Recently in Chart Reading Category

The indices continued their range-bound trading today. The early strength gave way to selling mid-morning. I'm not sure whether to blame it on Obama's economic press conference or technicals -- the Nasdaq approaching its 50-day moving average and the indices hitting last week's range tops. I suspect we will have more of this range trading through Wednesday's Fed decision.

Three sessions ago I said "My guess is that the bulls probably have two or three days of partying in AAPL before it hits the wall and is ripe for renewed selling..." It's been three days and the stock seems to be stalling right at the 50-day moving average. If I was still swing trading I'd have an order set to short it under today's low with a stop above today's high.

We made it through the week filled with bad economic data releases practically unscathed. After all the wild swings the Nasdaq and S&P 500 ended the week down 1.7% and 2.25% respectively. That's not so bad considering how bad the data was and how volatile the market is these days. A 2 percent move can be made in a flash in the current environment.

Here's a shot of the weekly S&P 500 chart which shows the sideways movement of the last 8 weeks.

The S&P daily chart shows that the index just barely broke its September trendline on Friday. That trendline breach along with the inability of sellers to break the market last week make me think that the path of least resistance in the short term is up. The index could rally as far as 1,000 and still just be range-bound though.

It's a similar story for the Nasdaq. I think its likely next targets are 1600 or its 50-day moving average.

The VIX was relatively calm last week and slipped under its 50-day moving average on Friday. It still has a long way to go to get back to normal levels though.

I'm starting to see more charts like BorgWarner Inc. (BWA), which is almost pinned to its 50-day moving average.

Here's another 50-day moving average play -- priceline.com Inc. (PCLN). I like it above the blue trendline.

EMC Corp. (EMC) closed above its 50 DMA for the first time since early September.

Nabors Industries Ltd. (NBR) is a good example of a lot of charts I'm seeing, especially oil stocks. It made a hammer-like candle on Friday after an attempt to breakdown below its 2008 lows. These type of charts seem ripe for bottom fishing (not my thing!) and I'd be tightening up my stops if I was short a stock with a chart like this.

Here's one for the gold bugs. Newmont Mining Corp. (NEM) is very similar to the Priceline setup above. I'm also watching this for a trendline break.

All the short term trends are up again...

It looked like the bulls were going to stage a rally this afternoon but that attempt got squashed just as quickly as it started. The result was more than 2% losses on both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq. Still, the mid-day bounce is encouraging since it shows that people are at least attempting to defend those nice round numbers of 900 and 1,600 on the indices. Both indices now have oversold short-term stochastic readings, so that's another thing working for the bulls in this range-bound environment.

You know things are bad when one of the best charts is an airline stock. Delta Air Lines, Inc. (DAL) looks pretty good here after its pullback to moving average support on decreasing volume.

If bottom fishing is your thing you may like the next two charts. The risk/reward on Google Inc. (GOOG) looks pretty good here. It made an NR7 candle today, so that gives a nice, tight range to trade against (buy above, stop below) which also found support at the nice round number of 300. Today's action looks like the market gunning for stops under the October lows. I'd like today's candle even better if it had gone under 300 to trigger any stops in the high 290's...

The setup on Coach, Inc. (COH) is similar to GOOG's -- and there are a lot of other stocks in similar positions. If the indices head back toward the top of their ranges these could get popping pretty quick.

no changes

We've got a flat/mixed open for a change, which may be a good sign given all the angst over the jobs report which was released this morning.

On Today's Calendar:

• 10:00 -- Pending Home Sales
• 10:00 -- Wholesale Inventories

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

Potential swing trades:

Four longs and one short candidate:

99 Cents Only Stores (NDN):

First Solar, Inc. (FLSR):

Barrick Gold Corporation (ABX)

Here are ten charts that stood out to me while going through my swing trade scans. Almost all are short candidates. There are tons of charts like this right now, most of which are short-term overbought and near resistance. Many of these made some kind of bearish candle yesterday (bearish engulfing or some kind of star) or made an NR7. My normal swing trading rules would apply and I wouldn't want to chase any of these very far.

After I covered all of my shorts today I was convinced that I should take tomorrow off and not press my luck. That's because so many stocks seem oversold after all this week's selling. I was also seeing things like the QQQQ breaking its July low, the SOX breaking to a new 5+ year low and the indices and many stocks closing under their lower Bollinger Bands. "Surely the market's due for a bounce here", I was thinking. But once I started looking through the charts tonight I changed my mind. I think there's plenty of room left for even more selling. That's because none of the major indices I track have oversold stochastic reading yet. Even worse T2108 is still above 40. So I went looking to see what hasn't been sold yet. Small caps (IWM), financials (XLF) and homebuilders stood out. If we get more selling I'll be looking for shorts in those areas. Almost everything else seems too prone to snap-back rallies for me to be interested.

