I guess nobody was shocked to see such a relatively narrow range day today. The Nasdaq and S&P both made bullish harami patterns today but the S&P chart looks slightly better than the Nasdaq chart -- the S&P closed above its 50-day moving average and its harami was a bit more bullish due to its empty (white-colored on the chart below) real body.
Despite those bullish candlesticks I think the break of today's range can be played long or short -- short below today's low or go long above today's high...
Here are charts of the Nasdaq and S&P 500:
And it wouldn't be a day in the markets without a chart of Google. All the analyst chatter this morning gave it a good pop today:
What do u think about CHK & XTO!!! Both have formed an ascending triangle and XTO actually broke out...
Mike is no fan of oil & gas, so I will help him out on this one (=smiles=). For what it is worth, I will say that I am a big fan of both stocks. I sold my CHK on the last pop and have regretted it...regretted even more not buying during the shallow correction afterwards. I have held onto XTO, and I still see no reason to sell given its low valuation and strong technicals. I was hoping that the current crash in natural gas prices would give me new entry points in these kinds of stocks, but the opportunities never materialized. The market is now hip to the longer-term story here...it seems. After saying all this, I would caution anyone looking at plays here that the sector can be, and has been, quite volatile...making it nearly impossible to make sane short-term bets and trades. Either you commit or stay out completely!
Yeah, what Duru said! :-)
Both charts look strong to me. I agree with you about the triangles.