May 2007 Archives

The indices were mixed today. Small caps and tech closed higher while the larger caps were basically flat. Volume increased across the board and I'm pretty sure that can be attributed to month-end markups games activity. Trading was choppy during the day and my guess is that's partially due to some profit taking combined with some hesitation ahead of a ton of economic data (jobs report, Core PCE, ISM, etc.) due out tomorrow morning.

I mentioned Google's (GOOG) move above $500 this morning. It made a move toward the all-time high of $513 but reversed and closed under $500, making a nice shooting-star-like candle in the process. It looks to me like it's made an inverse head & shoulders pattern. I'd like to see it consolidate within yesterday's range for a bit to work off the short-term overbought condition before attempting to breakout to new highs. The divergence in OBV has me a bit worried though...

Here are the charts of the Nasdaq, S&P 500 and Russell 2,000:

We've got more strength this morning as the market's follow through on yesterday's rally. One mover of note is Google, which has popped back over $500 and appears to be heading for its all-time high of $513.

On Today's Calendar:

• 9:45 -- Chicago PMI
• 10:00 -- Construction Spending
• 10:00 -- Help-Wanted Index
• 10:30 -- Crude Inventories

More Calendars: U.S. Earnings | Conf. Calls | Surprises | IPO | Economic

Potential swing trades:

• Loews Corp. (LTR) | Wallstrip
  Jack of all trades, master of none? Loews Corp. (LTR) proves ‘em wrong on today’s Wallstrip.
  (tags: stocks)
• CBS to Buy Social Network
  First WallStrip, now it is expected to pay $280 million for the Last.fm site, which caters to music fans. What next???
  (tags: stocks cbs web2.0 finance)
• Trading Patterns: Identifying Transitional Structures
  With this post I'll begin a series on trading patterns for short-term traders. I refer to today's pattern as a transitional structure; it is a common sequence that marks the shift from one trend to another.
  (tags: trading technicalanalysis)
• Who Does Jim Cramer Think He Is? -- New York Magazine
  “Why does everybody hate me?” The Wall Street maniac explains his critics, the market, and himself. (TheStreet.com, Inc. TSCM)
  (tags: Cramer finance toread stocks cnbc)
• Chinese Stocks plummet nearly 7 percent
  Chinese stocks plummeted nearly seven percent on Wednesday after the Ministry of Finance announced a hike in the stamp tax on stock trading
  (tags: stocks china)
• How accurate are bloggers?
  I did some scratch work analysis of the Ticker Sense Blogger Sentiment Poll to see how accurate individual bloggers were on calling the S&P 30-days out.
  (tags: stocks)
• The Slipping US Dollar - Should We Care?
  (tags: dollar finance currencies for_TM)
• China and The Mother of all Double Tops on the S&P 500?
  The failure of the SPX at the prior highs and an inability to make a new high has some technicians wondering if we are looking at the mother of all double tops.
  (tags: stocks)

It was a big day for the bulls today. They shook off the little pre-market China scare and proceeded to push the indices to new all-time and multi-year closing highs. Volume rose back to respectable levels although trading was still lighter than last Thursday's big down day. But that less than desirable volume action is about the only thing the bears can hang their hopes on in this market.

So much for that potential falling three methods I talked about yesterday. The S&P 500 finally made the new closing high it kept flirting with last week. It's still 22 points below the all-time intraday high from March 24, 2000 -- what a wild day that was.

The Nasdaq climbed back above the congestion zone around the early May highs and made a new multi-year high close. It sure looks like it has to retest 2,600 now.

The indices are gapping down following the 6% drop in China's market today. It may seem like a repeat of February but this gap isn't nearly as bad as what happened in late February. As I'm writing this the indices are set to open within yesterday's range. So the bears still have work to do -- they need to break yesterday's lows and then Thursdays lows. I think that would cause enough technical damage to get the bulls worried. But we're not even close to that yet...

On Today's Calendar:

• 2:00 -- FOMC Minutes

More Calendars: U.S. Earnings | Conf. Calls | Surprises | IPO | Economic

Potential swing trades:

• Centerplate Inc. (CVP) | Wallstrip
  Go right to the source, and ask the horse. Is Centerplate Inc. (CVP) on a steady course?
  (tags: stocks)
• 26 Reasons What You Think is Right is Wrong
  Traders suffer from many of these cognitive biases...
  (tags: psychology thinking probability for_TM bias finance)
• Data Latency Playing An Ever Increasing Role In Effective Trading
  Wall Street’s quest to process data at the speed of light relies on the physical proximity of servers to overcome the technical barriers of data latency.
  (tags: trading technology computer)

Trading was quite choopy today but a late day surge brought the Dow and S&P back into positive territory. The smaller caps had good relative strength today as evidenced by the Russell 2,000's almost 1% gain on the day. Volume was on the light side again, especially compared to the volume on Thursday's selloff. Given the weak volume I still don't trust this bounce and I think the market could be setting up some falling three method patterns.

Here are charts of the S&P 500, Nasdaq and Russell 2,000:

No changes

It's hard for me to have much faith in Friday's bounce given how low volume was. However, my intraday indicators did flip to bullish on Friday and we've got a small gap up this morning. So I'll be a hesitant bull to start the day but I'm staying on the lookout for a reversal.

Here's the daily S&P chart from Friday's close:

P.S. Nice bearish call on Jones Soda Company (JSDA) in Barron's this weekend: "shares should be 65% lower" :o

On Today's Calendar:

• 10:00 -- Consumer Confidence

More Calendars: U.S. Earnings | Conf. Calls | Surprises | IPO | Economic

Potential swing trades:

• TraderFeed: The Trader Coaching Project
  Find out how you can get a free month of coaching from Dr. Brett.
  (tags: trading coaching Psychology)
• As Condos Rise in South Florida, Nervous Investors Try to Flee - New York Times
  The tale of one of the most bubblicious markets in the U.S.
  (tags: realestate for_TM)
• Why I missed the recent big rally in the stock market, part II - 5 lessons learnt
  (tags: stocks)

• So how do Traders Break Their (Bad) Habits? Part 2
  I love this list! -- 1. Read, read, read. 2. Make a trading plan. 3. Don't paper trade. 3. dive into risk/reward and risk & money mgmt. 5. Ignore backtesting and learn to read the mkts...
  (tags: trading Psychology)
• Apple’s Lesson for Sony’s Stores: Just Connect - New York Times
  Apple has made retail seem ridiculously easy. But why hasn’t the Windows side of the personal computer business figured it out?
  (tags: apple business sony stocks retail computer toread)

The indices were mixed today. Small caps and tech closed higher while the larger caps were basically flat. Volume increased across the board and I'm pretty sure that can be attributed to month-end markups games activity. Trading was choppy during the day and my guess is that's partially due to some profit taking combined with some hesitation ahead of a ton of economic data (jobs report, Core PCE, ISM, etc.) due out tomorrow morning.

I mentioned Google's (GOOG) move above $500 this morning. It made a move toward the all-time high of $513 but reversed and closed under $500, making a nice shooting-star-like candle in the process. It looks to me like it's made an inverse head & shoulders pattern. I'd like to see it consolidate within yesterday's range for a bit to work off the short-term overbought condition before attempting to breakout to new highs. The divergence in OBV has me a bit worried though...

Here are the charts of the Nasdaq, S&P 500 and Russell 2,000:

We've got more strength this morning as the market's follow through on yesterday's rally. One mover of note is Google, which has popped back over $500 and appears to be heading for its all-time high of $513.

On Today's Calendar:

• 9:45 -- Chicago PMI
• 10:00 -- Construction Spending
• 10:00 -- Help-Wanted Index
• 10:30 -- Crude Inventories

More Calendars: U.S. Earnings | Conf. Calls | Surprises | IPO | Economic

Potential swing trades:

• Loews Corp. (LTR) | Wallstrip
  Jack of all trades, master of none? Loews Corp. (LTR) proves ‘em wrong on today’s Wallstrip.
  (tags: stocks)
• CBS to Buy Social Network
  First WallStrip, now it is expected to pay $280 million for the Last.fm site, which caters to music fans. What next???
  (tags: stocks cbs web2.0 finance)
• Trading Patterns: Identifying Transitional Structures
  With this post I'll begin a series on trading patterns for short-term traders. I refer to today's pattern as a transitional structure; it is a common sequence that marks the shift from one trend to another.
  (tags: trading technicalanalysis)
• Who Does Jim Cramer Think He Is? -- New York Magazine
  “Why does everybody hate me?” The Wall Street maniac explains his critics, the market, and himself. (TheStreet.com, Inc. TSCM)
  (tags: Cramer finance toread stocks cnbc)
• Chinese Stocks plummet nearly 7 percent
  Chinese stocks plummeted nearly seven percent on Wednesday after the Ministry of Finance announced a hike in the stamp tax on stock trading
  (tags: stocks china)
• How accurate are bloggers?
  I did some scratch work analysis of the Ticker Sense Blogger Sentiment Poll to see how accurate individual bloggers were on calling the S&P 30-days out.
  (tags: stocks)
• The Slipping US Dollar - Should We Care?
  (tags: dollar finance currencies for_TM)
• China and The Mother of all Double Tops on the S&P 500?
  The failure of the SPX at the prior highs and an inability to make a new high has some technicians wondering if we are looking at the mother of all double tops.
  (tags: stocks)

It was a big day for the bulls today. They shook off the little pre-market China scare and proceeded to push the indices to new all-time and multi-year closing highs. Volume rose back to respectable levels although trading was still lighter than last Thursday's big down day. But that less than desirable volume action is about the only thing the bears can hang their hopes on in this market.

So much for that potential falling three methods I talked about yesterday. The S&P 500 finally made the new closing high it kept flirting with last week. It's still 22 points below the all-time intraday high from March 24, 2000 -- what a wild day that was.

The Nasdaq climbed back above the congestion zone around the early May highs and made a new multi-year high close. It sure looks like it has to retest 2,600 now.

The indices are gapping down following the 6% drop in China's market today. It may seem like a repeat of February but this gap isn't nearly as bad as what happened in late February. As I'm writing this the indices are set to open within yesterday's range. So the bears still have work to do -- they need to break yesterday's lows and then Thursdays lows. I think that would cause enough technical damage to get the bulls worried. But we're not even close to that yet...

On Today's Calendar:

• 2:00 -- FOMC Minutes

More Calendars: U.S. Earnings | Conf. Calls | Surprises | IPO | Economic

Potential swing trades:

• Centerplate Inc. (CVP) | Wallstrip
  Go right to the source, and ask the horse. Is Centerplate Inc. (CVP) on a steady course?
  (tags: stocks)
• 26 Reasons What You Think is Right is Wrong
  Traders suffer from many of these cognitive biases...
  (tags: psychology thinking probability for_TM bias finance)
• Data Latency Playing An Ever Increasing Role In Effective Trading
  Wall Street’s quest to process data at the speed of light relies on the physical proximity of servers to overcome the technical barriers of data latency.
  (tags: trading technology computer)

Trading was quite choopy today but a late day surge brought the Dow and S&P back into positive territory. The smaller caps had good relative strength today as evidenced by the Russell 2,000's almost 1% gain on the day. Volume was on the light side again, especially compared to the volume on Thursday's selloff. Given the weak volume I still don't trust this bounce and I think the market could be setting up some falling three method patterns.

Here are charts of the S&P 500, Nasdaq and Russell 2,000:

No changes

It's hard for me to have much faith in Friday's bounce given how low volume was. However, my intraday indicators did flip to bullish on Friday and we've got a small gap up this morning. So I'll be a hesitant bull to start the day but I'm staying on the lookout for a reversal.

Here's the daily S&P chart from Friday's close:

P.S. Nice bearish call on Jones Soda Company (JSDA) in Barron's this weekend: "shares should be 65% lower" :o

On Today's Calendar:

• 10:00 -- Consumer Confidence

More Calendars: U.S. Earnings | Conf. Calls | Surprises | IPO | Economic

Potential swing trades:

• TraderFeed: The Trader Coaching Project
  Find out how you can get a free month of coaching from Dr. Brett.
  (tags: trading coaching Psychology)
• As Condos Rise in South Florida, Nervous Investors Try to Flee - New York Times
  The tale of one of the most bubblicious markets in the U.S.
  (tags: realestate for_TM)
• Why I missed the recent big rally in the stock market, part II - 5 lessons learnt
  (tags: stocks)

• So how do Traders Break Their (Bad) Habits? Part 2
  I love this list! -- 1. Read, read, read. 2. Make a trading plan. 3. Don't paper trade. 3. dive into risk/reward and risk & money mgmt. 5. Ignore backtesting and learn to read the mkts...
  (tags: trading Psychology)
• Apple’s Lesson for Sony’s Stores: Just Connect - New York Times
  Apple has made retail seem ridiculously easy. But why hasn’t the Windows side of the personal computer business figured it out?
  (tags: apple business sony stocks retail computer toread)

The indices were mixed today. Small caps and tech closed higher while the larger caps were basically flat. Volume increased across the board and I'm pretty sure that can be attributed to month-end markups games activity. Trading was choppy during the day and my guess is that's partially due to some profit taking combined with some hesitation ahead of a ton of economic data (jobs report, Core PCE, ISM, etc.) due out tomorrow morning.

I mentioned Google's (GOOG) move above $500 this morning. It made a move toward the all-time high of $513 but reversed and closed under $500, making a nice shooting-star-like candle in the process. It looks to me like it's made an inverse head & shoulders pattern. I'd like to see it consolidate within yesterday's range for a bit to work off the short-term overbought condition before attempting to breakout to new highs. The divergence in OBV has me a bit worried though...

Here are the charts of the Nasdaq, S&P 500 and Russell 2,000:

We've got more strength this morning as the market's follow through on yesterday's rally. One mover of note is Google, which has popped back over $500 and appears to be heading for its all-time high of $513.

On Today's Calendar:

• 9:45 -- Chicago PMI
• 10:00 -- Construction Spending
• 10:00 -- Help-Wanted Index
• 10:30 -- Crude Inventories

More Calendars: U.S. Earnings | Conf. Calls | Surprises | IPO | Economic

Potential swing trades:

• Loews Corp. (LTR) | Wallstrip
  Jack of all trades, master of none? Loews Corp. (LTR) proves ‘em wrong on today’s Wallstrip.
  (tags: stocks)
• CBS to Buy Social Network
  First WallStrip, now it is expected to pay $280 million for the Last.fm site, which caters to music fans. What next???
  (tags: stocks cbs web2.0 finance)
• Trading Patterns: Identifying Transitional Structures
  With this post I'll begin a series on trading patterns for short-term traders. I refer to today's pattern as a transitional structure; it is a common sequence that marks the shift from one trend to another.
  (tags: trading technicalanalysis)
• Who Does Jim Cramer Think He Is? -- New York Magazine
  “Why does everybody hate me?” The Wall Street maniac explains his critics, the market, and himself. (TheStreet.com, Inc. TSCM)
  (tags: Cramer finance toread stocks cnbc)
• Chinese Stocks plummet nearly 7 percent
  Chinese stocks plummeted nearly seven percent on Wednesday after the Ministry of Finance announced a hike in the stamp tax on stock trading
  (tags: stocks china)
• How accurate are bloggers?
  I did some scratch work analysis of the Ticker Sense Blogger Sentiment Poll to see how accurate individual bloggers were on calling the S&P 30-days out.
  (tags: stocks)
• The Slipping US Dollar - Should We Care?
  (tags: dollar finance currencies for_TM)
• China and The Mother of all Double Tops on the S&P 500?
  The failure of the SPX at the prior highs and an inability to make a new high has some technicians wondering if we are looking at the mother of all double tops.
  (tags: stocks)

It was a big day for the bulls today. They shook off the little pre-market China scare and proceeded to push the indices to new all-time and multi-year closing highs. Volume rose back to respectable levels although trading was still lighter than last Thursday's big down day. But that less than desirable volume action is about the only thing the bears can hang their hopes on in this market.

So much for that potential falling three methods I talked about yesterday. The S&P 500 finally made the new closing high it kept flirting with last week. It's still 22 points below the all-time intraday high from March 24, 2000 -- what a wild day that was.

The Nasdaq climbed back above the congestion zone around the early May highs and made a new multi-year high close. It sure looks like it has to retest 2,600 now.

The indices are gapping down following the 6% drop in China's market today. It may seem like a repeat of February but this gap isn't nearly as bad as what happened in late February. As I'm writing this the indices are set to open within yesterday's range. So the bears still have work to do -- they need to break yesterday's lows and then Thursdays lows. I think that would cause enough technical damage to get the bulls worried. But we're not even close to that yet...