On Monday I wrote about the compression of the Multiple Moving Averages (MMAs) on the Nasdaq. SImilar to the range expansion theory that predicts a big movement in price (but not direction). Well, I think we've got our move. You can see that the short-term group of MMAs has now push through the long-term group and is chasing price lower. The compression of the short-term group is no more and the long-term group will likely follow suit.

Here's another shot of the Nasdaq chart:

The QQQQ chart shows that large cap tech has really been sucking wind of late. I'll be watching for a rally attempt at the July intraday low but I suspect that the S&P and/or Nasdaq touching their July lows will be what triggers a serious rally attempt.

The SOX tells the same story with its new 5-year low:

The S&P seems destined for a retest of 1200.

Here are the ETFs that I'll be watching for shorting opportunites if we get more selling in the coming days -- IWM, XLF and XHB. (Others include RKH, ICF, IYR and XLY)

Once again the "downs" are dominating the chart.

Here are some of the better looking swing trade setups I found going through my scans last night. They all happen to be shorts this time. My entry & exit rules are the same as always.

Note: Whenever I post swing trade candidates I always get asked if I've gone back to swing trading. I have not. I'm just posting these b/c I know many of you swing trade. I may day trade some of these if & when they trigger though. I still like to run my scans just to get a better feel for market.

As I see it today was nothing but a battle over control of the 200-day moving averages on the indices. The S&P 500 and Dow popped over their 200s early in the session and were cruising along until selling kicked in just before 2:00. By the close only the Dow remained above its 200 DMA. The Nasdaq and S&P 500 closed just a hair beneath their 200s. The Russell is still lagging a bit. It peaked less than 50 cents from its 200 DMA today before giving in to the late day selling.

It's starting to feel like a real stalemate right here. The bulls are so close to a solid move over these moving averages but there's just no volume. The volume that does show up intraday seems tends to be on these late day selloffs, yet the bears can't do much damage on the longer-term charts. It'll be interesting to see if the "sell in May" trade begins to take place ahead of the Memorial Day weekend. If so, the 200 DMAs would be the perfect places for the indices to peak.

The action in some of the momentum stocks was pretty wild today. Many of the solar plays look like they had blow-off tops today. For example, here's China Sunergy Co., Ltd. (CSUN):

The index charts are below:

Things are looking good for the bulls this morning. Intel had a good earnings report last night and this morning's CPI seems to be a non-factor.

On Today's Calendar:

• 10:30 -- Crude Inventories
• 2:00 -- Fed's Beige Book

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

Potential swing trades:

It's hard to find many stocks that don't have an earnings report due in the next few days but here are a few that caught my eye: Intel Corporation
(INTC), National Semiconductor Corporation (NSM), IKON Office Solutions, Inc. (IKN) and Aftermarket Technology Corp. (ATAC):

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates. Also be sure to check my typical swing trade entry & exit rules.

Potential day trades:

We've got some strength this morning thanks to folks taking the news of even more write-offs in the financial sector as a bullish sign. Go figure...

On Today's Calendar:

• 10:00 -- Construction Spending
• 10:00 -- ISM Index

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

Potential swing trades:

Here are a few charts that caught my eye:

PMC-Sierra, Inc. (PMCS)

Darden Restaurants, Inc. (DRI)

The indices continued their range-bound trading today. The early strength gave way to selling mid-morning. I'm not sure whether to blame it on Obama's economic press conference or technicals -- the Nasdaq approaching its 50-day moving average and the indices hitting last week's range tops. I suspect we will have more of this range trading through Wednesday's Fed decision.

Three sessions ago I said "My guess is that the bulls probably have two or three days of partying in AAPL before it hits the wall and is ripe for renewed selling..." It's been three days and the stock seems to be stalling right at the 50-day moving average. If I was still swing trading I'd have an order set to short it under today's low with a stop above today's high.

We made it through the week filled with bad economic data releases practically unscathed. After all the wild swings the Nasdaq and S&P 500 ended the week down 1.7% and 2.25% respectively. That's not so bad considering how bad the data was and how volatile the market is these days. A 2 percent move can be made in a flash in the current environment.

