of support. So I'm looking for them to bounce off of the 50-day moving average...

Some stocks that I'm watching that aren't on the gappers list below:

SIMO
SPWR
SPIL
LLTC
AMAT
XLNX

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

Today was obviously a good day for the bulls with the Nasdaq up 1% and the S&P 500 up 0.72%, both on increasing volume. Because the Nasdaq has broken above its December highs, its chart looks slightly better than the S&P to me. I think any hopes the bears had of the 50-day moving averages breaking have to be slipping away. (And so much for that falling three methods pattern!) However, the NDX/QQQQ and Dow are still beneath their 50-day moving averages. That may change tomorrow, especially for the QQQQ, thanks to the post-earnings action in MSFT and BRCM in after hours trading tonight. So all of a sudden things are looking much better. It almost looks like clear sailing to the January highs. The one hurdle that all the aforementioned charts have in common is the January downward sloping trendline (see the blue lines on the charts below).

The earnings calendar is light for tomorrow so I don't much threat from negative earnings news in the morning. It could be a wild one in the semiconductor sector tomorrow based on how BRCM's trading tonight...

What was that I said about 'Groundhog Day' yesterday? Let's see, I can simply modify a sentence from yesterday to -- We're gapping up again and for the second third day in a row and the QQQQ is bumping up against the previous day's highs in the pre-market. This is why I always avoided swing-trading through earnings season. These gap opening would drive me nuts, even if I was positioned on the correct side of the gap it seemed that the gaps more often than not got faded.

Anyway, I'll be watching yesterday's highs on the QQQQ for a breakout.

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

Here's a chart of DNA for Mike:

This is one of my "no man's (person's) land" stocks. It's between the 50 and 200-day moving averages which signals to me an intermediate term downtrend and a long(er) term uptrend. Or you could say that it's just been going sideways for months -- it's right where it was last July. So the outlook largely depends on one's time frame.

The stock is at a critical juncture now though. It tested its 200-day moving average on Monday and Tuesday. IMHO, if any stock is health it should find support at the 200. I think the recent action is a great low risk buy point for long term oriented people. The recent lows give you a nice, tight stop-loss point.

Will wrote:

Wondering what your opinion is of nelnet (NNI)? It's an interesting chart that has shown a lot of strength when its peers have not.

My opinion is simply "hang on"! Of course, that is if you're already long it. It's obviously a great performing stock. If I wasn't in I'd be looking for a low risk spot to jump onboard.

I have even less than usual to say about the market today. My view is petty much exactly the same as yesterday -- and my falling three methods is still intact. :-)

Here's the Nasdaq chart:

On another note, this is the first time I've actually tried shorting on of Cramer's "Mad Money" mentions in the after-hours session. Only because I happened to still have my Briefing.com running did I even notice that he mentioned SMDI and popped it about 30%. I had to short it -- easiest money I've ever made! One could make a career out of shorting into the Cramer induced mania each night. Hmm...

Update: I keep forgetting to post the QQQQ chart. It looks a lot like the Nasdaq chart with the major exception being that it's beneath its 50-day moving average. I'm actually amazed that its October trendline hasn't been broken yet given the action in the likes of INTC and YHOO. MSFT reports earnings tomorrow night, that may be the make-or-break event for the Qs...

Well I was half-joking this morning when I said that the real big event for the day would be Google's earning's report. Turns out that was definitely the case. The action in the broader market was muted today but things heated up in the after-hours session. GOOG is down about 63 points (only about 15%) after missing their earnings estimate. It's dragging some other stocks, and the QQQQ, down with it. Yahoo (YHOO), for example, is back near its January lows and the QQQQ is now below its 50-day moving average. It's looking like a tough day for selected tech stocks tomorrow. (AAPL is back under its 50 DMA in the after-hours session too.)

Here's the Nasdaq chart, which looks like it's due for a pullback. It's got overbought stochastic and has been hovering under that resistance around 2310.

The futures are basically flat this morning and I wouldn't expect much out of the indices until after the Fed decision at 2:15. But the real big event will be GOOG's earnings report after hours! ;-) And speaking of Google, these GOOG for Napster rumors have launched NAPS into orbit. I wonder if it can get back to double digits. Hmm, maybe I won't take the day off after all...