On Today's Calendar:

• 2:00 -- FOMC Minutes

More Calendars: U.S. Earnings | Conf. Calls | Surprises | IPO | Economic

Potential swing trades:

• Centerplate Inc. (CVP) | Wallstrip
  Go right to the source, and ask the horse. Is Centerplate Inc. (CVP) on a steady course?
  (tags: stocks)
• 26 Reasons What You Think is Right is Wrong
  Traders suffer from many of these cognitive biases...
  (tags: psychology thinking probability for_TM bias finance)
• Data Latency Playing An Ever Increasing Role In Effective Trading
  Wall Street’s quest to process data at the speed of light relies on the physical proximity of servers to overcome the technical barriers of data latency.
  (tags: trading technology computer)

Trading was quite choopy today but a late day surge brought the Dow and S&P back into positive territory. The smaller caps had good relative strength today as evidenced by the Russell 2,000's almost 1% gain on the day. Volume was on the light side again, especially compared to the volume on Thursday's selloff. Given the weak volume I still don't trust this bounce and I think the market could be setting up some falling three method patterns.

Here are charts of the S&P 500, Nasdaq and Russell 2,000:

No changes

It's hard for me to have much faith in Friday's bounce given how low volume was. However, my intraday indicators did flip to bullish on Friday and we've got a small gap up this morning. So I'll be a hesitant bull to start the day but I'm staying on the lookout for a reversal.

Here's the daily S&P chart from Friday's close:

P.S. Nice bearish call on Jones Soda Company (JSDA) in Barron's this weekend: "shares should be 65% lower" :o

On Today's Calendar:

• 10:00 -- Consumer Confidence

More Calendars: U.S. Earnings | Conf. Calls | Surprises | IPO | Economic

Potential swing trades:

• TraderFeed: The Trader Coaching Project
  Find out how you can get a free month of coaching from Dr. Brett.
  (tags: trading coaching Psychology)
• As Condos Rise in South Florida, Nervous Investors Try to Flee - New York Times
  The tale of one of the most bubblicious markets in the U.S.
  (tags: realestate for_TM)
• Why I missed the recent big rally in the stock market, part II - 5 lessons learnt
  (tags: stocks)

• So how do Traders Break Their (Bad) Habits? Part 2
  I love this list! -- 1. Read, read, read. 2. Make a trading plan. 3. Don't paper trade. 3. dive into risk/reward and risk & money mgmt. 5. Ignore backtesting and learn to read the mkts...
  (tags: trading Psychology)
• Apple’s Lesson for Sony’s Stores: Just Connect - New York Times
  Apple has made retail seem ridiculously easy. But why hasn’t the Windows side of the personal computer business figured it out?
  (tags: apple business sony stocks retail computer toread)

The indices were mixed today. Small caps and tech closed higher while the larger caps were basically flat. Volume increased across the board and I'm pretty sure that can be attributed to month-end markups games activity. Trading was choppy during the day and my guess is that's partially due to some profit taking combined with some hesitation ahead of a ton of economic data (jobs report, Core PCE, ISM, etc.) due out tomorrow morning.

I mentioned Google's (GOOG) move above $500 this morning. It made a move toward the all-time high of $513 but reversed and closed under $500, making a nice shooting-star-like candle in the process. It looks to me like it's made an inverse head & shoulders pattern. I'd like to see it consolidate within yesterday's range for a bit to work off the short-term overbought condition before attempting to breakout to new highs. The divergence in OBV has me a bit worried though...

Here are the charts of the Nasdaq, S&P 500 and Russell 2,000:

We've got more strength this morning as the market's follow through on yesterday's rally. One mover of note is Google, which has popped back over $500 and appears to be heading for its all-time high of $513.

On Today's Calendar:

• 9:45 -- Chicago PMI
• 10:00 -- Construction Spending
• 10:00 -- Help-Wanted Index
• 10:30 -- Crude Inventories

More Calendars: U.S. Earnings | Conf. Calls | Surprises | IPO | Economic

Potential swing trades:

• Loews Corp. (LTR) | Wallstrip
  Jack of all trades, master of none? Loews Corp. (LTR) proves ‘em wrong on today’s Wallstrip.
  (tags: stocks)
• CBS to Buy Social Network
  First WallStrip, now it is expected to pay $280 million for the Last.fm site, which caters to music fans. What next???
  (tags: stocks cbs web2.0 finance)
• Trading Patterns: Identifying Transitional Structures
  With this post I'll begin a series on trading patterns for short-term traders. I refer to today's pattern as a transitional structure; it is a common sequence that marks the shift from one trend to another.
  (tags: trading technicalanalysis)
• Who Does Jim Cramer Think He Is? -- New York Magazine
  “Why does everybody hate me?” The Wall Street maniac explains his critics, the market, and himself. (TheStreet.com, Inc. TSCM)
  (tags: Cramer finance toread stocks cnbc)
• Chinese Stocks plummet nearly 7 percent
  Chinese stocks plummeted nearly seven percent on Wednesday after the Ministry of Finance announced a hike in the stamp tax on stock trading
  (tags: stocks china)
• How accurate are bloggers?
  I did some scratch work analysis of the Ticker Sense Blogger Sentiment Poll to see how accurate individual bloggers were on calling the S&P 30-days out.
  (tags: stocks)
• The Slipping US Dollar - Should We Care?
  (tags: dollar finance currencies for_TM)
• China and The Mother of all Double Tops on the S&P 500?
  The failure of the SPX at the prior highs and an inability to make a new high has some technicians wondering if we are looking at the mother of all double tops.
  (tags: stocks)

It was a big day for the bulls today. They shook off the little pre-market China scare and proceeded to push the indices to new all-time and multi-year closing highs. Volume rose back to respectable levels although trading was still lighter than last Thursday's big down day. But that less than desirable volume action is about the only thing the bears can hang their hopes on in this market.

So much for that potential falling three methods I talked about yesterday. The S&P 500 finally made the new closing high it kept flirting with last week. It's still 22 points below the all-time intraday high from March 24, 2000 -- what a wild day that was.

The Nasdaq climbed back above the congestion zone around the early May highs and made a new multi-year high close. It sure looks like it has to retest 2,600 now.

The indices are gapping down following the 6% drop in China's market today. It may seem like a repeat of February but this gap isn't nearly as bad as what happened in late February. As I'm writing this the indices are set to open within yesterday's range. So the bears still have work to do -- they need to break yesterday's lows and then Thursdays lows. I think that would cause enough technical damage to get the bulls worried. But we're not even close to that yet...

On Today's Calendar:

• 2:00 -- FOMC Minutes

More Calendars: U.S. Earnings | Conf. Calls | Surprises | IPO | Economic

Potential swing trades:

• Centerplate Inc. (CVP) | Wallstrip
  Go right to the source, and ask the horse. Is Centerplate Inc. (CVP) on a steady course?
  (tags: stocks)
• 26 Reasons What You Think is Right is Wrong
  Traders suffer from many of these cognitive biases...
  (tags: psychology thinking probability for_TM bias finance)
• Data Latency Playing An Ever Increasing Role In Effective Trading
  Wall Street’s quest to process data at the speed of light relies on the physical proximity of servers to overcome the technical barriers of data latency.
  (tags: trading technology computer)

Trading was quite choopy today but a late day surge brought the Dow and S&P back into positive territory. The smaller caps had good relative strength today as evidenced by the Russell 2,000's almost 1% gain on the day. Volume was on the light side again, especially compared to the volume on Thursday's selloff. Given the weak volume I still don't trust this bounce and I think the market could be setting up some falling three method patterns.

Here are charts of the S&P 500, Nasdaq and Russell 2,000:

No changes

It's hard for me to have much faith in Friday's bounce given how low volume was. However, my intraday indicators did flip to bullish on Friday and we've got a small gap up this morning. So I'll be a hesitant bull to start the day but I'm staying on the lookout for a reversal.

Here's the daily S&P chart from Friday's close:

P.S. Nice bearish call on Jones Soda Company (JSDA) in Barron's this weekend: "shares should be 65% lower" :o

On Today's Calendar:

• 10:00 -- Consumer Confidence

More Calendars: U.S. Earnings | Conf. Calls | Surprises | IPO | Economic

Potential swing trades:

• TraderFeed: The Trader Coaching Project
  Find out how you can get a free month of coaching from Dr. Brett.
  (tags: trading coaching Psychology)
• As Condos Rise in South Florida, Nervous Investors Try to Flee - New York Times
  The tale of one of the most bubblicious markets in the U.S.
  (tags: realestate for_TM)
• Why I missed the recent big rally in the stock market, part II - 5 lessons learnt
  (tags: stocks)

• So how do Traders Break Their (Bad) Habits? Part 2
  I love this list! -- 1. Read, read, read. 2. Make a trading plan. 3. Don't paper trade. 3. dive into risk/reward and risk & money mgmt. 5. Ignore backtesting and learn to read the mkts...
  (tags: trading Psychology)
• Apple’s Lesson for Sony’s Stores: Just Connect - New York Times
  Apple has made retail seem ridiculously easy. But why hasn’t the Windows side of the personal computer business figured it out?
  (tags: apple business sony stocks retail computer toread)

The indices were mixed today. Small caps and tech closed higher while the larger caps were basically flat. Volume increased across the board and I'm pretty sure that can be attributed to month-end markups games activity. Trading was choppy during the day and my guess is that's partially due to some profit taking combined with some hesitation ahead of a ton of economic data (jobs report, Core PCE, ISM, etc.) due out tomorrow morning.

I mentioned Google's (GOOG) move above $500 this morning. It made a move toward the all-time high of $513 but reversed and closed under $500, making a nice shooting-star-like candle in the process. It looks to me like it's made an inverse head & shoulders pattern. I'd like to see it consolidate within yesterday's range for a bit to work off the short-term overbought condition before attempting to breakout to new highs. The divergence in OBV has me a bit worried though...

Here are the charts of the Nasdaq, S&P 500 and Russell 2,000:

We've got more strength this morning as the market's follow through on yesterday's rally. One mover of note is Google, which has popped back over $500 and appears to be heading for its all-time high of $513.

On Today's Calendar:

• 9:45 -- Chicago PMI
• 10:00 -- Construction Spending
• 10:00 -- Help-Wanted Index
• 10:30 -- Crude Inventories

More Calendars: U.S. Earnings | Conf. Calls | Surprises | IPO | Economic

Potential swing trades:

• Loews Corp. (LTR) | Wallstrip
  Jack of all trades, master of none? Loews Corp. (LTR) proves ‘em wrong on today’s Wallstrip.
  (tags: stocks)
• CBS to Buy Social Network
  First WallStrip, now it is expected to pay $280 million for the Last.fm site, which caters to music fans. What next???
  (tags: stocks cbs web2.0 finance)
• Trading Patterns: Identifying Transitional Structures
  With this post I'll begin a series on trading patterns for short-term traders. I refer to today's pattern as a transitional structure; it is a common sequence that marks the shift from one trend to another.
  (tags: trading technicalanalysis)
• Who Does Jim Cramer Think He Is? -- New York Magazine
  “Why does everybody hate me?” The Wall Street maniac explains his critics, the market, and himself. (TheStreet.com, Inc. TSCM)
  (tags: Cramer finance toread stocks cnbc)
• Chinese Stocks plummet nearly 7 percent
  Chinese stocks plummeted nearly seven percent on Wednesday after the Ministry of Finance announced a hike in the stamp tax on stock trading
  (tags: stocks china)
• How accurate are bloggers?
  I did some scratch work analysis of the Ticker Sense Blogger Sentiment Poll to see how accurate individual bloggers were on calling the S&P 30-days out.
  (tags: stocks)
• The Slipping US Dollar - Should We Care?
  (tags: dollar finance currencies for_TM)
• China and The Mother of all Double Tops on the S&P 500?
  The failure of the SPX at the prior highs and an inability to make a new high has some technicians wondering if we are looking at the mother of all double tops.
  (tags: stocks)

It was a big day for the bulls today. They shook off the little pre-market China scare and proceeded to push the indices to new all-time and multi-year closing highs. Volume rose back to respectable levels although trading was still lighter than last Thursday's big down day. But that less than desirable volume action is about the only thing the bears can hang their hopes on in this market.

So much for that potential falling three methods I talked about yesterday. The S&P 500 finally made the new closing high it kept flirting with last week. It's still 22 points below the all-time intraday high from March 24, 2000 -- what a wild day that was.

The Nasdaq climbed back above the congestion zone around the early May highs and made a new multi-year high close. It sure looks like it has to retest 2,600 now.

The indices are gapping down following the 6% drop in China's market today. It may seem like a repeat of February but this gap isn't nearly as bad as what happened in late February. As I'm writing this the indices are set to open within yesterday's range. So the bears still have work to do -- they need to break yesterday's lows and then Thursdays lows. I think that would cause enough technical damage to get the bulls worried. But we're not even close to that yet...

On Today's Calendar:

• 2:00 -- FOMC Minutes

More Calendars: U.S. Earnings | Conf. Calls | Surprises | IPO | Economic

Potential swing trades:

• Centerplate Inc. (CVP) | Wallstrip
  Go right to the source, and ask the horse. Is Centerplate Inc. (CVP) on a steady course?
  (tags: stocks)
• 26 Reasons What You Think is Right is Wrong
  Traders suffer from many of these cognitive biases...
  (tags: psychology thinking probability for_TM bias finance)
• Data Latency Playing An Ever Increasing Role In Effective Trading
  Wall Street’s quest to process data at the speed of light relies on the physical proximity of servers to overcome the technical barriers of data latency.
  (tags: trading technology computer)

Trading was quite choopy today but a late day surge brought the Dow and S&P back into positive territory. The smaller caps had good relative strength today as evidenced by the Russell 2,000's almost 1% gain on the day. Volume was on the light side again, especially compared to the volume on Thursday's selloff. Given the weak volume I still don't trust this bounce and I think the market could be setting up some falling three method patterns.

Here are charts of the S&P 500, Nasdaq and Russell 2,000:

No changes

It's hard for me to have much faith in Friday's bounce given how low volume was. However, my intraday indicators did flip to bullish on Friday and we've got a small gap up this morning. So I'll be a hesitant bull to start the day but I'm staying on the lookout for a reversal.

Here's the daily S&P chart from Friday's close:

P.S. Nice bearish call on Jones Soda Company (JSDA) in Barron's this weekend: "shares should be 65% lower" :o

On Today's Calendar:

• 10:00 -- Consumer Confidence

More Calendars: U.S. Earnings | Conf. Calls | Surprises | IPO | Economic

Potential swing trades:

• TraderFeed: The Trader Coaching Project
  Find out how you can get a free month of coaching from Dr. Brett.
  (tags: trading coaching Psychology)
• As Condos Rise in South Florida, Nervous Investors Try to Flee - New York Times
  The tale of one of the most bubblicious markets in the U.S.
  (tags: realestate for_TM)
• Why I missed the recent big rally in the stock market, part II - 5 lessons learnt
  (tags: stocks)

• So how do Traders Break Their (Bad) Habits? Part 2
  I love this list! -- 1. Read, read, read. 2. Make a trading plan. 3. Don't paper trade. 3. dive into risk/reward and risk & money mgmt. 5. Ignore backtesting and learn to read the mkts...
  (tags: trading Psychology)
• Apple’s Lesson for Sony’s Stores: Just Connect - New York Times
  Apple has made retail seem ridiculously easy. But why hasn’t the Windows side of the personal computer business figured it out?
  (tags: apple business sony stocks retail computer toread)

The indices were mixed today. Small caps and tech closed higher while the larger caps were basically flat. Volume increased across the board and I'm pretty sure that can be attributed to month-end markups games activity. Trading was choppy during the day and my guess is that's partially due to some profit taking combined with some hesitation ahead of a ton of economic data (jobs report, Core PCE, ISM, etc.) due out tomorrow morning.

I mentioned Google's (GOOG) move above $500 this morning. It made a move toward the all-time high of $513 but reversed and closed under $500, making a nice shooting-star-like candle in the process. It looks to me like it's made an inverse head & shoulders pattern. I'd like to see it consolidate within yesterday's range for a bit to work off the short-term overbought condition before attempting to breakout to new highs. The divergence in OBV has me a bit worried though...

Here are the charts of the Nasdaq, S&P 500 and Russell 2,000:

We've got more strength this morning as the market's follow through on yesterday's rally. One mover of note is Google, which has popped back over $500 and appears to be heading for its all-time high of $513.