Here's a shot of the weekly S&P 500 chart which shows the sideways movement of the last 8 weeks.

The S&P daily chart shows that the index just barely broke its September trendline on Friday. That trendline breach along with the inability of sellers to break the market last week make me think that the path of least resistance in the short term is up. The index could rally as far as 1,000 and still just be range-bound though.

It's a similar story for the Nasdaq. I think its likely next targets are 1600 or its 50-day moving average.

The VIX was relatively calm last week and slipped under its 50-day moving average on Friday. It still has a long way to go to get back to normal levels though.

I'm starting to see more charts like BorgWarner Inc. (BWA), which is almost pinned to its 50-day moving average.

Here's another 50-day moving average play -- priceline.com Inc. (PCLN). I like it above the blue trendline.

EMC Corp. (EMC) closed above its 50 DMA for the first time since early September.

Nabors Industries Ltd. (NBR) is a good example of a lot of charts I'm seeing, especially oil stocks. It made a hammer-like candle on Friday after an attempt to breakdown below its 2008 lows. These type of charts seem ripe for bottom fishing (not my thing!) and I'd be tightening up my stops if I was short a stock with a chart like this.

Here's one for the gold bugs. Newmont Mining Corp. (NEM) is very similar to the Priceline setup above. I'm also watching this for a trendline break.

All the short term trends are up again...

It looked like the bulls were going to stage a rally this afternoon but that attempt got squashed just as quickly as it started. The result was more than 2% losses on both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq. Still, the mid-day bounce is encouraging since it shows that people are at least attempting to defend those nice round numbers of 900 and 1,600 on the indices. Both indices now have oversold short-term stochastic readings, so that's another thing working for the bulls in this range-bound environment.

You know things are bad when one of the best charts is an airline stock. Delta Air Lines, Inc. (DAL) looks pretty good here after its pullback to moving average support on decreasing volume.

If bottom fishing is your thing you may like the next two charts. The risk/reward on Google Inc. (GOOG) looks pretty good here. It made an NR7 candle today, so that gives a nice, tight range to trade against (buy above, stop below) which also found support at the nice round number of 300. Today's action looks like the market gunning for stops under the October lows. I'd like today's candle even better if it had gone under 300 to trigger any stops in the high 290's...

The setup on Coach, Inc. (COH) is similar to GOOG's -- and there are a lot of other stocks in similar positions. If the indices head back toward the top of their ranges these could get popping pretty quick.

no changes

We've got a flat/mixed open for a change, which may be a good sign given all the angst over the jobs report which was released this morning.

On Today's Calendar:

• 10:00 -- Pending Home Sales
• 10:00 -- Wholesale Inventories

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

Potential swing trades:

Four longs and one short candidate:

99 Cents Only Stores (NDN):

First Solar, Inc. (FLSR):

Barrick Gold Corporation (ABX)

Here are ten charts that stood out to me while going through my swing trade scans. Almost all are short candidates. There are tons of charts like this right now, most of which are short-term overbought and near resistance. Many of these made some kind of bearish candle yesterday (bearish engulfing or some kind of star) or made an NR7. My normal swing trading rules would apply and I wouldn't want to chase any of these very far.

After I covered all of my shorts today I was convinced that I should take tomorrow off and not press my luck. That's because so many stocks seem oversold after all this week's selling. I was also seeing things like the QQQQ breaking its July low, the SOX breaking to a new 5+ year low and the indices and many stocks closing under their lower Bollinger Bands. "Surely the market's due for a bounce here", I was thinking. But once I started looking through the charts tonight I changed my mind. I think there's plenty of room left for even more selling. That's because none of the major indices I track have oversold stochastic reading yet. Even worse T2108 is still above 40. So I went looking to see what hasn't been sold yet. Small caps (IWM), financials (XLF) and homebuilders stood out. If we get more selling I'll be looking for shorts in those areas. Almost everything else seems too prone to snap-back rallies for me to be interested.

On Monday I wrote about the compression of the Multiple Moving Averages (MMAs) on the Nasdaq. SImilar to the range expansion theory that predicts a big movement in price (but not direction). Well, I think we've got our move. You can see that the short-term group of MMAs has now push through the long-term group and is chasing price lower. The compression of the short-term group is no more and the long-term group will likely follow suit.