Here's the current Nasdaq chart. I'm watching that red line of resistance which is holding the index back from new highs.

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

It's relatively quiet this morning. The futures are just a bit above fair value and there are less gappers than we've had the last several days. (And AAPL is selling off again!) A couple of Cramer's Mad Money mentions from Friday are toward the top of the % gainers list this monring. Isn't that just silly?

Anyway, I'm taking tomorrow off, as I always do for Fed decision days. Unless I see some very compelling movers early in today's session I'll be taking today off as well.

Hmm, Maybe GOOG will make me hang around. I want to see how it reacts to this, which I just saw on Briefing.com:

According to the NY Post, Google's long-simmering click-fraud problem could explode into a billion-dollar headache for the Web giant, some Web marketing experts are warning. In fact, a growing number of Google-watchers claim the search giant is ignoring the click-fraud issue because it's so large. Click-fraud happens when surfers click on Goggle advertisers with no desire to get to the advertiser's site. Knowing Google charges advertisers based on how many surfers click on their ads, the fraudsters click on the ads simply to drive up the advertiser's costs. The fraud also falsely inflated Google's revenues. The estimates on the Street, if even close to being true, could rock the stock market darling, set to announce fourth-quarter results Tuesday. "If Google were to implement a method for stopping click fraud today, it would lose 30 percent of its revenue overnight," said Joseph Holcomb, a search marketing expert. Holcomb estimates that almost one-third of all clicks on Google's network are suspect, thanks to sophisticated software programs known as "click bots" or "hit bots" that mimic human activity and fool search engines into believing the clicks are legit. With Google set to report about $6 billion in annual revenue, Holcomb's estimate would put $2 billion in top-line revenue at risk. Google denies the problem is that large.

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

I was surprised to see so many bearish candlesticks made on Friday given the strength in the indices. (You can see how many more bearish patterns were made Friday.) Maybe it was just people getting flat ahead of Tuesday's Fed decision. I won't be surprised if trading is somewhat muted tomorrow as traders keep their wallets on their hips ahead of Tuesday. That's exactly where my wallet will be because I'm taking a couple of days off. I'll get back to trading on Wednesday.

Below are charts of the Nasdaq, S&P 500 and the SOX. The SOX is looking really good, despite the weakness in INTC -- I guess there is some benefit to price-weighted indices. Here's -- the SOX is basically flat while INTEL is down over 30%. It'd be interesting to see what the SOX would look like if it were market cap weighted... Anyway, the point is that there are plenty of semiconductor stocks on fire. I'll continue to keep a select group of semis on my screen.

Oh yeah, I have to post a chart of Apple, which has been showing terrible relative strength the last few days. Somebody is really unloading their AAPL shares. But now the stock's about 16% off its all-time high and is 'trapped' between support and its 50-day moving average. I'll be watching and waiting for it to climb back above its 50-day moving average.

You guessed it, another gap up this morning. This time the QQQQ is above yesterday's high (41.68) and its 50-day moving average (41.69). The Qs have actually dropped a bit after the 8:30 economic numbers and now appear to be heading for a test of support. So I'm looking for them to bounce off of the 50-day moving average...

Some stocks that I'm watching that aren't on the gappers list below:

SIMO
SPWR
SPIL
LLTC
AMAT
XLNX

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

Today was obviously a good day for the bulls with the Nasdaq up 1% and the S&P 500 up 0.72%, both on increasing volume. Because the Nasdaq has broken above its December highs, its chart looks slightly better than the S&P to me. I think any hopes the bears had of the 50-day moving averages breaking have to be slipping away. (And so much for that falling three methods pattern!) However, the NDX/QQQQ and Dow are still beneath their 50-day moving averages. That may change tomorrow, especially for the QQQQ, thanks to the post-earnings action in MSFT and BRCM in after hours trading tonight. So all of a sudden things are looking much better. It almost looks like clear sailing to the January highs. The one hurdle that all the aforementioned charts have in common is the January downward sloping trendline (see the blue lines on the charts below).