On Today's Calendar:

• 9:45 -- Chicago PMI
• 10:00 -- Construction Spending
• 10:00 -- Help-Wanted Index
• 10:30 -- Crude Inventories

More Calendars: U.S. Earnings | Conf. Calls | Surprises | IPO | Economic

Potential swing trades:

• Loews Corp. (LTR) | Wallstrip
  Jack of all trades, master of none? Loews Corp. (LTR) proves ‘em wrong on today’s Wallstrip.
  (tags: stocks)
• CBS to Buy Social Network
  First WallStrip, now it is expected to pay $280 million for the Last.fm site, which caters to music fans. What next???
  (tags: stocks cbs web2.0 finance)
• Trading Patterns: Identifying Transitional Structures
  With this post I'll begin a series on trading patterns for short-term traders. I refer to today's pattern as a transitional structure; it is a common sequence that marks the shift from one trend to another.
  (tags: trading technicalanalysis)
• Who Does Jim Cramer Think He Is? -- New York Magazine
  “Why does everybody hate me?” The Wall Street maniac explains his critics, the market, and himself. (TheStreet.com, Inc. TSCM)
  (tags: Cramer finance toread stocks cnbc)
• Chinese Stocks plummet nearly 7 percent
  Chinese stocks plummeted nearly seven percent on Wednesday after the Ministry of Finance announced a hike in the stamp tax on stock trading
  (tags: stocks china)
• How accurate are bloggers?
  I did some scratch work analysis of the Ticker Sense Blogger Sentiment Poll to see how accurate individual bloggers were on calling the S&P 30-days out.
  (tags: stocks)
• The Slipping US Dollar - Should We Care?
  (tags: dollar finance currencies for_TM)
• China and The Mother of all Double Tops on the S&P 500?
  The failure of the SPX at the prior highs and an inability to make a new high has some technicians wondering if we are looking at the mother of all double tops.
  (tags: stocks)

It was a big day for the bulls today. They shook off the little pre-market China scare and proceeded to push the indices to new all-time and multi-year closing highs. Volume rose back to respectable levels although trading was still lighter than last Thursday's big down day. But that less than desirable volume action is about the only thing the bears can hang their hopes on in this market.

So much for that potential falling three methods I talked about yesterday. The S&P 500 finally made the new closing high it kept flirting with last week. It's still 22 points below the all-time intraday high from March 24, 2000 -- what a wild day that was.

The Nasdaq climbed back above the congestion zone around the early May highs and made a new multi-year high close. It sure looks like it has to retest 2,600 now.

The indices are gapping down following the 6% drop in China's market today. It may seem like a repeat of February but this gap isn't nearly as bad as what happened in late February. As I'm writing this the indices are set to open within yesterday's range. So the bears still have work to do -- they need to break yesterday's lows and then Thursdays lows. I think that would cause enough technical damage to get the bulls worried. But we're not even close to that yet...

On Today's Calendar:

• 2:00 -- FOMC Minutes

More Calendars: U.S. Earnings | Conf. Calls | Surprises | IPO | Economic

Potential swing trades:

• Centerplate Inc. (CVP) | Wallstrip
  Go right to the source, and ask the horse. Is Centerplate Inc. (CVP) on a steady course?
  (tags: stocks)
• 26 Reasons What You Think is Right is Wrong
  Traders suffer from many of these cognitive biases...
  (tags: psychology thinking probability for_TM bias finance)
• Data Latency Playing An Ever Increasing Role In Effective Trading
  Wall Street’s quest to process data at the speed of light relies on the physical proximity of servers to overcome the technical barriers of data latency.
  (tags: trading technology computer)

Trading was quite choopy today but a late day surge brought the Dow and S&P back into positive territory. The smaller caps had good relative strength today as evidenced by the Russell 2,000's almost 1% gain on the day. Volume was on the light side again, especially compared to the volume on Thursday's selloff. Given the weak volume I still don't trust this bounce and I think the market could be setting up some falling three method patterns.

Here are charts of the S&P 500, Nasdaq and Russell 2,000:

No changes

It's hard for me to have much faith in Friday's bounce given how low volume was. However, my intraday indicators did flip to bullish on Friday and we've got a small gap up this morning. So I'll be a hesitant bull to start the day but I'm staying on the lookout for a reversal.

Here's the daily S&P chart from Friday's close:

P.S. Nice bearish call on Jones Soda Company (JSDA) in Barron's this weekend: "shares should be 65% lower" :o

On Today's Calendar:

• 10:00 -- Consumer Confidence

More Calendars: U.S. Earnings | Conf. Calls | Surprises | IPO | Economic

Potential swing trades:

• TraderFeed: The Trader Coaching Project
  Find out how you can get a free month of coaching from Dr. Brett.
  (tags: trading coaching Psychology)
• As Condos Rise in South Florida, Nervous Investors Try to Flee - New York Times
  The tale of one of the most bubblicious markets in the U.S.
  (tags: realestate for_TM)
• Why I missed the recent big rally in the stock market, part II - 5 lessons learnt
  (tags: stocks)

• So how do Traders Break Their (Bad) Habits? Part 2
  I love this list! -- 1. Read, read, read. 2. Make a trading plan. 3. Don't paper trade. 3. dive into risk/reward and risk & money mgmt. 5. Ignore backtesting and learn to read the mkts...
  (tags: trading Psychology)
• Apple’s Lesson for Sony’s Stores: Just Connect - New York Times
  Apple has made retail seem ridiculously easy. But why hasn’t the Windows side of the personal computer business figured it out?
  (tags: apple business sony stocks retail computer toread)

The indices were mixed today. Small caps and tech closed higher while the larger caps were basically flat. Volume increased across the board and I'm pretty sure that can be attributed to month-end markups games activity. Trading was choppy during the day and my guess is that's partially due to some profit taking combined with some hesitation ahead of a ton of economic data (jobs report, Core PCE, ISM, etc.) due out tomorrow morning.

I mentioned Google's (GOOG) move above $500 this morning. It made a move toward the all-time high of $513 but reversed and closed under $500, making a nice shooting-star-like candle in the process. It looks to me like it's made an inverse head & shoulders pattern. I'd like to see it consolidate within yesterday's range for a bit to work off the short-term overbought condition before attempting to breakout to new highs. The divergence in OBV has me a bit worried though...

Here are the charts of the Nasdaq, S&P 500 and Russell 2,000:

We've got more strength this morning as the market's follow through on yesterday's rally. One mover of note is Google, which has popped back over $500 and appears to be heading for its all-time high of $513.

On Today's Calendar:

• 9:45 -- Chicago PMI
• 10:00 -- Construction Spending
• 10:00 -- Help-Wanted Index
• 10:30 -- Crude Inventories

More Calendars: U.S. Earnings | Conf. Calls | Surprises | IPO | Economic

Potential swing trades:

• Loews Corp. (LTR) | Wallstrip
  Jack of all trades, master of none? Loews Corp. (LTR) proves ‘em wrong on today’s Wallstrip.
  (tags: stocks)
• CBS to Buy Social Network
  First WallStrip, now it is expected to pay $280 million for the Last.fm site, which caters to music fans. What next???
  (tags: stocks cbs web2.0 finance)
• Trading Patterns: Identifying Transitional Structures
  With this post I'll begin a series on trading patterns for short-term traders. I refer to today's pattern as a transitional structure; it is a common sequence that marks the shift from one trend to another.
  (tags: trading technicalanalysis)
• Who Does Jim Cramer Think He Is? -- New York Magazine
  “Why does everybody hate me?” The Wall Street maniac explains his critics, the market, and himself. (TheStreet.com, Inc. TSCM)
  (tags: Cramer finance toread stocks cnbc)
• Chinese Stocks plummet nearly 7 percent
  Chinese stocks plummeted nearly seven percent on Wednesday after the Ministry of Finance announced a hike in the stamp tax on stock trading
  (tags: stocks china)
• How accurate are bloggers?
  I did some scratch work analysis of the Ticker Sense Blogger Sentiment Poll to see how accurate individual bloggers were on calling the S&P 30-days out.
  (tags: stocks)
• The Slipping US Dollar - Should We Care?
  (tags: dollar finance currencies for_TM)
• China and The Mother of all Double Tops on the S&P 500?
  The failure of the SPX at the prior highs and an inability to make a new high has some technicians wondering if we are looking at the mother of all double tops.
  (tags: stocks)

It was a big day for the bulls today. They shook off the little pre-market China scare and proceeded to push the indices to new all-time and multi-year closing highs. Volume rose back to respectable levels although trading was still lighter than last Thursday's big down day. But that less than desirable volume action is about the only thing the bears can hang their hopes on in this market.

So much for that potential falling three methods I talked about yesterday. The S&P 500 finally made the new closing high it kept flirting with last week. It's still 22 points below the all-time intraday high from March 24, 2000 -- what a wild day that was.

The Nasdaq climbed back above the congestion zone around the early May highs and made a new multi-year high close. It sure looks like it has to retest 2,600 now.

The indices are gapping down following the 6% drop in China's market today. It may seem like a repeat of February but this gap isn't nearly as bad as what happened in late February. As I'm writing this the indices are set to open within yesterday's range. So the bears still have work to do -- they need to break yesterday's lows and then Thursdays lows. I think that would cause enough technical damage to get the bulls worried. But we're not even close to that yet...

On Today's Calendar:

• 2:00 -- FOMC Minutes

More Calendars: U.S. Earnings | Conf. Calls | Surprises | IPO | Economic

Potential swing trades:

• Centerplate Inc. (CVP) | Wallstrip
  Go right to the source, and ask the horse. Is Centerplate Inc. (CVP) on a steady course?
  (tags: stocks)
• 26 Reasons What You Think is Right is Wrong
  Traders suffer from many of these cognitive biases...
  (tags: psychology thinking probability for_TM bias finance)
• Data Latency Playing An Ever Increasing Role In Effective Trading
  Wall Street’s quest to process data at the speed of light relies on the physical proximity of servers to overcome the technical barriers of data latency.
  (tags: trading technology computer)

Trading was quite choopy today but a late day surge brought the Dow and S&P back into positive territory. The smaller caps had good relative strength today as evidenced by the Russell 2,000's almost 1% gain on the day. Volume was on the light side again, especially compared to the volume on Thursday's selloff. Given the weak volume I still don't trust this bounce and I think the market could be setting up some falling three method patterns.

Here are charts of the S&P 500, Nasdaq and Russell 2,000:

No changes

It's hard for me to have much faith in Friday's bounce given how low volume was. However, my intraday indicators did flip to bullish on Friday and we've got a small gap up this morning. So I'll be a hesitant bull to start the day but I'm staying on the lookout for a reversal.

Here's the daily S&P chart from Friday's close:

P.S. Nice bearish call on Jones Soda Company (JSDA) in Barron's this weekend: "shares should be 65% lower" :o

On Today's Calendar:

• 10:00 -- Consumer Confidence

More Calendars: U.S. Earnings | Conf. Calls | Surprises | IPO | Economic

Potential swing trades:

• TraderFeed: The Trader Coaching Project
  Find out how you can get a free month of coaching from Dr. Brett.
  (tags: trading coaching Psychology)
• As Condos Rise in South Florida, Nervous Investors Try to Flee - New York Times
  The tale of one of the most bubblicious markets in the U.S.
  (tags: realestate for_TM)
• Why I missed the recent big rally in the stock market, part II - 5 lessons learnt
  (tags: stocks)

• So how do Traders Break Their (Bad) Habits? Part 2
  I love this list! -- 1. Read, read, read. 2. Make a trading plan. 3. Don't paper trade. 3. dive into risk/reward and risk & money mgmt. 5. Ignore backtesting and learn to read the mkts...
  (tags: trading Psychology)
• Apple’s Lesson for Sony’s Stores: Just Connect - New York Times
  Apple has made retail seem ridiculously easy. But why hasn’t the Windows side of the personal computer business figured it out?
  (tags: apple business sony stocks retail computer toread)

The indices were mixed today. Small caps and tech closed higher while the larger caps were basically flat. Volume increased across the board and I'm pretty sure that can be attributed to month-end markups games activity. Trading was choppy during the day and my guess is that's partially due to some profit taking combined with some hesitation ahead of a ton of economic data (jobs report, Core PCE, ISM, etc.) due out tomorrow morning.

I mentioned Google's (GOOG) move above $500 this morning. It made a move toward the all-time high of $513 but reversed and closed under $500, making a nice shooting-star-like candle in the process. It looks to me like it's made an inverse head & shoulders pattern. I'd like to see it consolidate within yesterday's range for a bit to work off the short-term overbought condition before attempting to breakout to new highs. The divergence in OBV has me a bit worried though...

Here are the charts of the Nasdaq, S&P 500 and Russell 2,000:

We've got more strength this morning as the market's follow through on yesterday's rally. One mover of note is Google, which has popped back over $500 and appears to be heading for its all-time high of $513.

On Today's Calendar:

• 9:45 -- Chicago PMI
• 10:00 -- Construction Spending
• 10:00 -- Help-Wanted Index
• 10:30 -- Crude Inventories

More Calendars: U.S. Earnings | Conf. Calls | Surprises | IPO | Economic

Potential swing trades:

• Loews Corp. (LTR) | Wallstrip
  Jack of all trades, master of none? Loews Corp. (LTR) proves ‘em wrong on today’s Wallstrip.
  (tags: stocks)
• CBS to Buy Social Network
  First WallStrip, now it is expected to pay $280 million for the Last.fm site, which caters to music fans. What next???
  (tags: stocks cbs web2.0 finance)
• Trading Patterns: Identifying Transitional Structures
  With this post I'll begin a series on trading patterns for short-term traders. I refer to today's pattern as a transitional structure; it is a common sequence that marks the shift from one trend to another.
  (tags: trading technicalanalysis)
• Who Does Jim Cramer Think He Is? -- New York Magazine
  “Why does everybody hate me?” The Wall Street maniac explains his critics, the market, and himself. (TheStreet.com, Inc. TSCM)
  (tags: Cramer finance toread stocks cnbc)
• Chinese Stocks plummet nearly 7 percent
  Chinese stocks plummeted nearly seven percent on Wednesday after the Ministry of Finance announced a hike in the stamp tax on stock trading
  (tags: stocks china)
• How accurate are bloggers?
  I did some scratch work analysis of the Ticker Sense Blogger Sentiment Poll to see how accurate individual bloggers were on calling the S&P 30-days out.
  (tags: stocks)
• The Slipping US Dollar - Should We Care?
  (tags: dollar finance currencies for_TM)
• China and The Mother of all Double Tops on the S&P 500?
  The failure of the SPX at the prior highs and an inability to make a new high has some technicians wondering if we are looking at the mother of all double tops.
  (tags: stocks)

It was a big day for the bulls today. They shook off the little pre-market China scare and proceeded to push the indices to new all-time and multi-year closing highs. Volume rose back to respectable levels although trading was still lighter than last Thursday's big down day. But that less than desirable volume action is about the only thing the bears can hang their hopes on in this market.

So much for that potential falling three methods I talked about yesterday. The S&P 500 finally made the new closing high it kept flirting with last week. It's still 22 points below the all-time intraday high from March 24, 2000 -- what a wild day that was.

The Nasdaq climbed back above the congestion zone around the early May highs and made a new multi-year high close. It sure looks like it has to retest 2,600 now.

The indices are gapping down following the 6% drop in China's market today. It may seem like a repeat of February but this gap isn't nearly as bad as what happened in late February. As I'm writing this the indices are set to open within yesterday's range. So the bears still have work to do -- they need to break yesterday's lows and then Thursdays lows. I think that would cause enough technical damage to get the bulls worried. But we're not even close to that yet...

On Today's Calendar:

• 2:00 -- FOMC Minutes

More Calendars: U.S. Earnings | Conf. Calls | Surprises | IPO | Economic

Potential swing trades:

• Centerplate Inc. (CVP) | Wallstrip
  Go right to the source, and ask the horse. Is Centerplate Inc. (CVP) on a steady course?
  (tags: stocks)
• 26 Reasons What You Think is Right is Wrong
  Traders suffer from many of these cognitive biases...
  (tags: psychology thinking probability for_TM bias finance)
• Data Latency Playing An Ever Increasing Role In Effective Trading
  Wall Street’s quest to process data at the speed of light relies on the physical proximity of servers to overcome the technical barriers of data latency.
  (tags: trading technology computer)

Trading was quite choopy today but a late day surge brought the Dow and S&P back into positive territory. The smaller caps had good relative strength today as evidenced by the Russell 2,000's almost 1% gain on the day. Volume was on the light side again, especially compared to the volume on Thursday's selloff. Given the weak volume I still don't trust this bounce and I think the market could be setting up some falling three method patterns.