Here's another shot of the Nasdaq chart:

The QQQQ chart shows that large cap tech has really been sucking wind of late. I'll be watching for a rally attempt at the July intraday low but I suspect that the S&P and/or Nasdaq touching their July lows will be what triggers a serious rally attempt.

The SOX tells the same story with its new 5-year low:

The S&P seems destined for a retest of 1200.

Here are the ETFs that I'll be watching for shorting opportunites if we get more selling in the coming days -- IWM, XLF and XHB. (Others include RKH, ICF, IYR and XLY)

Once again the "downs" are dominating the chart.

Here are some of the better looking swing trade setups I found going through my scans last night. They all happen to be shorts this time. My entry & exit rules are the same as always.

Note: Whenever I post swing trade candidates I always get asked if I've gone back to swing trading. I have not. I'm just posting these b/c I know many of you swing trade. I may day trade some of these if & when they trigger though. I still like to run my scans just to get a better feel for market.

As I see it today was nothing but a battle over control of the 200-day moving averages on the indices. The S&P 500 and Dow popped over their 200s early in the session and were cruising along until selling kicked in just before 2:00. By the close only the Dow remained above its 200 DMA. The Nasdaq and S&P 500 closed just a hair beneath their 200s. The Russell is still lagging a bit. It peaked less than 50 cents from its 200 DMA today before giving in to the late day selling.

It's starting to feel like a real stalemate right here. The bulls are so close to a solid move over these moving averages but there's just no volume. The volume that does show up intraday seems tends to be on these late day selloffs, yet the bears can't do much damage on the longer-term charts. It'll be interesting to see if the "sell in May" trade begins to take place ahead of the Memorial Day weekend. If so, the 200 DMAs would be the perfect places for the indices to peak.

The action in some of the momentum stocks was pretty wild today. Many of the solar plays look like they had blow-off tops today. For example, here's China Sunergy Co., Ltd. (CSUN):

The index charts are below:

Things are looking good for the bulls this morning. Intel had a good earnings report last night and this morning's CPI seems to be a non-factor.

On Today's Calendar:

• 10:30 -- Crude Inventories
• 2:00 -- Fed's Beige Book

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

Potential swing trades:

It's hard to find many stocks that don't have an earnings report due in the next few days but here are a few that caught my eye: Intel Corporation
(INTC), National Semiconductor Corporation (NSM), IKON Office Solutions, Inc. (IKN) and Aftermarket Technology Corp. (ATAC):

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates. Also be sure to check my typical swing trade entry & exit rules.

Potential day trades:

We've got some strength this morning thanks to folks taking the news of even more write-offs in the financial sector as a bullish sign. Go figure...

On Today's Calendar:

• 10:00 -- Construction Spending
• 10:00 -- ISM Index

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

Potential swing trades:

Here are a few charts that caught my eye:

PMC-Sierra, Inc. (PMCS)

Darden Restaurants, Inc. (DRI)

The indices continued their range-bound trading today. The early strength gave way to selling mid-morning. I'm not sure whether to blame it on Obama's economic press conference or technicals -- the Nasdaq approaching its 50-day moving average and the indices hitting last week's range tops. I suspect we will have more of this range trading through Wednesday's Fed decision.

Three sessions ago I said "My guess is that the bulls probably have two or three days of partying in AAPL before it hits the wall and is ripe for renewed selling..." It's been three days and the stock seems to be stalling right at the 50-day moving average. If I was still swing trading I'd have an order set to short it under today's low with a stop above today's high.

We made it through the week filled with bad economic data releases practically unscathed. After all the wild swings the Nasdaq and S&P 500 ended the week down 1.7% and 2.25% respectively. That's not so bad considering how bad the data was and how volatile the market is these days. A 2 percent move can be made in a flash in the current environment.

Here's a shot of the weekly S&P 500 chart which shows the sideways movement of the last 8 weeks.

The S&P daily chart shows that the index just barely broke its September trendline on Friday. That trendline breach along with the inability of sellers to break the market last week make me think that the path of least resistance in the short term is up. The index could rally as far as 1,000 and still just be range-bound though.

It's a similar story for the Nasdaq. I think its likely next targets are 1600 or its 50-day moving average.

The VIX was relatively calm last week and slipped under its 50-day moving average on Friday. It still has a long way to go to get back to normal levels though.

I'm starting to see more charts like BorgWarner Inc. (BWA), which is almost pinned to its 50-day moving average.

Here's another 50-day moving average play -- priceline.com Inc. (PCLN). I like it above the blue trendline.

EMC Corp. (EMC) closed above its 50 DMA for the first time since early September.