The earnings calendar is light for tomorrow so I don't much threat from negative earnings news in the morning. It could be a wild one in the semiconductor sector tomorrow based on how BRCM's trading tonight...

What was that I said about 'Groundhog Day' yesterday? Let's see, I can simply modify a sentence from yesterday to -- We're gapping up again and for the second third day in a row and the QQQQ is bumping up against the previous day's highs in the pre-market. This is why I always avoided swing-trading through earnings season. These gap opening would drive me nuts, even if I was positioned on the correct side of the gap it seemed that the gaps more often than not got faded.

Anyway, I'll be watching yesterday's highs on the QQQQ for a breakout.

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

Here's a chart of DNA for Mike:

This is one of my "no man's (person's) land" stocks. It's between the 50 and 200-day moving averages which signals to me an intermediate term downtrend and a long(er) term uptrend. Or you could say that it's just been going sideways for months -- it's right where it was last July. So the outlook largely depends on one's time frame.

The stock is at a critical juncture now though. It tested its 200-day moving average on Monday and Tuesday. IMHO, if any stock is health it should find support at the 200. I think the recent action is a great low risk buy point for long term oriented people. The recent lows give you a nice, tight stop-loss point.

Will wrote:

Wondering what your opinion is of nelnet (NNI)? It's an interesting chart that has shown a lot of strength when its peers have not.

My opinion is simply "hang on"! Of course, that is if you're already long it. It's obviously a great performing stock. If I wasn't in I'd be looking for a low risk spot to jump onboard.

I have even less than usual to say about the market today. My view is petty much exactly the same as yesterday -- and my falling three methods is still intact. :-)

Here's the Nasdaq chart:

On another note, this is the first time I've actually tried shorting on of Cramer's "Mad Money" mentions in the after-hours session. Only because I happened to still have my Briefing.com running did I even notice that he mentioned SMDI and popped it about 30%. I had to short it -- easiest money I've ever made! One could make a career out of shorting into the Cramer induced mania each night. Hmm...

Update: I keep forgetting to post the QQQQ chart. It looks a lot like the Nasdaq chart with the major exception being that it's beneath its 50-day moving average. I'm actually amazed that its October trendline hasn't been broken yet given the action in the likes of INTC and YHOO. MSFT reports earnings tomorrow night, that may be the make-or-break event for the Qs...

Well I was half-joking this morning when I said that the real big event for the day would be Google's earning's report. Turns out that was definitely the case. The action in the broader market was muted today but things heated up in the after-hours session. GOOG is down about 63 points (only about 15%) after missing their earnings estimate. It's dragging some other stocks, and the QQQQ, down with it. Yahoo (YHOO), for example, is back near its January lows and the QQQQ is now below its 50-day moving average. It's looking like a tough day for selected tech stocks tomorrow. (AAPL is back under its 50 DMA in the after-hours session too.)

Here's the Nasdaq chart, which looks like it's due for a pullback. It's got overbought stochastic and has been hovering under that resistance around 2310.

The futures are basically flat this morning and I wouldn't expect much out of the indices until after the Fed decision at 2:15. But the real big event will be GOOG's earnings report after hours! ;-) And speaking of Google, these GOOG for Napster rumors have launched NAPS into orbit. I wonder if it can get back to double digits. Hmm, maybe I won't take the day off after all...

Here's the current Nasdaq chart. I'm watching that red line of resistance which is holding the index back from new highs.

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

It's relatively quiet this morning. The futures are just a bit above fair value and there are less gappers than we've had the last several days. (And AAPL is selling off again!) A couple of Cramer's Mad Money mentions from Friday are toward the top of the % gainers list this monring. Isn't that just silly?

Anyway, I'm taking tomorrow off, as I always do for Fed decision days. Unless I see some very compelling movers early in today's session I'll be taking today off as well.