Here are charts of the S&P 500, Nasdaq and Russell 2,000:

No changes

It's hard for me to have much faith in Friday's bounce given how low volume was. However, my intraday indicators did flip to bullish on Friday and we've got a small gap up this morning. So I'll be a hesitant bull to start the day but I'm staying on the lookout for a reversal.

Here's the daily S&P chart from Friday's close:

P.S. Nice bearish call on Jones Soda Company (JSDA) in Barron's this weekend: "shares should be 65% lower" :o

On Today's Calendar:

• 10:00 -- Consumer Confidence

More Calendars: U.S. Earnings | Conf. Calls | Surprises | IPO | Economic

Potential swing trades:

• TraderFeed: The Trader Coaching Project
  Find out how you can get a free month of coaching from Dr. Brett.
  (tags: trading coaching Psychology)
• As Condos Rise in South Florida, Nervous Investors Try to Flee - New York Times
  The tale of one of the most bubblicious markets in the U.S.
  (tags: realestate for_TM)
• Why I missed the recent big rally in the stock market, part II - 5 lessons learnt
  (tags: stocks)

• So how do Traders Break Their (Bad) Habits? Part 2
  I love this list! -- 1. Read, read, read. 2. Make a trading plan. 3. Don't paper trade. 3. dive into risk/reward and risk & money mgmt. 5. Ignore backtesting and learn to read the mkts...
  (tags: trading Psychology)
• Apple’s Lesson for Sony’s Stores: Just Connect - New York Times
  Apple has made retail seem ridiculously easy. But why hasn’t the Windows side of the personal computer business figured it out?
  (tags: apple business sony stocks retail computer toread)

The indices were mixed today. Small caps and tech closed higher while the larger caps were basically flat. Volume increased across the board and I'm pretty sure that can be attributed to month-end markups games activity. Trading was choppy during the day and my guess is that's partially due to some profit taking combined with some hesitation ahead of a ton of economic data (jobs report, Core PCE, ISM, etc.) due out tomorrow morning.

I mentioned Google's (GOOG) move above $500 this morning. It made a move toward the all-time high of $513 but reversed and closed under $500, making a nice shooting-star-like candle in the process. It looks to me like it's made an inverse head & shoulders pattern. I'd like to see it consolidate within yesterday's range for a bit to work off the short-term overbought condition before attempting to breakout to new highs. The divergence in OBV has me a bit worried though...

Here are the charts of the Nasdaq, S&P 500 and Russell 2,000:

We've got more strength this morning as the market's follow through on yesterday's rally. One mover of note is Google, which has popped back over $500 and appears to be heading for its all-time high of $513.

On Today's Calendar:

• 9:45 -- Chicago PMI
• 10:00 -- Construction Spending
• 10:00 -- Help-Wanted Index
• 10:30 -- Crude Inventories

More Calendars: U.S. Earnings | Conf. Calls | Surprises | IPO | Economic

Potential swing trades:

• Loews Corp. (LTR) | Wallstrip
  Jack of all trades, master of none? Loews Corp. (LTR) proves ‘em wrong on today’s Wallstrip.
  (tags: stocks)
• CBS to Buy Social Network
  First WallStrip, now it is expected to pay $280 million for the Last.fm site, which caters to music fans. What next???
  (tags: stocks cbs web2.0 finance)
• Trading Patterns: Identifying Transitional Structures
  With this post I'll begin a series on trading patterns for short-term traders. I refer to today's pattern as a transitional structure; it is a common sequence that marks the shift from one trend to another.
  (tags: trading technicalanalysis)
• Who Does Jim Cramer Think He Is? -- New York Magazine
  “Why does everybody hate me?” The Wall Street maniac explains his critics, the market, and himself. (TheStreet.com, Inc. TSCM)
  (tags: Cramer finance toread stocks cnbc)
• Chinese Stocks plummet nearly 7 percent
  Chinese stocks plummeted nearly seven percent on Wednesday after the Ministry of Finance announced a hike in the stamp tax on stock trading
  (tags: stocks china)
• How accurate are bloggers?
  I did some scratch work analysis of the Ticker Sense Blogger Sentiment Poll to see how accurate individual bloggers were on calling the S&P 30-days out.
  (tags: stocks)
• The Slipping US Dollar - Should We Care?
  (tags: dollar finance currencies for_TM)
• China and The Mother of all Double Tops on the S&P 500?
  The failure of the SPX at the prior highs and an inability to make a new high has some technicians wondering if we are looking at the mother of all double tops.
  (tags: stocks)

It was a big day for the bulls today. They shook off the little pre-market China scare and proceeded to push the indices to new all-time and multi-year closing highs. Volume rose back to respectable levels although trading was still lighter than last Thursday's big down day. But that less than desirable volume action is about the only thing the bears can hang their hopes on in this market.

So much for that potential falling three methods I talked about yesterday. The S&P 500 finally made the new closing high it kept flirting with last week. It's still 22 points below the all-time intraday high from March 24, 2000 -- what a wild day that was.

The Nasdaq climbed back above the congestion zone around the early May highs and made a new multi-year high close. It sure looks like it has to retest 2,600 now.

The indices are gapping down following the 6% drop in China's market today. It may seem like a repeat of February but this gap isn't nearly as bad as what happened in late February. As I'm writing this the indices are set to open within yesterday's range. So the bears still have work to do -- they need to break yesterday's lows and then Thursdays lows. I think that would cause enough technical damage to get the bulls worried. But we're not even close to that yet...

On Today's Calendar:

• 2:00 -- FOMC Minutes

More Calendars: U.S. Earnings | Conf. Calls | Surprises | IPO | Economic

Potential swing trades:

• Centerplate Inc. (CVP) | Wallstrip
  Go right to the source, and ask the horse. Is Centerplate Inc. (CVP) on a steady course?
  (tags: stocks)
• 26 Reasons What You Think is Right is Wrong
  Traders suffer from many of these cognitive biases...
  (tags: psychology thinking probability for_TM bias finance)
• Data Latency Playing An Ever Increasing Role In Effective Trading
  Wall Street’s quest to process data at the speed of light relies on the physical proximity of servers to overcome the technical barriers of data latency.
  (tags: trading technology computer)

Trading was quite choopy today but a late day surge brought the Dow and S&P back into positive territory. The smaller caps had good relative strength today as evidenced by the Russell 2,000's almost 1% gain on the day. Volume was on the light side again, especially compared to the volume on Thursday's selloff. Given the weak volume I still don't trust this bounce and I think the market could be setting up some falling three method patterns.

Here are charts of the S&P 500, Nasdaq and Russell 2,000:

No changes

It's hard for me to have much faith in Friday's bounce given how low volume was. However, my intraday indicators did flip to bullish on Friday and we've got a small gap up this morning. So I'll be a hesitant bull to start the day but I'm staying on the lookout for a reversal.

Here's the daily S&P chart from Friday's close:

P.S. Nice bearish call on Jones Soda Company (JSDA) in Barron's this weekend: "shares should be 65% lower" :o

On Today's Calendar:

• 10:00 -- Consumer Confidence

More Calendars: U.S. Earnings | Conf. Calls | Surprises | IPO | Economic

Potential swing trades:

• TraderFeed: The Trader Coaching Project
  Find out how you can get a free month of coaching from Dr. Brett.
  (tags: trading coaching Psychology)
• As Condos Rise in South Florida, Nervous Investors Try to Flee - New York Times
  The tale of one of the most bubblicious markets in the U.S.
  (tags: realestate for_TM)
• Why I missed the recent big rally in the stock market, part II - 5 lessons learnt
  (tags: stocks)

• So how do Traders Break Their (Bad) Habits? Part 2
  I love this list! -- 1. Read, read, read. 2. Make a trading plan. 3. Don't paper trade. 3. dive into risk/reward and risk & money mgmt. 5. Ignore backtesting and learn to read the mkts...
  (tags: trading Psychology)
• Apple’s Lesson for Sony’s Stores: Just Connect - New York Times
  Apple has made retail seem ridiculously easy. But why hasn’t the Windows side of the personal computer business figured it out?
  (tags: apple business sony stocks retail computer toread)

The indices were mixed today. Small caps and tech closed higher while the larger caps were basically flat. Volume increased across the board and I'm pretty sure that can be attributed to month-end markups games activity. Trading was choppy during the day and my guess is that's partially due to some profit taking combined with some hesitation ahead of a ton of economic data (jobs report, Core PCE, ISM, etc.) due out tomorrow morning.

I mentioned Google's (GOOG) move above $500 this morning. It made a move toward the all-time high of $513 but reversed and closed under $500, making a nice shooting-star-like candle in the process. It looks to me like it's made an inverse head & shoulders pattern. I'd like to see it consolidate within yesterday's range for a bit to work off the short-term overbought condition before attempting to breakout to new highs. The divergence in OBV has me a bit worried though...

Here are the charts of the Nasdaq, S&P 500 and Russell 2,000:

We've got more strength this morning as the market's follow through on yesterday's rally. One mover of note is Google, which has popped back over $500 and appears to be heading for its all-time high of $513.

On Today's Calendar:

• 9:45 -- Chicago PMI
• 10:00 -- Construction Spending
• 10:00 -- Help-Wanted Index
• 10:30 -- Crude Inventories

More Calendars: U.S. Earnings | Conf. Calls | Surprises | IPO | Economic

Potential swing trades:

• Loews Corp. (LTR) | Wallstrip
  Jack of all trades, master of none? Loews Corp. (LTR) proves ‘em wrong on today’s Wallstrip.
  (tags: stocks)
• CBS to Buy Social Network
  First WallStrip, now it is expected to pay $280 million for the Last.fm site, which caters to music fans. What next???
  (tags: stocks cbs web2.0 finance)
• Trading Patterns: Identifying Transitional Structures
  With this post I'll begin a series on trading patterns for short-term traders. I refer to today's pattern as a transitional structure; it is a common sequence that marks the shift from one trend to another.
  (tags: trading technicalanalysis)
• Who Does Jim Cramer Think He Is? -- New York Magazine
  “Why does everybody hate me?” The Wall Street maniac explains his critics, the market, and himself. (TheStreet.com, Inc. TSCM)
  (tags: Cramer finance toread stocks cnbc)
• Chinese Stocks plummet nearly 7 percent
  Chinese stocks plummeted nearly seven percent on Wednesday after the Ministry of Finance announced a hike in the stamp tax on stock trading
  (tags: stocks china)
• How accurate are bloggers?
  I did some scratch work analysis of the Ticker Sense Blogger Sentiment Poll to see how accurate individual bloggers were on calling the S&P 30-days out.
  (tags: stocks)
• The Slipping US Dollar - Should We Care?
  (tags: dollar finance currencies for_TM)
• China and The Mother of all Double Tops on the S&P 500?
  The failure of the SPX at the prior highs and an inability to make a new high has some technicians wondering if we are looking at the mother of all double tops.
  (tags: stocks)

It was a big day for the bulls today. They shook off the little pre-market China scare and proceeded to push the indices to new all-time and multi-year closing highs. Volume rose back to respectable levels although trading was still lighter than last Thursday's big down day. But that less than desirable volume action is about the only thing the bears can hang their hopes on in this market.

So much for that potential falling three methods I talked about yesterday. The S&P 500 finally made the new closing high it kept flirting with last week. It's still 22 points below the all-time intraday high from March 24, 2000 -- what a wild day that was.

The Nasdaq climbed back above the congestion zone around the early May highs and made a new multi-year high close. It sure looks like it has to retest 2,600 now.

The indices are gapping down following the 6% drop in China's market today. It may seem like a repeat of February but this gap isn't nearly as bad as what happened in late February. As I'm writing this the indices are set to open within yesterday's range. So the bears still have work to do -- they need to break yesterday's lows and then Thursdays lows. I think that would cause enough technical damage to get the bulls worried. But we're not even close to that yet...

On Today's Calendar:

• 2:00 -- FOMC Minutes

More Calendars: U.S. Earnings | Conf. Calls | Surprises | IPO | Economic

Potential swing trades:

• Centerplate Inc. (CVP) | Wallstrip
  Go right to the source, and ask the horse. Is Centerplate Inc. (CVP) on a steady course?
  (tags: stocks)
• 26 Reasons What You Think is Right is Wrong
  Traders suffer from many of these cognitive biases...
  (tags: psychology thinking probability for_TM bias finance)
• Data Latency Playing An Ever Increasing Role In Effective Trading
  Wall Street’s quest to process data at the speed of light relies on the physical proximity of servers to overcome the technical barriers of data latency.
  (tags: trading technology computer)

Trading was quite choopy today but a late day surge brought the Dow and S&P back into positive territory. The smaller caps had good relative strength today as evidenced by the Russell 2,000's almost 1% gain on the day. Volume was on the light side again, especially compared to the volume on Thursday's selloff. Given the weak volume I still don't trust this bounce and I think the market could be setting up some falling three method patterns.

Here are charts of the S&P 500, Nasdaq and Russell 2,000:

No changes

It's hard for me to have much faith in Friday's bounce given how low volume was. However, my intraday indicators did flip to bullish on Friday and we've got a small gap up this morning. So I'll be a hesitant bull to start the day but I'm staying on the lookout for a reversal.

Here's the daily S&P chart from Friday's close:

P.S. Nice bearish call on Jones Soda Company (JSDA) in Barron's this weekend: "shares should be 65% lower" :o

On Today's Calendar:

• 10:00 -- Consumer Confidence

More Calendars: U.S. Earnings | Conf. Calls | Surprises | IPO | Economic

Potential swing trades:

• TraderFeed: The Trader Coaching Project
  Find out how you can get a free month of coaching from Dr. Brett.
  (tags: trading coaching Psychology)
• As Condos Rise in South Florida, Nervous Investors Try to Flee - New York Times
  The tale of one of the most bubblicious markets in the U.S.
  (tags: realestate for_TM)
• Why I missed the recent big rally in the stock market, part II - 5 lessons learnt
  (tags: stocks)

• So how do Traders Break Their (Bad) Habits? Part 2
  I love this list! -- 1. Read, read, read. 2. Make a trading plan. 3. Don't paper trade. 3. dive into risk/reward and risk & money mgmt. 5. Ignore backtesting and learn to read the mkts...
  (tags: trading Psychology)
• Apple’s Lesson for Sony’s Stores: Just Connect - New York Times
  Apple has made retail seem ridiculously easy. But why hasn’t the Windows side of the personal computer business figured it out?
  (tags: apple business sony stocks retail computer toread)

The indices were mixed today. Small caps and tech closed higher while the larger caps were basically flat. Volume increased across the board and I'm pretty sure that can be attributed to month-end markups games activity. Trading was choppy during the day and my guess is that's partially due to some profit taking combined with some hesitation ahead of a ton of economic data (jobs report, Core PCE, ISM, etc.) due out tomorrow morning.

I mentioned Google's (GOOG) move above $500 this morning. It made a move toward the all-time high of $513 but reversed and closed under $500, making a nice shooting-star-like candle in the process. It looks to me like it's made an inverse head & shoulders pattern. I'd like to see it consolidate within yesterday's range for a bit to work off the short-term overbought condition before attempting to breakout to new highs. The divergence in OBV has me a bit worried though...

Here are the charts of the Nasdaq, S&P 500 and Russell 2,000:

We've got more strength this morning as the market's follow through on yesterday's rally. One mover of note is Google, which has popped back over $500 and appears to be heading for its all-time high of $513.

On Today's Calendar:

• 9:45 -- Chicago PMI
• 10:00 -- Construction Spending
• 10:00 -- Help-Wanted Index
• 10:30 -- Crude Inventories

More Calendars: U.S. Earnings | Conf. Calls | Surprises | IPO | Economic

Potential swing trades:

• Loews Corp. (LTR) | Wallstrip
  Jack of all trades, master of none? Loews Corp. (LTR) proves ‘em wrong on today’s Wallstrip.
  (tags: stocks)
• CBS to Buy Social Network
  First WallStrip, now it is expected to pay $280 million for the Last.fm site, which caters to music fans. What next???
  (tags: stocks cbs web2.0 finance)
• Trading Patterns: Identifying Transitional Structures
  With this post I'll begin a series on trading patterns for short-term traders. I refer to today's pattern as a transitional structure; it is a common sequence that marks the shift from one trend to another.
  (tags: trading technicalanalysis)
• Who Does Jim Cramer Think He Is? -- New York Magazine
  “Why does everybody hate me?” The Wall Street maniac explains his critics, the market, and himself. (TheStreet.com, Inc. TSCM)
  (tags: Cramer finance toread stocks cnbc)
• Chinese Stocks plummet nearly 7 percent
  Chinese stocks plummeted nearly seven percent on Wednesday after the Ministry of Finance announced a hike in the stamp tax on stock trading
  (tags: stocks china)
• How accurate are bloggers?
  I did some scratch work analysis of the Ticker Sense Blogger Sentiment Poll to see how accurate individual bloggers were on calling the S&P 30-days out.
  (tags: stocks)
• The Slipping US Dollar - Should We Care?
  (tags: dollar finance currencies for_TM)
• China and The Mother of all Double Tops on the S&P 500?
  The failure of the SPX at the prior highs and an inability to make a new high has some technicians wondering if we are looking at the mother of all double tops.
  (tags: stocks)

It was a big day for the bulls today. They shook off the little pre-market China scare and proceeded to push the indices to new all-time and multi-year closing highs. Volume rose back to respectable levels although trading was still lighter than last Thursday's big down day. But that less than desirable volume action is about the only thing the bears can hang their hopes on in this market.