Nabors Industries Ltd. (NBR) is a good example of a lot of charts I'm seeing, especially oil stocks. It made a hammer-like candle on Friday after an attempt to breakdown below its 2008 lows. These type of charts seem ripe for bottom fishing (not my thing!) and I'd be tightening up my stops if I was short a stock with a chart like this.

Here's one for the gold bugs. Newmont Mining Corp. (NEM) is very similar to the Priceline setup above. I'm also watching this for a trendline break.

All the short term trends are up again...

It looked like the bulls were going to stage a rally this afternoon but that attempt got squashed just as quickly as it started. The result was more than 2% losses on both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq. Still, the mid-day bounce is encouraging since it shows that people are at least attempting to defend those nice round numbers of 900 and 1,600 on the indices. Both indices now have oversold short-term stochastic readings, so that's another thing working for the bulls in this range-bound environment.

You know things are bad when one of the best charts is an airline stock. Delta Air Lines, Inc. (DAL) looks pretty good here after its pullback to moving average support on decreasing volume.

If bottom fishing is your thing you may like the next two charts. The risk/reward on Google Inc. (GOOG) looks pretty good here. It made an NR7 candle today, so that gives a nice, tight range to trade against (buy above, stop below) which also found support at the nice round number of 300. Today's action looks like the market gunning for stops under the October lows. I'd like today's candle even better if it had gone under 300 to trigger any stops in the high 290's...

The setup on Coach, Inc. (COH) is similar to GOOG's -- and there are a lot of other stocks in similar positions. If the indices head back toward the top of their ranges these could get popping pretty quick.

no changes

We've got a flat/mixed open for a change, which may be a good sign given all the angst over the jobs report which was released this morning.

On Today's Calendar:

• 10:00 -- Pending Home Sales
• 10:00 -- Wholesale Inventories

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

Potential swing trades:

Four longs and one short candidate:

99 Cents Only Stores (NDN):

First Solar, Inc. (FLSR):

Barrick Gold Corporation (ABX)

Here are ten charts that stood out to me while going through my swing trade scans. Almost all are short candidates. There are tons of charts like this right now, most of which are short-term overbought and near resistance. Many of these made some kind of bearish candle yesterday (bearish engulfing or some kind of star) or made an NR7. My normal swing trading rules would apply and I wouldn't want to chase any of these very far.

After I covered all of my shorts today I was convinced that I should take tomorrow off and not press my luck. That's because so many stocks seem oversold after all this week's selling. I was also seeing things like the QQQQ breaking its July low, the SOX breaking to a new 5+ year low and the indices and many stocks closing under their lower Bollinger Bands. "Surely the market's due for a bounce here", I was thinking. But once I started looking through the charts tonight I changed my mind. I think there's plenty of room left for even more selling. That's because none of the major indices I track have oversold stochastic reading yet. Even worse T2108 is still above 40. So I went looking to see what hasn't been sold yet. Small caps (IWM), financials (XLF) and homebuilders stood out. If we get more selling I'll be looking for shorts in those areas. Almost everything else seems too prone to snap-back rallies for me to be interested.

On Monday I wrote about the compression of the Multiple Moving Averages (MMAs) on the Nasdaq. SImilar to the range expansion theory that predicts a big movement in price (but not direction). Well, I think we've got our move. You can see that the short-term group of MMAs has now push through the long-term group and is chasing price lower. The compression of the short-term group is no more and the long-term group will likely follow suit.

Here's another shot of the Nasdaq chart:

The QQQQ chart shows that large cap tech has really been sucking wind of late. I'll be watching for a rally attempt at the July intraday low but I suspect that the S&P and/or Nasdaq touching their July lows will be what triggers a serious rally attempt.

The SOX tells the same story with its new 5-year low:

The S&P seems destined for a retest of 1200.

Here are the ETFs that I'll be watching for shorting opportunites if we get more selling in the coming days -- IWM, XLF and XHB. (Others include RKH, ICF, IYR and XLY)

Once again the "downs" are dominating the chart.

Here are some of the better looking swing trade setups I found going through my scans last night. They all happen to be shorts this time. My entry & exit rules are the same as always.

Note: Whenever I post swing trade candidates I always get asked if I've gone back to swing trading. I have not. I'm just posting these b/c I know many of you swing trade. I may day trade some of these if & when they trigger though. I still like to run my scans just to get a better feel for market.