Hmm, Maybe GOOG will make me hang around. I want to see how it reacts to this, which I just saw on Briefing.com:

According to the NY Post, Google's long-simmering click-fraud problem could explode into a billion-dollar headache for the Web giant, some Web marketing experts are warning. In fact, a growing number of Google-watchers claim the search giant is ignoring the click-fraud issue because it's so large. Click-fraud happens when surfers click on Goggle advertisers with no desire to get to the advertiser's site. Knowing Google charges advertisers based on how many surfers click on their ads, the fraudsters click on the ads simply to drive up the advertiser's costs. The fraud also falsely inflated Google's revenues. The estimates on the Street, if even close to being true, could rock the stock market darling, set to announce fourth-quarter results Tuesday. "If Google were to implement a method for stopping click fraud today, it would lose 30 percent of its revenue overnight," said Joseph Holcomb, a search marketing expert. Holcomb estimates that almost one-third of all clicks on Google's network are suspect, thanks to sophisticated software programs known as "click bots" or "hit bots" that mimic human activity and fool search engines into believing the clicks are legit. With Google set to report about $6 billion in annual revenue, Holcomb's estimate would put $2 billion in top-line revenue at risk. Google denies the problem is that large.

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

I was surprised to see so many bearish candlesticks made on Friday given the strength in the indices. (You can see how many more bearish patterns were made Friday.) Maybe it was just people getting flat ahead of Tuesday's Fed decision. I won't be surprised if trading is somewhat muted tomorrow as traders keep their wallets on their hips ahead of Tuesday. That's exactly where my wallet will be because I'm taking a couple of days off. I'll get back to trading on Wednesday.

Below are charts of the Nasdaq, S&P 500 and the SOX. The SOX is looking really good, despite the weakness in INTC -- I guess there is some benefit to price-weighted indices. Here's -- the SOX is basically flat while INTEL is down over 30%. It'd be interesting to see what the SOX would look like if it were market cap weighted... Anyway, the point is that there are plenty of semiconductor stocks on fire. I'll continue to keep a select group of semis on my screen.

Oh yeah, I have to post a chart of Apple, which has been showing terrible relative strength the last few days. Somebody is really unloading their AAPL shares. But now the stock's about 16% off its all-time high and is 'trapped' between support and its 50-day moving average. I'll be watching and waiting for it to climb back above its 50-day moving average.

You guessed it, another gap up this morning. This time the QQQQ is above yesterday's high (41.68) and its 50-day moving average (41.69). The Qs have actually dropped a bit after the 8:30 economic numbers and now appear to be heading for a test of support. So I'm looking for them to bounce off of the 50-day moving average...

Some stocks that I'm watching that aren't on the gappers list below:

SIMO
SPWR
SPIL
LLTC
AMAT
XLNX

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

Today was obviously a good day for the bulls with the Nasdaq up 1% and the S&P 500 up 0.72%, both on increasing volume. Because the Nasdaq has broken above its December highs, its chart looks slightly better than the S&P to me. I think any hopes the bears had of the 50-day moving averages breaking have to be slipping away. (And so much for that falling three methods pattern!) However, the NDX/QQQQ and Dow are still beneath their 50-day moving averages. That may change tomorrow, especially for the QQQQ, thanks to the post-earnings action in MSFT and BRCM in after hours trading tonight. So all of a sudden things are looking much better. It almost looks like clear sailing to the January highs. The one hurdle that all the aforementioned charts have in common is the January downward sloping trendline (see the blue lines on the charts below).

The earnings calendar is light for tomorrow so I don't much threat from negative earnings news in the morning. It could be a wild one in the semiconductor sector tomorrow based on how BRCM's trading tonight...

What was that I said about 'Groundhog Day' yesterday? Let's see, I can simply modify a sentence from yesterday to -- We're gapping up again and for the second third day in a row and the QQQQ is bumping up against the previous day's highs in the pre-market. This is why I always avoided swing-trading through earnings season. These gap opening would drive me nuts, even if I was positioned on the correct side of the gap it seemed that the gaps more often than not got faded.

Anyway, I'll be watching yesterday's highs on the QQQQ for a breakout.

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

Here's a chart of DNA for Mike:

This is one of my "no man's (person's) land" stocks. It's between the 50 and 200-day moving averages which signals to me an intermediate term downtrend and a long(er) term uptrend. Or you could say that it's just been going sideways for months -- it's right where it was last July. So the outlook largely depends on one's time frame.