So much for that potential falling three methods I talked about yesterday. The S&P 500 finally made the new closing high it kept flirting with last week. It's still 22 points below the all-time intraday high from March 24, 2000 -- what a wild day that was.

The Nasdaq climbed back above the congestion zone around the early May highs and made a new multi-year high close. It sure looks like it has to retest 2,600 now.

The indices are gapping down following the 6% drop in China's market today. It may seem like a repeat of February but this gap isn't nearly as bad as what happened in late February. As I'm writing this the indices are set to open within yesterday's range. So the bears still have work to do -- they need to break yesterday's lows and then Thursdays lows. I think that would cause enough technical damage to get the bulls worried. But we're not even close to that yet...

On Today's Calendar:

• 2:00 -- FOMC Minutes

More Calendars: U.S. Earnings | Conf. Calls | Surprises | IPO | Economic

Potential swing trades:

• Centerplate Inc. (CVP) | Wallstrip
  Go right to the source, and ask the horse. Is Centerplate Inc. (CVP) on a steady course?
  (tags: stocks)
• 26 Reasons What You Think is Right is Wrong
  Traders suffer from many of these cognitive biases...
  (tags: psychology thinking probability for_TM bias finance)
• Data Latency Playing An Ever Increasing Role In Effective Trading
  Wall Street’s quest to process data at the speed of light relies on the physical proximity of servers to overcome the technical barriers of data latency.
  (tags: trading technology computer)

Trading was quite choopy today but a late day surge brought the Dow and S&P back into positive territory. The smaller caps had good relative strength today as evidenced by the Russell 2,000's almost 1% gain on the day. Volume was on the light side again, especially compared to the volume on Thursday's selloff. Given the weak volume I still don't trust this bounce and I think the market could be setting up some falling three method patterns.

Here are charts of the S&P 500, Nasdaq and Russell 2,000:

No changes

It's hard for me to have much faith in Friday's bounce given how low volume was. However, my intraday indicators did flip to bullish on Friday and we've got a small gap up this morning. So I'll be a hesitant bull to start the day but I'm staying on the lookout for a reversal.

Here's the daily S&P chart from Friday's close:

P.S. Nice bearish call on Jones Soda Company (JSDA) in Barron's this weekend: "shares should be 65% lower" :o

On Today's Calendar:

• 10:00 -- Consumer Confidence

More Calendars: U.S. Earnings | Conf. Calls | Surprises | IPO | Economic

Potential swing trades:

• TraderFeed: The Trader Coaching Project
  Find out how you can get a free month of coaching from Dr. Brett.
  (tags: trading coaching Psychology)
• As Condos Rise in South Florida, Nervous Investors Try to Flee - New York Times
  The tale of one of the most bubblicious markets in the U.S.
  (tags: realestate for_TM)
• Why I missed the recent big rally in the stock market, part II - 5 lessons learnt
  (tags: stocks)

• So how do Traders Break Their (Bad) Habits? Part 2
  I love this list! -- 1. Read, read, read. 2. Make a trading plan. 3. Don't paper trade. 3. dive into risk/reward and risk & money mgmt. 5. Ignore backtesting and learn to read the mkts...
  (tags: trading Psychology)
• Apple’s Lesson for Sony’s Stores: Just Connect - New York Times
  Apple has made retail seem ridiculously easy. But why hasn’t the Windows side of the personal computer business figured it out?
  (tags: apple business sony stocks retail computer toread)

The indices were mixed today. Small caps and tech closed higher while the larger caps were basically flat. Volume increased across the board and I'm pretty sure that can be attributed to month-end markups games activity. Trading was choppy during the day and my guess is that's partially due to some profit taking combined with some hesitation ahead of a ton of economic data (jobs report, Core PCE, ISM, etc.) due out tomorrow morning.

I mentioned Google's (GOOG) move above $500 this morning. It made a move toward the all-time high of $513 but reversed and closed under $500, making a nice shooting-star-like candle in the process. It looks to me like it's made an inverse head & shoulders pattern. I'd like to see it consolidate within yesterday's range for a bit to work off the short-term overbought condition before attempting to breakout to new highs. The divergence in OBV has me a bit worried though...

Here are the charts of the Nasdaq, S&P 500 and Russell 2,000:

We've got more strength this morning as the market's follow through on yesterday's rally. One mover of note is Google, which has popped back over $500 and appears to be heading for its all-time high of $513.

On Today's Calendar:

• 9:45 -- Chicago PMI
• 10:00 -- Construction Spending
• 10:00 -- Help-Wanted Index
• 10:30 -- Crude Inventories

More Calendars: U.S. Earnings | Conf. Calls | Surprises | IPO | Economic

Potential swing trades:

• Loews Corp. (LTR) | Wallstrip
  Jack of all trades, master of none? Loews Corp. (LTR) proves ‘em wrong on today’s Wallstrip.
  (tags: stocks)
• CBS to Buy Social Network
  First WallStrip, now it is expected to pay $280 million for the Last.fm site, which caters to music fans. What next???
  (tags: stocks cbs web2.0 finance)
• Trading Patterns: Identifying Transitional Structures
  With this post I'll begin a series on trading patterns for short-term traders. I refer to today's pattern as a transitional structure; it is a common sequence that marks the shift from one trend to another.
  (tags: trading technicalanalysis)
• Who Does Jim Cramer Think He Is? -- New York Magazine
  “Why does everybody hate me?” The Wall Street maniac explains his critics, the market, and himself. (TheStreet.com, Inc. TSCM)
  (tags: Cramer finance toread stocks cnbc)
• Chinese Stocks plummet nearly 7 percent
  Chinese stocks plummeted nearly seven percent on Wednesday after the Ministry of Finance announced a hike in the stamp tax on stock trading
  (tags: stocks china)
• How accurate are bloggers?
  I did some scratch work analysis of the Ticker Sense Blogger Sentiment Poll to see how accurate individual bloggers were on calling the S&P 30-days out.
  (tags: stocks)
• The Slipping US Dollar - Should We Care?
  (tags: dollar finance currencies for_TM)
• China and The Mother of all Double Tops on the S&P 500?
  The failure of the SPX at the prior highs and an inability to make a new high has some technicians wondering if we are looking at the mother of all double tops.
  (tags: stocks)

It was a big day for the bulls today. They shook off the little pre-market China scare and proceeded to push the indices to new all-time and multi-year closing highs. Volume rose back to respectable levels although trading was still lighter than last Thursday's big down day. But that less than desirable volume action is about the only thing the bears can hang their hopes on in this market.

So much for that potential falling three methods I talked about yesterday. The S&P 500 finally made the new closing high it kept flirting with last week. It's still 22 points below the all-time intraday high from March 24, 2000 -- what a wild day that was.

The Nasdaq climbed back above the congestion zone around the early May highs and made a new multi-year high close. It sure looks like it has to retest 2,600 now.

The indices are gapping down following the 6% drop in China's market today. It may seem like a repeat of February but this gap isn't nearly as bad as what happened in late February. As I'm writing this the indices are set to open within yesterday's range. So the bears still have work to do -- they need to break yesterday's lows and then Thursdays lows. I think that would cause enough technical damage to get the bulls worried. But we're not even close to that yet...

On Today's Calendar:

• 2:00 -- FOMC Minutes

More Calendars: U.S. Earnings | Conf. Calls | Surprises | IPO | Economic

Potential swing trades:

• Centerplate Inc. (CVP) | Wallstrip
  Go right to the source, and ask the horse. Is Centerplate Inc. (CVP) on a steady course?
  (tags: stocks)
• 26 Reasons What You Think is Right is Wrong
  Traders suffer from many of these cognitive biases...
  (tags: psychology thinking probability for_TM bias finance)
• Data Latency Playing An Ever Increasing Role In Effective Trading
  Wall Street’s quest to process data at the speed of light relies on the physical proximity of servers to overcome the technical barriers of data latency.
  (tags: trading technology computer)

Trading was quite choopy today but a late day surge brought the Dow and S&P back into positive territory. The smaller caps had good relative strength today as evidenced by the Russell 2,000's almost 1% gain on the day. Volume was on the light side again, especially compared to the volume on Thursday's selloff. Given the weak volume I still don't trust this bounce and I think the market could be setting up some falling three method patterns.

Here are charts of the S&P 500, Nasdaq and Russell 2,000:

No changes

It's hard for me to have much faith in Friday's bounce given how low volume was. However, my intraday indicators did flip to bullish on Friday and we've got a small gap up this morning. So I'll be a hesitant bull to start the day but I'm staying on the lookout for a reversal.

Here's the daily S&P chart from Friday's close:

P.S. Nice bearish call on Jones Soda Company (JSDA) in Barron's this weekend: "shares should be 65% lower" :o

On Today's Calendar:

• 10:00 -- Consumer Confidence

More Calendars: U.S. Earnings | Conf. Calls | Surprises | IPO | Economic

Potential swing trades:

• TraderFeed: The Trader Coaching Project
  Find out how you can get a free month of coaching from Dr. Brett.
  (tags: trading coaching Psychology)
• As Condos Rise in South Florida, Nervous Investors Try to Flee - New York Times
  The tale of one of the most bubblicious markets in the U.S.
  (tags: realestate for_TM)
• Why I missed the recent big rally in the stock market, part II - 5 lessons learnt
  (tags: stocks)

• So how do Traders Break Their (Bad) Habits? Part 2
  I love this list! -- 1. Read, read, read. 2. Make a trading plan. 3. Don't paper trade. 3. dive into risk/reward and risk & money mgmt. 5. Ignore backtesting and learn to read the mkts...
  (tags: trading Psychology)
• Apple’s Lesson for Sony’s Stores: Just Connect - New York Times
  Apple has made retail seem ridiculously easy. But why hasn’t the Windows side of the personal computer business figured it out?
  (tags: apple business sony stocks retail computer toread)

The indices were mixed today. Small caps and tech closed higher while the larger caps were basically flat. Volume increased across the board and I'm pretty sure that can be attributed to month-end markups games activity. Trading was choppy during the day and my guess is that's partially due to some profit taking combined with some hesitation ahead of a ton of economic data (jobs report, Core PCE, ISM, etc.) due out tomorrow morning.

I mentioned Google's (GOOG) move above $500 this morning. It made a move toward the all-time high of $513 but reversed and closed under $500, making a nice shooting-star-like candle in the process. It looks to me like it's made an inverse head & shoulders pattern. I'd like to see it consolidate within yesterday's range for a bit to work off the short-term overbought condition before attempting to breakout to new highs. The divergence in OBV has me a bit worried though...

Here are the charts of the Nasdaq, S&P 500 and Russell 2,000:

We've got more strength this morning as the market's follow through on yesterday's rally. One mover of note is Google, which has popped back over $500 and appears to be heading for its all-time high of $513.

On Today's Calendar:

• 9:45 -- Chicago PMI
• 10:00 -- Construction Spending
• 10:00 -- Help-Wanted Index
• 10:30 -- Crude Inventories

More Calendars: U.S. Earnings | Conf. Calls | Surprises | IPO | Economic

Potential swing trades:

• Loews Corp. (LTR) | Wallstrip
  Jack of all trades, master of none? Loews Corp. (LTR) proves ‘em wrong on today’s Wallstrip.
  (tags: stocks)
• CBS to Buy Social Network
  First WallStrip, now it is expected to pay $280 million for the Last.fm site, which caters to music fans. What next???
  (tags: stocks cbs web2.0 finance)
• Trading Patterns: Identifying Transitional Structures
  With this post I'll begin a series on trading patterns for short-term traders. I refer to today's pattern as a transitional structure; it is a common sequence that marks the shift from one trend to another.
  (tags: trading technicalanalysis)
• Who Does Jim Cramer Think He Is? -- New York Magazine
  “Why does everybody hate me?” The Wall Street maniac explains his critics, the market, and himself. (TheStreet.com, Inc. TSCM)
  (tags: Cramer finance toread stocks cnbc)
• Chinese Stocks plummet nearly 7 percent
  Chinese stocks plummeted nearly seven percent on Wednesday after the Ministry of Finance announced a hike in the stamp tax on stock trading
  (tags: stocks china)
• How accurate are bloggers?
  I did some scratch work analysis of the Ticker Sense Blogger Sentiment Poll to see how accurate individual bloggers were on calling the S&P 30-days out.
  (tags: stocks)
• The Slipping US Dollar - Should We Care?
  (tags: dollar finance currencies for_TM)
• China and The Mother of all Double Tops on the S&P 500?
  The failure of the SPX at the prior highs and an inability to make a new high has some technicians wondering if we are looking at the mother of all double tops.
  (tags: stocks)

It was a big day for the bulls today. They shook off the little pre-market China scare and proceeded to push the indices to new all-time and multi-year closing highs. Volume rose back to respectable levels although trading was still lighter than last Thursday's big down day. But that less than desirable volume action is about the only thing the bears can hang their hopes on in this market.

So much for that potential falling three methods I talked about yesterday. The S&P 500 finally made the new closing high it kept flirting with last week. It's still 22 points below the all-time intraday high from March 24, 2000 -- what a wild day that was.

The Nasdaq climbed back above the congestion zone around the early May highs and made a new multi-year high close. It sure looks like it has to retest 2,600 now.

The indices are gapping down following the 6% drop in China's market today. It may seem like a repeat of February but this gap isn't nearly as bad as what happened in late February. As I'm writing this the indices are set to open within yesterday's range. So the bears still have work to do -- they need to break yesterday's lows and then Thursdays lows. I think that would cause enough technical damage to get the bulls worried. But we're not even close to that yet...

On Today's Calendar:

• 2:00 -- FOMC Minutes

More Calendars: U.S. Earnings | Conf. Calls | Surprises | IPO | Economic

Potential swing trades:

• Centerplate Inc. (CVP) | Wallstrip
  Go right to the source, and ask the horse. Is Centerplate Inc. (CVP) on a steady course?
  (tags: stocks)
• 26 Reasons What You Think is Right is Wrong
  Traders suffer from many of these cognitive biases...
  (tags: psychology thinking probability for_TM bias finance)
• Data Latency Playing An Ever Increasing Role In Effective Trading
  Wall Street’s quest to process data at the speed of light relies on the physical proximity of servers to overcome the technical barriers of data latency.
  (tags: trading technology computer)

Trading was quite choopy today but a late day surge brought the Dow and S&P back into positive territory. The smaller caps had good relative strength today as evidenced by the Russell 2,000's almost 1% gain on the day. Volume was on the light side again, especially compared to the volume on Thursday's selloff. Given the weak volume I still don't trust this bounce and I think the market could be setting up some falling three method patterns.

Here are charts of the S&P 500, Nasdaq and Russell 2,000:

No changes

It's hard for me to have much faith in Friday's bounce given how low volume was. However, my intraday indicators did flip to bullish on Friday and we've got a small gap up this morning. So I'll be a hesitant bull to start the day but I'm staying on the lookout for a reversal.

Here's the daily S&P chart from Friday's close:

P.S. Nice bearish call on Jones Soda Company (JSDA) in Barron's this weekend: "shares should be 65% lower" :o

On Today's Calendar:

• 10:00 -- Consumer Confidence

More Calendars: U.S. Earnings | Conf. Calls | Surprises | IPO | Economic

Potential swing trades:

• TraderFeed: The Trader Coaching Project
  Find out how you can get a free month of coaching from Dr. Brett.
  (tags: trading coaching Psychology)
• As Condos Rise in South Florida, Nervous Investors Try to Flee - New York Times
  The tale of one of the most bubblicious markets in the U.S.
  (tags: realestate for_TM)
• Why I missed the recent big rally in the stock market, part II - 5 lessons learnt
  (tags: stocks)

• So how do Traders Break Their (Bad) Habits? Part 2
  I love this list! -- 1. Read, read, read. 2. Make a trading plan. 3. Don't paper trade. 3. dive into risk/reward and risk & money mgmt. 5. Ignore backtesting and learn to read the mkts...
  (tags: trading Psychology)
• Apple’s Lesson for Sony’s Stores: Just Connect - New York Times
  Apple has made retail seem ridiculously easy. But why hasn’t the Windows side of the personal computer business figured it out?
  (tags: apple business sony stocks retail computer toread)

The indices were mixed today. Small caps and tech closed higher while the larger caps were basically flat. Volume increased across the board and I'm pretty sure that can be attributed to month-end markups games activity. Trading was choppy during the day and my guess is that's partially due to some profit taking combined with some hesitation ahead of a ton of economic data (jobs report, Core PCE, ISM, etc.) due out tomorrow morning.