As I see it today was nothing but a battle over control of the 200-day moving averages on the indices. The S&P 500 and Dow popped over their 200s early in the session and were cruising along until selling kicked in just before 2:00. By the close only the Dow remained above its 200 DMA. The Nasdaq and S&P 500 closed just a hair beneath their 200s. The Russell is still lagging a bit. It peaked less than 50 cents from its 200 DMA today before giving in to the late day selling.

It's starting to feel like a real stalemate right here. The bulls are so close to a solid move over these moving averages but there's just no volume. The volume that does show up intraday seems tends to be on these late day selloffs, yet the bears can't do much damage on the longer-term charts. It'll be interesting to see if the "sell in May" trade begins to take place ahead of the Memorial Day weekend. If so, the 200 DMAs would be the perfect places for the indices to peak.

The action in some of the momentum stocks was pretty wild today. Many of the solar plays look like they had blow-off tops today. For example, here's China Sunergy Co., Ltd. (CSUN):

The index charts are below:

Things are looking good for the bulls this morning. Intel had a good earnings report last night and this morning's CPI seems to be a non-factor.

On Today's Calendar:

• 10:30 -- Crude Inventories
• 2:00 -- Fed's Beige Book

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

Potential swing trades:

It's hard to find many stocks that don't have an earnings report due in the next few days but here are a few that caught my eye: Intel Corporation
(INTC), National Semiconductor Corporation (NSM), IKON Office Solutions, Inc. (IKN) and Aftermarket Technology Corp. (ATAC):

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates. Also be sure to check my typical swing trade entry & exit rules.

Potential day trades:

We've got some strength this morning thanks to folks taking the news of even more write-offs in the financial sector as a bullish sign. Go figure...

On Today's Calendar:

• 10:00 -- Construction Spending
• 10:00 -- ISM Index

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

Potential swing trades:

Here are a few charts that caught my eye:

PMC-Sierra, Inc. (PMCS)

Darden Restaurants, Inc. (DRI)

The indices continued their range-bound trading today. The early strength gave way to selling mid-morning. I'm not sure whether to blame it on Obama's economic press conference or technicals -- the Nasdaq approaching its 50-day moving average and the indices hitting last week's range tops. I suspect we will have more of this range trading through Wednesday's Fed decision.

Three sessions ago I said "My guess is that the bulls probably have two or three days of partying in AAPL before it hits the wall and is ripe for renewed selling..." It's been three days and the stock seems to be stalling right at the 50-day moving average. If I was still swing trading I'd have an order set to short it under today's low with a stop above today's high.

We made it through the week filled with bad economic data releases practically unscathed. After all the wild swings the Nasdaq and S&P 500 ended the week down 1.7% and 2.25% respectively. That's not so bad considering how bad the data was and how volatile the market is these days. A 2 percent move can be made in a flash in the current environment.

Here's a shot of the weekly S&P 500 chart which shows the sideways movement of the last 8 weeks.

The S&P daily chart shows that the index just barely broke its September trendline on Friday. That trendline breach along with the inability of sellers to break the market last week make me think that the path of least resistance in the short term is up. The index could rally as far as 1,000 and still just be range-bound though.

It's a similar story for the Nasdaq. I think its likely next targets are 1600 or its 50-day moving average.

The VIX was relatively calm last week and slipped under its 50-day moving average on Friday. It still has a long way to go to get back to normal levels though.

I'm starting to see more charts like BorgWarner Inc. (BWA), which is almost pinned to its 50-day moving average.

Here's another 50-day moving average play -- priceline.com Inc. (PCLN). I like it above the blue trendline.

EMC Corp. (EMC) closed above its 50 DMA for the first time since early September.

Nabors Industries Ltd. (NBR) is a good example of a lot of charts I'm seeing, especially oil stocks. It made a hammer-like candle on Friday after an attempt to breakdown below its 2008 lows. These type of charts seem ripe for bottom fishing (not my thing!) and I'd be tightening up my stops if I was short a stock with a chart like this.

Here's one for the gold bugs. Newmont Mining Corp. (NEM) is very similar to the Priceline setup above. I'm also watching this for a trendline break.

All the short term trends are up again...

It looked like the bulls were going to stage a rally this afternoon but that attempt got squashed just as quickly as it started. The result was more than 2% losses on both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq. Still, the mid-day bounce is encouraging since it shows that people are at least attempting to defend those nice round numbers of 900 and 1,600 on the indices. Both indices now have oversold short-term stochastic readings, so that's another thing working for the bulls in this range-bound environment.