The stock is at a critical juncture now though. It tested its 200-day moving average on Monday and Tuesday. IMHO, if any stock is health it should find support at the 200. I think the recent action is a great low risk buy point for long term oriented people. The recent lows give you a nice, tight stop-loss point.

Will wrote:

Wondering what your opinion is of nelnet (NNI)? It's an interesting chart that has shown a lot of strength when its peers have not.

My opinion is simply "hang on"! Of course, that is if you're already long it. It's obviously a great performing stock. If I wasn't in I'd be looking for a low risk spot to jump onboard.

I have even less than usual to say about the market today. My view is petty much exactly the same as yesterday -- and my falling three methods is still intact. :-)

Here's the Nasdaq chart:

On another note, this is the first time I've actually tried shorting on of Cramer's "Mad Money" mentions in the after-hours session. Only because I happened to still have my Briefing.com running did I even notice that he mentioned SMDI and popped it about 30%. I had to short it -- easiest money I've ever made! One could make a career out of shorting into the Cramer induced mania each night. Hmm...

Update: I keep forgetting to post the QQQQ chart. It looks a lot like the Nasdaq chart with the major exception being that it's beneath its 50-day moving average. I'm actually amazed that its October trendline hasn't been broken yet given the action in the likes of INTC and YHOO. MSFT reports earnings tomorrow night, that may be the make-or-break event for the Qs...

Well I was half-joking this morning when I said that the real big event for the day would be Google's earning's report. Turns out that was definitely the case. The action in the broader market was muted today but things heated up in the after-hours session. GOOG is down about 63 points (only about 15%) after missing their earnings estimate. It's dragging some other stocks, and the QQQQ, down with it. Yahoo (YHOO), for example, is back near its January lows and the QQQQ is now below its 50-day moving average. It's looking like a tough day for selected tech stocks tomorrow. (AAPL is back under its 50 DMA in the after-hours session too.)

Here's the Nasdaq chart, which looks like it's due for a pullback. It's got overbought stochastic and has been hovering under that resistance around 2310.

The futures are basically flat this morning and I wouldn't expect much out of the indices until after the Fed decision at 2:15. But the real big event will be GOOG's earnings report after hours! ;-) And speaking of Google, these GOOG for Napster rumors have launched NAPS into orbit. I wonder if it can get back to double digits. Hmm, maybe I won't take the day off after all...

Here's the current Nasdaq chart. I'm watching that red line of resistance which is holding the index back from new highs.

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

It's relatively quiet this morning. The futures are just a bit above fair value and there are less gappers than we've had the last several days. (And AAPL is selling off again!) A couple of Cramer's Mad Money mentions from Friday are toward the top of the % gainers list this monring. Isn't that just silly?

Anyway, I'm taking tomorrow off, as I always do for Fed decision days. Unless I see some very compelling movers early in today's session I'll be taking today off as well.

Hmm, Maybe GOOG will make me hang around. I want to see how it reacts to this, which I just saw on Briefing.com:

According to the NY Post, Google's long-simmering click-fraud problem could explode into a billion-dollar headache for the Web giant, some Web marketing experts are warning. In fact, a growing number of Google-watchers claim the search giant is ignoring the click-fraud issue because it's so large. Click-fraud happens when surfers click on Goggle advertisers with no desire to get to the advertiser's site. Knowing Google charges advertisers based on how many surfers click on their ads, the fraudsters click on the ads simply to drive up the advertiser's costs. The fraud also falsely inflated Google's revenues. The estimates on the Street, if even close to being true, could rock the stock market darling, set to announce fourth-quarter results Tuesday. "If Google were to implement a method for stopping click fraud today, it would lose 30 percent of its revenue overnight," said Joseph Holcomb, a search marketing expert. Holcomb estimates that almost one-third of all clicks on Google's network are suspect, thanks to sophisticated software programs known as "click bots" or "hit bots" that mimic human activity and fool search engines into believing the clicks are legit. With Google set to report about $6 billion in annual revenue, Holcomb's estimate would put $2 billion in top-line revenue at risk. Google denies the problem is that large.