I mentioned Google's (GOOG) move above $500 this morning. It made a move toward the all-time high of $513 but reversed and closed under $500, making a nice shooting-star-like candle in the process. It looks to me like it's made an inverse head & shoulders pattern. I'd like to see it consolidate within yesterday's range for a bit to work off the short-term overbought condition before attempting to breakout to new highs. The divergence in OBV has me a bit worried though...

Here are the charts of the Nasdaq, S&P 500 and Russell 2,000:

We've got more strength this morning as the market's follow through on yesterday's rally. One mover of note is Google, which has popped back over $500 and appears to be heading for its all-time high of $513.

On Today's Calendar:

• 9:45 -- Chicago PMI
• 10:00 -- Construction Spending
• 10:00 -- Help-Wanted Index
• 10:30 -- Crude Inventories

More Calendars: U.S. Earnings | Conf. Calls | Surprises | IPO | Economic

Potential swing trades:

• Loews Corp. (LTR) | Wallstrip
  Jack of all trades, master of none? Loews Corp. (LTR) proves ‘em wrong on today’s Wallstrip.
  (tags: stocks)
• CBS to Buy Social Network
  First WallStrip, now it is expected to pay $280 million for the Last.fm site, which caters to music fans. What next???
  (tags: stocks cbs web2.0 finance)
• Trading Patterns: Identifying Transitional Structures
  With this post I'll begin a series on trading patterns for short-term traders. I refer to today's pattern as a transitional structure; it is a common sequence that marks the shift from one trend to another.
  (tags: trading technicalanalysis)
• Who Does Jim Cramer Think He Is? -- New York Magazine
  “Why does everybody hate me?” The Wall Street maniac explains his critics, the market, and himself. (TheStreet.com, Inc. TSCM)
  (tags: Cramer finance toread stocks cnbc)
• Chinese Stocks plummet nearly 7 percent
  Chinese stocks plummeted nearly seven percent on Wednesday after the Ministry of Finance announced a hike in the stamp tax on stock trading
  (tags: stocks china)
• How accurate are bloggers?
  I did some scratch work analysis of the Ticker Sense Blogger Sentiment Poll to see how accurate individual bloggers were on calling the S&P 30-days out.
  (tags: stocks)
• The Slipping US Dollar - Should We Care?
  (tags: dollar finance currencies for_TM)
• China and The Mother of all Double Tops on the S&P 500?
  The failure of the SPX at the prior highs and an inability to make a new high has some technicians wondering if we are looking at the mother of all double tops.
  (tags: stocks)

It was a big day for the bulls today. They shook off the little pre-market China scare and proceeded to push the indices to new all-time and multi-year closing highs. Volume rose back to respectable levels although trading was still lighter than last Thursday's big down day. But that less than desirable volume action is about the only thing the bears can hang their hopes on in this market.

So much for that potential falling three methods I talked about yesterday. The S&P 500 finally made the new closing high it kept flirting with last week. It's still 22 points below the all-time intraday high from March 24, 2000 -- what a wild day that was.

The Nasdaq climbed back above the congestion zone around the early May highs and made a new multi-year high close. It sure looks like it has to retest 2,600 now.

The indices are gapping down following the 6% drop in China's market today. It may seem like a repeat of February but this gap isn't nearly as bad as what happened in late February. As I'm writing this the indices are set to open within yesterday's range. So the bears still have work to do -- they need to break yesterday's lows and then Thursdays lows. I think that would cause enough technical damage to get the bulls worried. But we're not even close to that yet...

On Today's Calendar:

• 2:00 -- FOMC Minutes

More Calendars: U.S. Earnings | Conf. Calls | Surprises | IPO | Economic

Potential swing trades:

• Centerplate Inc. (CVP) | Wallstrip
  Go right to the source, and ask the horse. Is Centerplate Inc. (CVP) on a steady course?
  (tags: stocks)
• 26 Reasons What You Think is Right is Wrong
  Traders suffer from many of these cognitive biases...
  (tags: psychology thinking probability for_TM bias finance)
• Data Latency Playing An Ever Increasing Role In Effective Trading
  Wall Street’s quest to process data at the speed of light relies on the physical proximity of servers to overcome the technical barriers of data latency.
  (tags: trading technology computer)

Trading was quite choopy today but a late day surge brought the Dow and S&P back into positive territory. The smaller caps had good relative strength today as evidenced by the Russell 2,000's almost 1% gain on the day. Volume was on the light side again, especially compared to the volume on Thursday's selloff. Given the weak volume I still don't trust this bounce and I think the market could be setting up some falling three method patterns.

Here are charts of the S&P 500, Nasdaq and Russell 2,000:

No changes

It's hard for me to have much faith in Friday's bounce given how low volume was. However, my intraday indicators did flip to bullish on Friday and we've got a small gap up this morning. So I'll be a hesitant bull to start the day but I'm staying on the lookout for a reversal.

Here's the daily S&P chart from Friday's close:

P.S. Nice bearish call on Jones Soda Company (JSDA) in Barron's this weekend: "shares should be 65% lower" :o

On Today's Calendar:

• 10:00 -- Consumer Confidence

More Calendars: U.S. Earnings | Conf. Calls | Surprises | IPO | Economic

Potential swing trades:

• TraderFeed: The Trader Coaching Project
  Find out how you can get a free month of coaching from Dr. Brett.
  (tags: trading coaching Psychology)
• As Condos Rise in South Florida, Nervous Investors Try to Flee - New York Times
  The tale of one of the most bubblicious markets in the U.S.
  (tags: realestate for_TM)
• Why I missed the recent big rally in the stock market, part II - 5 lessons learnt
  (tags: stocks)

• So how do Traders Break Their (Bad) Habits? Part 2
  I love this list! -- 1. Read, read, read. 2. Make a trading plan. 3. Don't paper trade. 3. dive into risk/reward and risk & money mgmt. 5. Ignore backtesting and learn to read the mkts...
  (tags: trading Psychology)
• Apple’s Lesson for Sony’s Stores: Just Connect - New York Times
  Apple has made retail seem ridiculously easy. But why hasn’t the Windows side of the personal computer business figured it out?
  (tags: apple business sony stocks retail computer toread)

The indices were mixed today. Small caps and tech closed higher while the larger caps were basically flat. Volume increased across the board and I'm pretty sure that can be attributed to month-end markups games activity. Trading was choppy during the day and my guess is that's partially due to some profit taking combined with some hesitation ahead of a ton of economic data (jobs report, Core PCE, ISM, etc.) due out tomorrow morning.

I mentioned Google's (GOOG) move above $500 this morning. It made a move toward the all-time high of $513 but reversed and closed under $500, making a nice shooting-star-like candle in the process. It looks to me like it's made an inverse head & shoulders pattern. I'd like to see it consolidate within yesterday's range for a bit to work off the short-term overbought condition before attempting to breakout to new highs. The divergence in OBV has me a bit worried though...

Here are the charts of the Nasdaq, S&P 500 and Russell 2,000:

We've got more strength this morning as the market's follow through on yesterday's rally. One mover of note is Google, which has popped back over $500 and appears to be heading for its all-time high of $513.

On Today's Calendar:

• 9:45 -- Chicago PMI
• 10:00 -- Construction Spending
• 10:00 -- Help-Wanted Index
• 10:30 -- Crude Inventories

More Calendars: U.S. Earnings | Conf. Calls | Surprises | IPO | Economic

Potential swing trades:

• Loews Corp. (LTR) | Wallstrip
  Jack of all trades, master of none? Loews Corp. (LTR) proves ‘em wrong on today’s Wallstrip.
  (tags: stocks)
• CBS to Buy Social Network
  First WallStrip, now it is expected to pay $280 million for the Last.fm site, which caters to music fans. What next???
  (tags: stocks cbs web2.0 finance)
• Trading Patterns: Identifying Transitional Structures
  With this post I'll begin a series on trading patterns for short-term traders. I refer to today's pattern as a transitional structure; it is a common sequence that marks the shift from one trend to another.
  (tags: trading technicalanalysis)
• Who Does Jim Cramer Think He Is? -- New York Magazine
  “Why does everybody hate me?” The Wall Street maniac explains his critics, the market, and himself. (TheStreet.com, Inc. TSCM)
  (tags: Cramer finance toread stocks cnbc)
• Chinese Stocks plummet nearly 7 percent
  Chinese stocks plummeted nearly seven percent on Wednesday after the Ministry of Finance announced a hike in the stamp tax on stock trading
  (tags: stocks china)
• How accurate are bloggers?
  I did some scratch work analysis of the Ticker Sense Blogger Sentiment Poll to see how accurate individual bloggers were on calling the S&P 30-days out.
  (tags: stocks)
• The Slipping US Dollar - Should We Care?
  (tags: dollar finance currencies for_TM)
• China and The Mother of all Double Tops on the S&P 500?
  The failure of the SPX at the prior highs and an inability to make a new high has some technicians wondering if we are looking at the mother of all double tops.
  (tags: stocks)

It was a big day for the bulls today. They shook off the little pre-market China scare and proceeded to push the indices to new all-time and multi-year closing highs. Volume rose back to respectable levels although trading was still lighter than last Thursday's big down day. But that less than desirable volume action is about the only thing the bears can hang their hopes on in this market.

So much for that potential falling three methods I talked about yesterday. The S&P 500 finally made the new closing high it kept flirting with last week. It's still 22 points below the all-time intraday high from March 24, 2000 -- what a wild day that was.

The Nasdaq climbed back above the congestion zone around the early May highs and made a new multi-year high close. It sure looks like it has to retest 2,600 now.

The indices are gapping down following the 6% drop in China's market today. It may seem like a repeat of February but this gap isn't nearly as bad as what happened in late February. As I'm writing this the indices are set to open within yesterday's range. So the bears still have work to do -- they need to break yesterday's lows and then Thursdays lows. I think that would cause enough technical damage to get the bulls worried. But we're not even close to that yet...

On Today's Calendar:

• 2:00 -- FOMC Minutes

More Calendars: U.S. Earnings | Conf. Calls | Surprises | IPO | Economic

Potential swing trades:

• Centerplate Inc. (CVP) | Wallstrip
  Go right to the source, and ask the horse. Is Centerplate Inc. (CVP) on a steady course?
  (tags: stocks)
• 26 Reasons What You Think is Right is Wrong
  Traders suffer from many of these cognitive biases...
  (tags: psychology thinking probability for_TM bias finance)
• Data Latency Playing An Ever Increasing Role In Effective Trading
  Wall Street’s quest to process data at the speed of light relies on the physical proximity of servers to overcome the technical barriers of data latency.
  (tags: trading technology computer)

Trading was quite choopy today but a late day surge brought the Dow and S&P back into positive territory. The smaller caps had good relative strength today as evidenced by the Russell 2,000's almost 1% gain on the day. Volume was on the light side again, especially compared to the volume on Thursday's selloff. Given the weak volume I still don't trust this bounce and I think the market could be setting up some falling three method patterns.

Here are charts of the S&P 500, Nasdaq and Russell 2,000:

No changes

It's hard for me to have much faith in Friday's bounce given how low volume was. However, my intraday indicators did flip to bullish on Friday and we've got a small gap up this morning. So I'll be a hesitant bull to start the day but I'm staying on the lookout for a reversal.

Here's the daily S&P chart from Friday's close:

P.S. Nice bearish call on Jones Soda Company (JSDA) in Barron's this weekend: "shares should be 65% lower" :o

On Today's Calendar:

• 10:00 -- Consumer Confidence

More Calendars: U.S. Earnings | Conf. Calls | Surprises | IPO | Economic

Potential swing trades:

• TraderFeed: The Trader Coaching Project
  Find out how you can get a free month of coaching from Dr. Brett.
  (tags: trading coaching Psychology)
• As Condos Rise in South Florida, Nervous Investors Try to Flee - New York Times
  The tale of one of the most bubblicious markets in the U.S.
  (tags: realestate for_TM)
• Why I missed the recent big rally in the stock market, part II - 5 lessons learnt
  (tags: stocks)

• So how do Traders Break Their (Bad) Habits? Part 2
  I love this list! -- 1. Read, read, read. 2. Make a trading plan. 3. Don't paper trade. 3. dive into risk/reward and risk & money mgmt. 5. Ignore backtesting and learn to read the mkts...
  (tags: trading Psychology)
• Apple’s Lesson for Sony’s Stores: Just Connect - New York Times
  Apple has made retail seem ridiculously easy. But why hasn’t the Windows side of the personal computer business figured it out?
  (tags: apple business sony stocks retail computer toread)

The indices were mixed today. Small caps and tech closed higher while the larger caps were basically flat. Volume increased across the board and I'm pretty sure that can be attributed to month-end markups games activity. Trading was choppy during the day and my guess is that's partially due to some profit taking combined with some hesitation ahead of a ton of economic data (jobs report, Core PCE, ISM, etc.) due out tomorrow morning.

I mentioned Google's (GOOG) move above $500 this morning. It made a move toward the all-time high of $513 but reversed and closed under $500, making a nice shooting-star-like candle in the process. It looks to me like it's made an inverse head & shoulders pattern. I'd like to see it consolidate within yesterday's range for a bit to work off the short-term overbought condition before attempting to breakout to new highs. The divergence in OBV has me a bit worried though...

Here are the charts of the Nasdaq, S&P 500 and Russell 2,000:

We've got more strength this morning as the market's follow through on yesterday's rally. One mover of note is Google, which has popped back over $500 and appears to be heading for its all-time high of $513.

On Today's Calendar:

• 9:45 -- Chicago PMI
• 10:00 -- Construction Spending
• 10:00 -- Help-Wanted Index
• 10:30 -- Crude Inventories

More Calendars: U.S. Earnings | Conf. Calls | Surprises | IPO | Economic

Potential swing trades:

• Loews Corp. (LTR) | Wallstrip
  Jack of all trades, master of none? Loews Corp. (LTR) proves ‘em wrong on today’s Wallstrip.
  (tags: stocks)
• CBS to Buy Social Network
  First WallStrip, now it is expected to pay $280 million for the Last.fm site, which caters to music fans. What next???
  (tags: stocks cbs web2.0 finance)
• Trading Patterns: Identifying Transitional Structures
  With this post I'll begin a series on trading patterns for short-term traders. I refer to today's pattern as a transitional structure; it is a common sequence that marks the shift from one trend to another.
  (tags: trading technicalanalysis)
• Who Does Jim Cramer Think He Is? -- New York Magazine
  “Why does everybody hate me?” The Wall Street maniac explains his critics, the market, and himself. (TheStreet.com, Inc. TSCM)
  (tags: Cramer finance toread stocks cnbc)
• Chinese Stocks plummet nearly 7 percent
  Chinese stocks plummeted nearly seven percent on Wednesday after the Ministry of Finance announced a hike in the stamp tax on stock trading
  (tags: stocks china)
• How accurate are bloggers?
  I did some scratch work analysis of the Ticker Sense Blogger Sentiment Poll to see how accurate individual bloggers were on calling the S&P 30-days out.
  (tags: stocks)
• The Slipping US Dollar - Should We Care?
  (tags: dollar finance currencies for_TM)
• China and The Mother of all Double Tops on the S&P 500?
  The failure of the SPX at the prior highs and an inability to make a new high has some technicians wondering if we are looking at the mother of all double tops.
  (tags: stocks)

It was a big day for the bulls today. They shook off the little pre-market China scare and proceeded to push the indices to new all-time and multi-year closing highs. Volume rose back to respectable levels although trading was still lighter than last Thursday's big down day. But that less than desirable volume action is about the only thing the bears can hang their hopes on in this market.

So much for that potential falling three methods I talked about yesterday. The S&P 500 finally made the new closing high it kept flirting with last week. It's still 22 points below the all-time intraday high from March 24, 2000 -- what a wild day that was.

The Nasdaq climbed back above the congestion zone around the early May highs and made a new multi-year high close. It sure looks like it has to retest 2,600 now.