You know things are bad when one of the best charts is an airline stock. Delta Air Lines, Inc. (DAL) looks pretty good here after its pullback to moving average support on decreasing volume.

If bottom fishing is your thing you may like the next two charts. The risk/reward on Google Inc. (GOOG) looks pretty good here. It made an NR7 candle today, so that gives a nice, tight range to trade against (buy above, stop below) which also found support at the nice round number of 300. Today's action looks like the market gunning for stops under the October lows. I'd like today's candle even better if it had gone under 300 to trigger any stops in the high 290's...

The setup on Coach, Inc. (COH) is similar to GOOG's -- and there are a lot of other stocks in similar positions. If the indices head back toward the top of their ranges these could get popping pretty quick.

no changes

We've got a flat/mixed open for a change, which may be a good sign given all the angst over the jobs report which was released this morning.

On Today's Calendar:

• 10:00 -- Pending Home Sales
• 10:00 -- Wholesale Inventories

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

Potential swing trades:

Four longs and one short candidate:

99 Cents Only Stores (NDN):

First Solar, Inc. (FLSR):

Barrick Gold Corporation (ABX)

Here are ten charts that stood out to me while going through my swing trade scans. Almost all are short candidates. There are tons of charts like this right now, most of which are short-term overbought and near resistance. Many of these made some kind of bearish candle yesterday (bearish engulfing or some kind of star) or made an NR7. My normal swing trading rules would apply and I wouldn't want to chase any of these very far.

After I covered all of my shorts today I was convinced that I should take tomorrow off and not press my luck. That's because so many stocks seem oversold after all this week's selling. I was also seeing things like the QQQQ breaking its July low, the SOX breaking to a new 5+ year low and the indices and many stocks closing under their lower Bollinger Bands. "Surely the market's due for a bounce here", I was thinking. But once I started looking through the charts tonight I changed my mind. I think there's plenty of room left for even more selling. That's because none of the major indices I track have oversold stochastic reading yet. Even worse T2108 is still above 40. So I went looking to see what hasn't been sold yet. Small caps (IWM), financials (XLF) and homebuilders stood out. If we get more selling I'll be looking for shorts in those areas. Almost everything else seems too prone to snap-back rallies for me to be interested.

On Monday I wrote about the compression of the Multiple Moving Averages (MMAs) on the Nasdaq. SImilar to the range expansion theory that predicts a big movement in price (but not direction). Well, I think we've got our move. You can see that the short-term group of MMAs has now push through the long-term group and is chasing price lower. The compression of the short-term group is no more and the long-term group will likely follow suit.

Here's another shot of the Nasdaq chart:

The QQQQ chart shows that large cap tech has really been sucking wind of late. I'll be watching for a rally attempt at the July intraday low but I suspect that the S&P and/or Nasdaq touching their July lows will be what triggers a serious rally attempt.

The SOX tells the same story with its new 5-year low:

The S&P seems destined for a retest of 1200.

Here are the ETFs that I'll be watching for shorting opportunites if we get more selling in the coming days -- IWM, XLF and XHB. (Others include RKH, ICF, IYR and XLY)

Once again the "downs" are dominating the chart.

Here are some of the better looking swing trade setups I found going through my scans last night. They all happen to be shorts this time. My entry & exit rules are the same as always.

Note: Whenever I post swing trade candidates I always get asked if I've gone back to swing trading. I have not. I'm just posting these b/c I know many of you swing trade. I may day trade some of these if & when they trigger though. I still like to run my scans just to get a better feel for market.

As I see it today was nothing but a battle over control of the 200-day moving averages on the indices. The S&P 500 and Dow popped over their 200s early in the session and were cruising along until selling kicked in just before 2:00. By the close only the Dow remained above its 200 DMA. The Nasdaq and S&P 500 closed just a hair beneath their 200s. The Russell is still lagging a bit. It peaked less than 50 cents from its 200 DMA today before giving in to the late day selling.

It's starting to feel like a real stalemate right here. The bulls are so close to a solid move over these moving averages but there's just no volume. The volume that does show up intraday seems tends to be on these late day selloffs, yet the bears can't do much damage on the longer-term charts. It'll be interesting to see if the "sell in May" trade begins to take place ahead of the Memorial Day weekend. If so, the 200 DMAs would be the perfect places for the indices to peak.