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

I was surprised to see so many bearish candlesticks made on Friday given the strength in the indices. (You can see how many more bearish patterns were made Friday.) Maybe it was just people getting flat ahead of Tuesday's Fed decision. I won't be surprised if trading is somewhat muted tomorrow as traders keep their wallets on their hips ahead of Tuesday. That's exactly where my wallet will be because I'm taking a couple of days off. I'll get back to trading on Wednesday.

Below are charts of the Nasdaq, S&P 500 and the SOX. The SOX is looking really good, despite the weakness in INTC -- I guess there is some benefit to price-weighted indices. Here's -- the SOX is basically flat while INTEL is down over 30%. It'd be interesting to see what the SOX would look like if it were market cap weighted... Anyway, the point is that there are plenty of semiconductor stocks on fire. I'll continue to keep a select group of semis on my screen.

Oh yeah, I have to post a chart of Apple, which has been showing terrible relative strength the last few days. Somebody is really unloading their AAPL shares. But now the stock's about 16% off its all-time high and is 'trapped' between support and its 50-day moving average. I'll be watching and waiting for it to climb back above its 50-day moving average.

You guessed it, another gap up this morning. This time the QQQQ is above yesterday's high (41.68) and its 50-day moving average (41.69). The Qs have actually dropped a bit after the 8:30 economic numbers and now appear to be heading for a test of support. So I'm looking for them to bounce off of the 50-day moving average...

Some stocks that I'm watching that aren't on the gappers list below:

SIMO
SPWR
SPIL
LLTC
AMAT
XLNX

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

Today was obviously a good day for the bulls with the Nasdaq up 1% and the S&P 500 up 0.72%, both on increasing volume. Because the Nasdaq has broken above its December highs, its chart looks slightly better than the S&P to me. I think any hopes the bears had of the 50-day moving averages breaking have to be slipping away. (And so much for that falling three methods pattern!) However, the NDX/QQQQ and Dow are still beneath their 50-day moving averages. That may change tomorrow, especially for the QQQQ, thanks to the post-earnings action in MSFT and BRCM in after hours trading tonight. So all of a sudden things are looking much better. It almost looks like clear sailing to the January highs. The one hurdle that all the aforementioned charts have in common is the January downward sloping trendline (see the blue lines on the charts below).

The earnings calendar is light for tomorrow so I don't much threat from negative earnings news in the morning. It could be a wild one in the semiconductor sector tomorrow based on how BRCM's trading tonight...

What was that I said about 'Groundhog Day' yesterday? Let's see, I can simply modify a sentence from yesterday to -- We're gapping up again and for the second third day in a row and the QQQQ is bumping up against the previous day's highs in the pre-market. This is why I always avoided swing-trading through earnings season. These gap opening would drive me nuts, even if I was positioned on the correct side of the gap it seemed that the gaps more often than not got faded.

Anyway, I'll be watching yesterday's highs on the QQQQ for a breakout.

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

Here's a chart of DNA for Mike:

This is one of my "no man's (person's) land" stocks. It's between the 50 and 200-day moving averages which signals to me an intermediate term downtrend and a long(er) term uptrend. Or you could say that it's just been going sideways for months -- it's right where it was last July. So the outlook largely depends on one's time frame.

The stock is at a critical juncture now though. It tested its 200-day moving average on Monday and Tuesday. IMHO, if any stock is health it should find support at the 200. I think the recent action is a great low risk buy point for long term oriented people. The recent lows give you a nice, tight stop-loss point.

Will wrote:

Wondering what your opinion is of nelnet (NNI)? It's an interesting chart that has shown a lot of strength when its peers have not.

My opinion is simply "hang on"! Of course, that is if you're already long it. It's obviously a great performing stock. If I wasn't in I'd be looking for a low risk spot to jump onboard.

I have even less than usual to say about the market today. My view is petty much exactly the same as yesterday -- and my falling three methods is still intact. :-)

Here's the Nasdaq chart:

On another note, this is the first time I've actually tried shorting on of Cramer's "Mad Money" mentions in the after-hours session. Only because I happened to still have my Briefing.com running did I even notice that he mentioned SMDI and popped it about 30%. I had to short it -- easiest money I've ever made! One could make a career out of shorting into the Cramer induced mania each night. Hmm...