The indices are gapping down following the 6% drop in China's market today. It may seem like a repeat of February but this gap isn't nearly as bad as what happened in late February. As I'm writing this the indices are set to open within yesterday's range. So the bears still have work to do -- they need to break yesterday's lows and then Thursdays lows. I think that would cause enough technical damage to get the bulls worried. But we're not even close to that yet...

On Today's Calendar:

• 2:00 -- FOMC Minutes

More Calendars: U.S. Earnings | Conf. Calls | Surprises | IPO | Economic

Potential swing trades:

• Centerplate Inc. (CVP) | Wallstrip
  Go right to the source, and ask the horse. Is Centerplate Inc. (CVP) on a steady course?
  (tags: stocks)
• 26 Reasons What You Think is Right is Wrong
  Traders suffer from many of these cognitive biases...
  (tags: psychology thinking probability for_TM bias finance)
• Data Latency Playing An Ever Increasing Role In Effective Trading
  Wall Street’s quest to process data at the speed of light relies on the physical proximity of servers to overcome the technical barriers of data latency.
  (tags: trading technology computer)

Trading was quite choopy today but a late day surge brought the Dow and S&P back into positive territory. The smaller caps had good relative strength today as evidenced by the Russell 2,000's almost 1% gain on the day. Volume was on the light side again, especially compared to the volume on Thursday's selloff. Given the weak volume I still don't trust this bounce and I think the market could be setting up some falling three method patterns.

Here are charts of the S&P 500, Nasdaq and Russell 2,000:

No changes

It's hard for me to have much faith in Friday's bounce given how low volume was. However, my intraday indicators did flip to bullish on Friday and we've got a small gap up this morning. So I'll be a hesitant bull to start the day but I'm staying on the lookout for a reversal.

Here's the daily S&P chart from Friday's close:

P.S. Nice bearish call on Jones Soda Company (JSDA) in Barron's this weekend: "shares should be 65% lower" :o

On Today's Calendar:

• 10:00 -- Consumer Confidence

More Calendars: U.S. Earnings | Conf. Calls | Surprises | IPO | Economic

Potential swing trades:

• TraderFeed: The Trader Coaching Project
  Find out how you can get a free month of coaching from Dr. Brett.
  (tags: trading coaching Psychology)
• As Condos Rise in South Florida, Nervous Investors Try to Flee - New York Times
  The tale of one of the most bubblicious markets in the U.S.
  (tags: realestate for_TM)
• Why I missed the recent big rally in the stock market, part II - 5 lessons learnt
  (tags: stocks)

• So how do Traders Break Their (Bad) Habits? Part 2
  I love this list! -- 1. Read, read, read. 2. Make a trading plan. 3. Don't paper trade. 3. dive into risk/reward and risk & money mgmt. 5. Ignore backtesting and learn to read the mkts...
  (tags: trading Psychology)
• Apple’s Lesson for Sony’s Stores: Just Connect - New York Times
  Apple has made retail seem ridiculously easy. But why hasn’t the Windows side of the personal computer business figured it out?
  (tags: apple business sony stocks retail computer toread)

The indices were mixed today. Small caps and tech closed higher while the larger caps were basically flat. Volume increased across the board and I'm pretty sure that can be attributed to month-end markups games activity. Trading was choppy during the day and my guess is that's partially due to some profit taking combined with some hesitation ahead of a ton of economic data (jobs report, Core PCE, ISM, etc.) due out tomorrow morning.

I mentioned Google's (GOOG) move above $500 this morning. It made a move toward the all-time high of $513 but reversed and closed under $500, making a nice shooting-star-like candle in the process. It looks to me like it's made an inverse head & shoulders pattern. I'd like to see it consolidate within yesterday's range for a bit to work off the short-term overbought condition before attempting to breakout to new highs. The divergence in OBV has me a bit worried though...

Here are the charts of the Nasdaq, S&P 500 and Russell 2,000:

We've got more strength this morning as the market's follow through on yesterday's rally. One mover of note is Google, which has popped back over $500 and appears to be heading for its all-time high of $513.

On Today's Calendar:

• 9:45 -- Chicago PMI
• 10:00 -- Construction Spending
• 10:00 -- Help-Wanted Index
• 10:30 -- Crude Inventories

More Calendars: U.S. Earnings | Conf. Calls | Surprises | IPO | Economic

Potential swing trades:

• Loews Corp. (LTR) | Wallstrip
  Jack of all trades, master of none? Loews Corp. (LTR) proves ‘em wrong on today’s Wallstrip.
  (tags: stocks)
• CBS to Buy Social Network
  First WallStrip, now it is expected to pay $280 million for the Last.fm site, which caters to music fans. What next???
  (tags: stocks cbs web2.0 finance)
• Trading Patterns: Identifying Transitional Structures
  With this post I'll begin a series on trading patterns for short-term traders. I refer to today's pattern as a transitional structure; it is a common sequence that marks the shift from one trend to another.
  (tags: trading technicalanalysis)
• Who Does Jim Cramer Think He Is? -- New York Magazine
  “Why does everybody hate me?” The Wall Street maniac explains his critics, the market, and himself. (TheStreet.com, Inc. TSCM)
  (tags: Cramer finance toread stocks cnbc)
• Chinese Stocks plummet nearly 7 percent
  Chinese stocks plummeted nearly seven percent on Wednesday after the Ministry of Finance announced a hike in the stamp tax on stock trading
  (tags: stocks china)
• How accurate are bloggers?
  I did some scratch work analysis of the Ticker Sense Blogger Sentiment Poll to see how accurate individual bloggers were on calling the S&P 30-days out.
  (tags: stocks)
• The Slipping US Dollar - Should We Care?
  (tags: dollar finance currencies for_TM)
• China and The Mother of all Double Tops on the S&P 500?
  The failure of the SPX at the prior highs and an inability to make a new high has some technicians wondering if we are looking at the mother of all double tops.
  (tags: stocks)

It was a big day for the bulls today. They shook off the little pre-market China scare and proceeded to push the indices to new all-time and multi-year closing highs. Volume rose back to respectable levels although trading was still lighter than last Thursday's big down day. But that less than desirable volume action is about the only thing the bears can hang their hopes on in this market.

So much for that potential falling three methods I talked about yesterday. The S&P 500 finally made the new closing high it kept flirting with last week. It's still 22 points below the all-time intraday high from March 24, 2000 -- what a wild day that was.

The Nasdaq climbed back above the congestion zone around the early May highs and made a new multi-year high close. It sure looks like it has to retest 2,600 now.

The indices are gapping down following the 6% drop in China's market today. It may seem like a repeat of February but this gap isn't nearly as bad as what happened in late February. As I'm writing this the indices are set to open within yesterday's range. So the bears still have work to do -- they need to break yesterday's lows and then Thursdays lows. I think that would cause enough technical damage to get the bulls worried. But we're not even close to that yet...

On Today's Calendar:

• 2:00 -- FOMC Minutes

More Calendars: U.S. Earnings | Conf. Calls | Surprises | IPO | Economic

Potential swing trades:

• Centerplate Inc. (CVP) | Wallstrip
  Go right to the source, and ask the horse. Is Centerplate Inc. (CVP) on a steady course?
  (tags: stocks)
• 26 Reasons What You Think is Right is Wrong
  Traders suffer from many of these cognitive biases...
  (tags: psychology thinking probability for_TM bias finance)
• Data Latency Playing An Ever Increasing Role In Effective Trading
  Wall Street’s quest to process data at the speed of light relies on the physical proximity of servers to overcome the technical barriers of data latency.
  (tags: trading technology computer)

Trading was quite choopy today but a late day surge brought the Dow and S&P back into positive territory. The smaller caps had good relative strength today as evidenced by the Russell 2,000's almost 1% gain on the day. Volume was on the light side again, especially compared to the volume on Thursday's selloff. Given the weak volume I still don't trust this bounce and I think the market could be setting up some falling three method patterns.

Here are charts of the S&P 500, Nasdaq and Russell 2,000:

No changes

It's hard for me to have much faith in Friday's bounce given how low volume was. However, my intraday indicators did flip to bullish on Friday and we've got a small gap up this morning. So I'll be a hesitant bull to start the day but I'm staying on the lookout for a reversal.

Here's the daily S&P chart from Friday's close:

P.S. Nice bearish call on Jones Soda Company (JSDA) in Barron's this weekend: "shares should be 65% lower" :o

On Today's Calendar:

• 10:00 -- Consumer Confidence

More Calendars: U.S. Earnings | Conf. Calls | Surprises | IPO | Economic

Potential swing trades:

• TraderFeed: The Trader Coaching Project
  Find out how you can get a free month of coaching from Dr. Brett.
  (tags: trading coaching Psychology)
• As Condos Rise in South Florida, Nervous Investors Try to Flee - New York Times
  The tale of one of the most bubblicious markets in the U.S.
  (tags: realestate for_TM)
• Why I missed the recent big rally in the stock market, part II - 5 lessons learnt
  (tags: stocks)

• So how do Traders Break Their (Bad) Habits? Part 2
  I love this list! -- 1. Read, read, read. 2. Make a trading plan. 3. Don't paper trade. 3. dive into risk/reward and risk & money mgmt. 5. Ignore backtesting and learn to read the mkts...
  (tags: trading Psychology)
• Apple’s Lesson for Sony’s Stores: Just Connect - New York Times
  Apple has made retail seem ridiculously easy. But why hasn’t the Windows side of the personal computer business figured it out?
  (tags: apple business sony stocks retail computer toread)

The indices were mixed today. Small caps and tech closed higher while the larger caps were basically flat. Volume increased across the board and I'm pretty sure that can be attributed to month-end markups games activity. Trading was choppy during the day and my guess is that's partially due to some profit taking combined with some hesitation ahead of a ton of economic data (jobs report, Core PCE, ISM, etc.) due out tomorrow morning.

I mentioned Google's (GOOG) move above $500 this morning. It made a move toward the all-time high of $513 but reversed and closed under $500, making a nice shooting-star-like candle in the process. It looks to me like it's made an inverse head & shoulders pattern. I'd like to see it consolidate within yesterday's range for a bit to work off the short-term overbought condition before attempting to breakout to new highs. The divergence in OBV has me a bit worried though...

Here are the charts of the Nasdaq, S&P 500 and Russell 2,000:

We've got more strength this morning as the market's follow through on yesterday's rally. One mover of note is Google, which has popped back over $500 and appears to be heading for its all-time high of $513.

On Today's Calendar:

• 9:45 -- Chicago PMI
• 10:00 -- Construction Spending
• 10:00 -- Help-Wanted Index
• 10:30 -- Crude Inventories

More Calendars: U.S. Earnings | Conf. Calls | Surprises | IPO | Economic

Potential swing trades:

• Loews Corp. (LTR) | Wallstrip
  Jack of all trades, master of none? Loews Corp. (LTR) proves ‘em wrong on today’s Wallstrip.
  (tags: stocks)
• CBS to Buy Social Network
  First WallStrip, now it is expected to pay $280 million for the Last.fm site, which caters to music fans. What next???
  (tags: stocks cbs web2.0 finance)
• Trading Patterns: Identifying Transitional Structures
  With this post I'll begin a series on trading patterns for short-term traders. I refer to today's pattern as a transitional structure; it is a common sequence that marks the shift from one trend to another.
  (tags: trading technicalanalysis)
• Who Does Jim Cramer Think He Is? -- New York Magazine
  “Why does everybody hate me?” The Wall Street maniac explains his critics, the market, and himself. (TheStreet.com, Inc. TSCM)
  (tags: Cramer finance toread stocks cnbc)
• Chinese Stocks plummet nearly 7 percent
  Chinese stocks plummeted nearly seven percent on Wednesday after the Ministry of Finance announced a hike in the stamp tax on stock trading
  (tags: stocks china)
• How accurate are bloggers?
  I did some scratch work analysis of the Ticker Sense Blogger Sentiment Poll to see how accurate individual bloggers were on calling the S&P 30-days out.
  (tags: stocks)
• The Slipping US Dollar - Should We Care?
  (tags: dollar finance currencies for_TM)
• China and The Mother of all Double Tops on the S&P 500?
  The failure of the SPX at the prior highs and an inability to make a new high has some technicians wondering if we are looking at the mother of all double tops.
  (tags: stocks)

It was a big day for the bulls today. They shook off the little pre-market China scare and proceeded to push the indices to new all-time and multi-year closing highs. Volume rose back to respectable levels although trading was still lighter than last Thursday's big down day. But that less than desirable volume action is about the only thing the bears can hang their hopes on in this market.

So much for that potential falling three methods I talked about yesterday. The S&P 500 finally made the new closing high it kept flirting with last week. It's still 22 points below the all-time intraday high from March 24, 2000 -- what a wild day that was.

The Nasdaq climbed back above the congestion zone around the early May highs and made a new multi-year high close. It sure looks like it has to retest 2,600 now.

The indices are gapping down following the 6% drop in China's market today. It may seem like a repeat of February but this gap isn't nearly as bad as what happened in late February. As I'm writing this the indices are set to open within yesterday's range. So the bears still have work to do -- they need to break yesterday's lows and then Thursdays lows. I think that would cause enough technical damage to get the bulls worried. But we're not even close to that yet...

On Today's Calendar:

• 2:00 -- FOMC Minutes

More Calendars: U.S. Earnings | Conf. Calls | Surprises | IPO | Economic

Potential swing trades:

• Centerplate Inc. (CVP) | Wallstrip
  Go right to the source, and ask the horse. Is Centerplate Inc. (CVP) on a steady course?
  (tags: stocks)
• 26 Reasons What You Think is Right is Wrong
  Traders suffer from many of these cognitive biases...
  (tags: psychology thinking probability for_TM bias finance)
• Data Latency Playing An Ever Increasing Role In Effective Trading
  Wall Street’s quest to process data at the speed of light relies on the physical proximity of servers to overcome the technical barriers of data latency.
  (tags: trading technology computer)

Trading was quite choopy today but a late day surge brought the Dow and S&P back into positive territory. The smaller caps had good relative strength today as evidenced by the Russell 2,000's almost 1% gain on the day. Volume was on the light side again, especially compared to the volume on Thursday's selloff. Given the weak volume I still don't trust this bounce and I think the market could be setting up some falling three method patterns.

Here are charts of the S&P 500, Nasdaq and Russell 2,000:

No changes

It's hard for me to have much faith in Friday's bounce given how low volume was. However, my intraday indicators did flip to bullish on Friday and we've got a small gap up this morning. So I'll be a hesitant bull to start the day but I'm staying on the lookout for a reversal.

Here's the daily S&P chart from Friday's close:

P.S. Nice bearish call on Jones Soda Company (JSDA) in Barron's this weekend: "shares should be 65% lower" :o

On Today's Calendar:

• 10:00 -- Consumer Confidence

More Calendars: U.S. Earnings | Conf. Calls | Surprises | IPO | Economic

Potential swing trades:

• TraderFeed: The Trader Coaching Project
  Find out how you can get a free month of coaching from Dr. Brett.
  (tags: trading coaching Psychology)
• As Condos Rise in South Florida, Nervous Investors Try to Flee - New York Times
  The tale of one of the most bubblicious markets in the U.S.
  (tags: realestate for_TM)
• Why I missed the recent big rally in the stock market, part II - 5 lessons learnt
  (tags: stocks)

• So how do Traders Break Their (Bad) Habits? Part 2
  I love this list! -- 1. Read, read, read. 2. Make a trading plan. 3. Don't paper trade. 3. dive into risk/reward and risk & money mgmt. 5. Ignore backtesting and learn to read the mkts...
  (tags: trading Psychology)
• Apple’s Lesson for Sony’s Stores: Just Connect - New York Times
  Apple has made retail seem ridiculously easy. But why hasn’t the Windows side of the personal computer business figured it out?
  (tags: apple business sony stocks retail computer toread)

The indices were mixed today. Small caps and tech closed higher while the larger caps were basically flat. Volume increased across the board and I'm pretty sure that can be attributed to month-end markups games activity. Trading was choppy during the day and my guess is that's partially due to some profit taking combined with some hesitation ahead of a ton of economic data (jobs report, Core PCE, ISM, etc.) due out tomorrow morning.

I mentioned Google's (GOOG) move above $500 this morning. It made a move toward the all-time high of $513 but reversed and closed under $500, making a nice shooting-star-like candle in the process. It looks to me like it's made an inverse head & shoulders pattern. I'd like to see it consolidate within yesterday's range for a bit to work off the short-term overbought condition before attempting to breakout to new highs. The divergence in OBV has me a bit worried though...

Here are the charts of the Nasdaq, S&P 500 and Russell 2,000:

We've got more strength this morning as the market's follow through on yesterday's rally. One mover of note is Google, which has popped back over $500 and appears to be heading for its all-time high of $513.

On Today's Calendar:

• 9:45 -- Chicago PMI
• 10:00 -- Construction Spending
• 10:00 -- Help-Wanted Index
• 10:30 -- Crude Inventories

More Calendars: U.S. Earnings | Conf. Calls | Surprises | IPO | Economic

Potential swing trades:

• Loews Corp. (LTR) | Wallstrip
  Jack of all trades, master of none? Loews Corp. (LTR) proves ‘em wrong on today’s Wallstrip.
  (tags: stocks)
• CBS to Buy Social Network
  First WallStrip, now it is expected to pay $280 million for the Last.fm site, which caters to music fans. What next???
  (tags: stocks cbs web2.0 finance)
• Trading Patterns: Identifying Transitional Structures
  With this post I'll begin a series on trading patterns for short-term traders. I refer to today's pattern as a transitional structure; it is a common sequence that marks the shift from one trend to another.
  (tags: trading technicalanalysis)
• Who Does Jim Cramer Think He Is? -- New York Magazine
  “Why does everybody hate me?” The Wall Street maniac explains his critics, the market, and himself. (TheStreet.com, Inc. TSCM)
  (tags: Cramer finance toread stocks cnbc)
• Chinese Stocks plummet nearly 7 percent
  Chinese stocks plummeted nearly seven percent on Wednesday after the Ministry of Finance announced a hike in the stamp tax on stock trading
  (tags: stocks china)
• How accurate are bloggers?
  I did some scratch work analysis of the Ticker Sense Blogger Sentiment Poll to see how accurate individual bloggers were on calling the S&P 30-days out.
  (tags: stocks)
• The Slipping US Dollar - Should We Care?
  (tags: dollar finance currencies for_TM)
• China and The Mother of all Double Tops on the S&P 500?
  The failure of the SPX at the prior highs and an inability to make a new high has some technicians wondering if we are looking at the mother of all double tops.
  (tags: stocks)

It was a big day for the bulls today. They shook off the little pre-market China scare and proceeded to push the indices to new all-time and multi-year closing highs. Volume rose back to respectable levels although trading was still lighter than last Thursday's big down day. But that less than desirable volume action is about the only thing the bears can hang their hopes on in this market.

So much for that potential falling three methods I talked about yesterday. The S&P 500 finally made the new closing high it kept flirting with last week. It's still 22 points below the all-time intraday high from March 24, 2000 -- what a wild day that was.

The Nasdaq climbed back above the congestion zone around the early May highs and made a new multi-year high close. It sure looks like it has to retest 2,600 now.

The indices are gapping down following the 6% drop in China's market today. It may seem like a repeat of February but this gap isn't nearly as bad as what happened in late February. As I'm writing this the indices are set to open within yesterday's range. So the bears still have work to do -- they need to break yesterday's lows and then Thursdays lows. I think that would cause enough technical damage to get the bulls worried. But we're not even close to that yet...

On Today's Calendar:

• 2:00 -- FOMC Minutes

More Calendars: U.S. Earnings | Conf. Calls | Surprises | IPO | Economic

Potential swing trades:

• Centerplate Inc. (CVP) | Wallstrip
  Go right to the source, and ask the horse. Is Centerplate Inc. (CVP) on a steady course?
  (tags: stocks)
• 26 Reasons What You Think is Right is Wrong
  Traders suffer from many of these cognitive biases...
  (tags: psychology thinking probability for_TM bias finance)
• Data Latency Playing An Ever Increasing Role In Effective Trading
  Wall Street’s quest to process data at the speed of light relies on the physical proximity of servers to overcome the technical barriers of data latency.
  (tags: trading technology computer)

Trading was quite choopy today but a late day surge brought the Dow and S&P back into positive territory. The smaller caps had good relative strength today as evidenced by the Russell 2,000's almost 1% gain on the day. Volume was on the light side again, especially compared to the volume on Thursday's selloff. Given the weak volume I still don't trust this bounce and I think the market could be setting up some falling three method patterns.

Here are charts of the S&P 500, Nasdaq and Russell 2,000:

No changes

It's hard for me to have much faith in Friday's bounce given how low volume was. However, my intraday indicators did flip to bullish on Friday and we've got a small gap up this morning. So I'll be a hesitant bull to start the day but I'm staying on the lookout for a reversal.

Here's the daily S&P chart from Friday's close:

P.S. Nice bearish call on Jones Soda Company (JSDA) in Barron's this weekend: "shares should be 65% lower" :o

On Today's Calendar:

• 10:00 -- Consumer Confidence

More Calendars: U.S. Earnings | Conf. Calls | Surprises | IPO | Economic

Potential swing trades:

• TraderFeed: The Trader Coaching Project
  Find out how you can get a free month of coaching from Dr. Brett.
  (tags: trading coaching Psychology)
• As Condos Rise in South Florida, Nervous Investors Try to Flee - New York Times
  The tale of one of the most bubblicious markets in the U.S.
  (tags: realestate for_TM)
• Why I missed the recent big rally in the stock market, part II - 5 lessons learnt
  (tags: stocks)

• So how do Traders Break Their (Bad) Habits? Part 2
  I love this list! -- 1. Read, read, read. 2. Make a trading plan. 3. Don't paper trade. 3. dive into risk/reward and risk & money mgmt. 5. Ignore backtesting and learn to read the mkts...
  (tags: trading Psychology)
• Apple’s Lesson for Sony’s Stores: Just Connect - New York Times
  Apple has made retail seem ridiculously easy. But why hasn’t the Windows side of the personal computer business figured it out?
  (tags: apple business sony stocks retail computer toread)

The indices were mixed today. Small caps and tech closed higher while the larger caps were basically flat. Volume increased across the board and I'm pretty sure that can be attributed to month-end markups games activity. Trading was choppy during the day and my guess is that's partially due to some profit taking combined with some hesitation ahead of a ton of economic data (jobs report, Core PCE, ISM, etc.) due out tomorrow morning.

I mentioned Google's (GOOG) move above $500 this morning. It made a move toward the all-time high of $513 but reversed and closed under $500, making a nice shooting-star-like candle in the process. It looks to me like it's made an inverse head & shoulders pattern. I'd like to see it consolidate within yesterday's range for a bit to work off the short-term overbought condition before attempting to breakout to new highs. The divergence in OBV has me a bit worried though...

Here are the charts of the Nasdaq, S&P 500 and Russell 2,000:

We've got more strength this morning as the market's follow through on yesterday's rally. One mover of note is Google, which has popped back over $500 and appears to be heading for its all-time high of $513.

On Today's Calendar:

• 9:45 -- Chicago PMI
• 10:00 -- Construction Spending
• 10:00 -- Help-Wanted Index
• 10:30 -- Crude Inventories

More Calendars: U.S. Earnings | Conf. Calls | Surprises | IPO | Economic

Potential swing trades:

• Loews Corp. (LTR) | Wallstrip
  Jack of all trades, master of none? Loews Corp. (LTR) proves ‘em wrong on today’s Wallstrip.
  (tags: stocks)
• CBS to Buy Social Network
  First WallStrip, now it is expected to pay $280 million for the Last.fm site, which caters to music fans. What next???
  (tags: stocks cbs web2.0 finance)
• Trading Patterns: Identifying Transitional Structures
  With this post I'll begin a series on trading patterns for short-term traders. I refer to today's pattern as a transitional structure; it is a common sequence that marks the shift from one trend to another.
  (tags: trading technicalanalysis)
• Who Does Jim Cramer Think He Is? -- New York Magazine
  “Why does everybody hate me?” The Wall Street maniac explains his critics, the market, and himself. (TheStreet.com, Inc. TSCM)
  (tags: Cramer finance toread stocks cnbc)
• Chinese Stocks plummet nearly 7 percent
  Chinese stocks plummeted nearly seven percent on Wednesday after the Ministry of Finance announced a hike in the stamp tax on stock trading
  (tags: stocks china)
• How accurate are bloggers?
  I did some scratch work analysis of the Ticker Sense Blogger Sentiment Poll to see how accurate individual bloggers were on calling the S&P 30-days out.
  (tags: stocks)
• The Slipping US Dollar - Should We Care?
  (tags: dollar finance currencies for_TM)
• China and The Mother of all Double Tops on the S&P 500?
  The failure of the SPX at the prior highs and an inability to make a new high has some technicians wondering if we are looking at the mother of all double tops.
  (tags: stocks)

It was a big day for the bulls today. They shook off the little pre-market China scare and proceeded to push the indices to new all-time and multi-year closing highs. Volume rose back to respectable levels although trading was still lighter than last Thursday's big down day. But that less than desirable volume action is about the only thing the bears can hang their hopes on in this market.

So much for that potential falling three methods I talked about yesterday. The S&P 500 finally made the new closing high it kept flirting with last week. It's still 22 points below the all-time intraday high from March 24, 2000 -- what a wild day that was.

The Nasdaq climbed back above the congestion zone around the early May highs and made a new multi-year high close. It sure looks like it has to retest 2,600 now.

The indices are gapping down following the 6% drop in China's market today. It may seem like a repeat of February but this gap isn't nearly as bad as what happened in late February. As I'm writing this the indices are set to open within yesterday's range. So the bears still have work to do -- they need to break yesterday's lows and then Thursdays lows. I think that would cause enough technical damage to get the bulls worried. But we're not even close to that yet...

On Today's Calendar:

• 2:00 -- FOMC Minutes

More Calendars: U.S. Earnings | Conf. Calls | Surprises | IPO | Economic

Potential swing trades:

• Centerplate Inc. (CVP) | Wallstrip
  Go right to the source, and ask the horse. Is Centerplate Inc. (CVP) on a steady course?
  (tags: stocks)
• 26 Reasons What You Think is Right is Wrong
  Traders suffer from many of these cognitive biases...
  (tags: psychology thinking probability for_TM bias finance)
• Data Latency Playing An Ever Increasing Role In Effective Trading
  Wall Street’s quest to process data at the speed of light relies on the physical proximity of servers to overcome the technical barriers of data latency.
  (tags: trading technology computer)

Trading was quite choopy today but a late day surge brought the Dow and S&P back into positive territory. The smaller caps had good relative strength today as evidenced by the Russell 2,000's almost 1% gain on the day. Volume was on the light side again, especially compared to the volume on Thursday's selloff. Given the weak volume I still don't trust this bounce and I think the market could be setting up some falling three method patterns.

Here are charts of the S&P 500, Nasdaq and Russell 2,000:

No changes

It's hard for me to have much faith in Friday's bounce given how low volume was. However, my intraday indicators did flip to bullish on Friday and we've got a small gap up this morning. So I'll be a hesitant bull to start the day but I'm staying on the lookout for a reversal.

Here's the daily S&P chart from Friday's close:

P.S. Nice bearish call on Jones Soda Company (JSDA) in Barron's this weekend: "shares should be 65% lower" :o

On Today's Calendar:

• 10:00 -- Consumer Confidence

More Calendars: U.S. Earnings | Conf. Calls | Surprises | IPO | Economic

Potential swing trades:

• TraderFeed: The Trader Coaching Project
  Find out how you can get a free month of coaching from Dr. Brett.
  (tags: trading coaching Psychology)
• As Condos Rise in South Florida, Nervous Investors Try to Flee - New York Times
  The tale of one of the most bubblicious markets in the U.S.
  (tags: realestate for_TM)
• Why I missed the recent big rally in the stock market, part II - 5 lessons learnt
  (tags: stocks)

• So how do Traders Break Their (Bad) Habits? Part 2
  I love this list! -- 1. Read, read, read. 2. Make a trading plan. 3. Don't paper trade. 3. dive into risk/reward and risk & money mgmt. 5. Ignore backtesting and learn to read the mkts...
  (tags: trading Psychology)
• Apple’s Lesson for Sony’s Stores: Just Connect - New York Times
  Apple has made retail seem ridiculously easy. But why hasn’t the Windows side of the personal computer business figured it out?
  (tags: apple business sony stocks retail computer toread)

The indices were mixed today. Small caps and tech closed higher while the larger caps were basically flat. Volume increased across the board and I'm pretty sure that can be attributed to month-end markups games activity. Trading was choppy during the day and my guess is that's partially due to some profit taking combined with some hesitation ahead of a ton of economic data (jobs report, Core PCE, ISM, etc.) due out tomorrow morning.

I mentioned Google's (GOOG) move above $500 this morning. It made a move toward the all-time high of $513 but reversed and closed under $500, making a nice shooting-star-like candle in the process. It looks to me like it's made an inverse head & shoulders pattern. I'd like to see it consolidate within yesterday's range for a bit to work off the short-term overbought condition before attempting to breakout to new highs. The divergence in OBV has me a bit worried though...

Here are the charts of the Nasdaq, S&P 500 and Russell 2,000:

We've got more strength this morning as the market's follow through on yesterday's rally. One mover of note is Google, which has popped back over $500 and appears to be heading for its all-time high of $513.

On Today's Calendar:

• 9:45 -- Chicago PMI
• 10:00 -- Construction Spending
• 10:00 -- Help-Wanted Index
• 10:30 -- Crude Inventories

More Calendars: U.S. Earnings | Conf. Calls | Surprises | IPO | Economic

Potential swing trades:

• Loews Corp. (LTR) | Wallstrip
  Jack of all trades, master of none? Loews Corp. (LTR) proves ‘em wrong on today’s Wallstrip.
  (tags: stocks)
• CBS to Buy Social Network
  First WallStrip, now it is expected to pay $280 million for the Last.fm site, which caters to music fans. What next???
  (tags: stocks cbs web2.0 finance)
• Trading Patterns: Identifying Transitional Structures
  With this post I'll begin a series on trading patterns for short-term traders. I refer to today's pattern as a transitional structure; it is a common sequence that marks the shift from one trend to another.
  (tags: trading technicalanalysis)
• Who Does Jim Cramer Think He Is? -- New York Magazine
  “Why does everybody hate me?” The Wall Street maniac explains his critics, the market, and himself. (TheStreet.com, Inc. TSCM)
  (tags: Cramer finance toread stocks cnbc)
• Chinese Stocks plummet nearly 7 percent
  Chinese stocks plummeted nearly seven percent on Wednesday after the Ministry of Finance announced a hike in the stamp tax on stock trading
  (tags: stocks china)
• How accurate are bloggers?
  I did some scratch work analysis of the Ticker Sense Blogger Sentiment Poll to see how accurate individual bloggers were on calling the S&P 30-days out.
  (tags: stocks)
• The Slipping US Dollar - Should We Care?
  (tags: dollar finance currencies for_TM)
• China and The Mother of all Double Tops on the S&P 500?
  The failure of the SPX at the prior highs and an inability to make a new high has some technicians wondering if we are looking at the mother of all double tops.
  (tags: stocks)

It was a big day for the bulls today. They shook off the little pre-market China scare and proceeded to push the indices to new all-time and multi-year closing highs. Volume rose back to respectable levels although trading was still lighter than last Thursday's big down day. But that less than desirable volume action is about the only thing the bears can hang their hopes on in this market.

So much for that potential falling three methods I talked about yesterday. The S&P 500 finally made the new closing high it kept flirting with last week. It's still 22 points below the all-time intraday high from March 24, 2000 -- what a wild day that was.

The Nasdaq climbed back above the congestion zone around the early May highs and made a new multi-year high close. It sure looks like it has to retest 2,600 now.

The indices are gapping down following the 6% drop in China's market today. It may seem like a repeat of February but this gap isn't nearly as bad as what happened in late February. As I'm writing this the indices are set to open within yesterday's range. So the bears still have work to do -- they need to break yesterday's lows and then Thursdays lows. I think that would cause enough technical damage to get the bulls worried. But we're not even close to that yet...

On Today's Calendar:

• 2:00 -- FOMC Minutes

More Calendars: U.S. Earnings | Conf. Calls | Surprises | IPO | Economic

Potential swing trades:

• Centerplate Inc. (CVP) | Wallstrip
  Go right to the source, and ask the horse. Is Centerplate Inc. (CVP) on a steady course?
  (tags: stocks)
• 26 Reasons What You Think is Right is Wrong
  Traders suffer from many of these cognitive biases...
  (tags: psychology thinking probability for_TM bias finance)
• Data Latency Playing An Ever Increasing Role In Effective Trading
  Wall Street’s quest to process data at the speed of light relies on the physical proximity of servers to overcome the technical barriers of data latency.
  (tags: trading technology computer)