Update: I keep forgetting to post the QQQQ chart. It looks a lot like the Nasdaq chart with the major exception being that it's beneath its 50-day moving average. I'm actually amazed that its October trendline hasn't been broken yet given the action in the likes of INTC and YHOO. MSFT reports earnings tomorrow night, that may be the make-or-break event for the Qs...

Well I was half-joking this morning when I said that the real big event for the day would be Google's earning's report. Turns out that was definitely the case. The action in the broader market was muted today but things heated up in the after-hours session. GOOG is down about 63 points (only about 15%) after missing their earnings estimate. It's dragging some other stocks, and the QQQQ, down with it. Yahoo (YHOO), for example, is back near its January lows and the QQQQ is now below its 50-day moving average. It's looking like a tough day for selected tech stocks tomorrow. (AAPL is back under its 50 DMA in the after-hours session too.)

Here's the Nasdaq chart, which looks like it's due for a pullback. It's got overbought stochastic and has been hovering under that resistance around 2310.

The futures are basically flat this morning and I wouldn't expect much out of the indices until after the Fed decision at 2:15. But the real big event will be GOOG's earnings report after hours! ;-) And speaking of Google, these GOOG for Napster rumors have launched NAPS into orbit. I wonder if it can get back to double digits. Hmm, maybe I won't take the day off after all...

Here's the current Nasdaq chart. I'm watching that red line of resistance which is holding the index back from new highs.

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

It's relatively quiet this morning. The futures are just a bit above fair value and there are less gappers than we've had the last several days. (And AAPL is selling off again!) A couple of Cramer's Mad Money mentions from Friday are toward the top of the % gainers list this monring. Isn't that just silly?

Anyway, I'm taking tomorrow off, as I always do for Fed decision days. Unless I see some very compelling movers early in today's session I'll be taking today off as well.

Hmm, Maybe GOOG will make me hang around. I want to see how it reacts to this, which I just saw on Briefing.com:

According to the NY Post, Google's long-simmering click-fraud problem could explode into a billion-dollar headache for the Web giant, some Web marketing experts are warning. In fact, a growing number of Google-watchers claim the search giant is ignoring the click-fraud issue because it's so large. Click-fraud happens when surfers click on Goggle advertisers with no desire to get to the advertiser's site. Knowing Google charges advertisers based on how many surfers click on their ads, the fraudsters click on the ads simply to drive up the advertiser's costs. The fraud also falsely inflated Google's revenues. The estimates on the Street, if even close to being true, could rock the stock market darling, set to announce fourth-quarter results Tuesday. "If Google were to implement a method for stopping click fraud today, it would lose 30 percent of its revenue overnight," said Joseph Holcomb, a search marketing expert. Holcomb estimates that almost one-third of all clicks on Google's network are suspect, thanks to sophisticated software programs known as "click bots" or "hit bots" that mimic human activity and fool search engines into believing the clicks are legit. With Google set to report about $6 billion in annual revenue, Holcomb's estimate would put $2 billion in top-line revenue at risk. Google denies the problem is that large.

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

I was surprised to see so many bearish candlesticks made on Friday given the strength in the indices. (You can see how many more bearish patterns were made Friday.) Maybe it was just people getting flat ahead of Tuesday's Fed decision. I won't be surprised if trading is somewhat muted tomorrow as traders keep their wallets on their hips ahead of Tuesday. That's exactly where my wallet will be because I'm taking a couple of days off. I'll get back to trading on Wednesday.

Below are charts of the Nasdaq, S&P 500 and the SOX. The SOX is looking really good, despite the weakness in INTC -- I guess there is some benefit to price-weighted indices. Here's -- the SOX is basically flat while INTEL is down over 30%. It'd be interesting to see what the SOX would look like if it were market cap weighted... Anyway, the point is that there are plenty of semiconductor stocks on fire. I'll continue to keep a select group of semis on my screen.

Oh yeah, I have to post a chart of Apple, which has been showing terrible relative strength the last few days. Somebody is really unloading their AAPL shares. But now the stock's about 16% off its all-time high and is 'trapped' between support and its 50-day moving average. I'll be watching and waiting for it to climb back above its 50-day moving average.