The action in some of the momentum stocks was pretty wild today. Many of the solar plays look like they had blow-off tops today. For example, here's China Sunergy Co., Ltd. (CSUN):

The index charts are below:

Things are looking good for the bulls this morning. Intel had a good earnings report last night and this morning's CPI seems to be a non-factor.

On Today's Calendar:

• 10:30 -- Crude Inventories
• 2:00 -- Fed's Beige Book

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

Potential swing trades:

It's hard to find many stocks that don't have an earnings report due in the next few days but here are a few that caught my eye: Intel Corporation
(INTC), National Semiconductor Corporation (NSM), IKON Office Solutions, Inc. (IKN) and Aftermarket Technology Corp. (ATAC):

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates. Also be sure to check my typical swing trade entry & exit rules.

Potential day trades:

We've got some strength this morning thanks to folks taking the news of even more write-offs in the financial sector as a bullish sign. Go figure...

On Today's Calendar:

• 10:00 -- Construction Spending
• 10:00 -- ISM Index

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

Potential swing trades:

Here are a few charts that caught my eye:

PMC-Sierra, Inc. (PMCS)

Darden Restaurants, Inc. (DRI)

The indices continued their range-bound trading today. The early strength gave way to selling mid-morning. I'm not sure whether to blame it on Obama's economic press conference or technicals -- the Nasdaq approaching its 50-day moving average and the indices hitting last week's range tops. I suspect we will have more of this range trading through Wednesday's Fed decision.

Three sessions ago I said "My guess is that the bulls probably have two or three days of partying in AAPL before it hits the wall and is ripe for renewed selling..." It's been three days and the stock seems to be stalling right at the 50-day moving average. If I was still swing trading I'd have an order set to short it under today's low with a stop above today's high.

We made it through the week filled with bad economic data releases practically unscathed. After all the wild swings the Nasdaq and S&P 500 ended the week down 1.7% and 2.25% respectively. That's not so bad considering how bad the data was and how volatile the market is these days. A 2 percent move can be made in a flash in the current environment.

Here's a shot of the weekly S&P 500 chart which shows the sideways movement of the last 8 weeks.

The S&P daily chart shows that the index just barely broke its September trendline on Friday. That trendline breach along with the inability of sellers to break the market last week make me think that the path of least resistance in the short term is up. The index could rally as far as 1,000 and still just be range-bound though.

It's a similar story for the Nasdaq. I think its likely next targets are 1600 or its 50-day moving average.

The VIX was relatively calm last week and slipped under its 50-day moving average on Friday. It still has a long way to go to get back to normal levels though.

I'm starting to see more charts like BorgWarner Inc. (BWA), which is almost pinned to its 50-day moving average.

Here's another 50-day moving average play -- priceline.com Inc. (PCLN). I like it above the blue trendline.

EMC Corp. (EMC) closed above its 50 DMA for the first time since early September.

Nabors Industries Ltd. (NBR) is a good example of a lot of charts I'm seeing, especially oil stocks. It made a hammer-like candle on Friday after an attempt to breakdown below its 2008 lows. These type of charts seem ripe for bottom fishing (not my thing!) and I'd be tightening up my stops if I was short a stock with a chart like this.

Here's one for the gold bugs. Newmont Mining Corp. (NEM) is very similar to the Priceline setup above. I'm also watching this for a trendline break.

All the short term trends are up again...

It looked like the bulls were going to stage a rally this afternoon but that attempt got squashed just as quickly as it started. The result was more than 2% losses on both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq. Still, the mid-day bounce is encouraging since it shows that people are at least attempting to defend those nice round numbers of 900 and 1,600 on the indices. Both indices now have oversold short-term stochastic readings, so that's another thing working for the bulls in this range-bound environment.

You know things are bad when one of the best charts is an airline stock. Delta Air Lines, Inc. (DAL) looks pretty good here after its pullback to moving average support on decreasing volume.

If bottom fishing is your thing you may like the next two charts. The risk/reward on Google Inc. (GOOG) looks pretty good here. It made an NR7 candle today, so that gives a nice, tight range to trade against (buy above, stop below) which also found support at the nice round number of 300. Today's action looks like the market gunning for stops under the October lows. I'd like today's candle even better if it had gone under 300 to trigger any stops in the high 290's...

The setup on Coach, Inc. (COH) is similar to GOOG's -- and there are a lot of other stocks in similar positions. If the indices head back toward the top of their ranges these could get popping pretty quick.

no changes

We've got a flat/mixed open for a change, which may be a good sign given all the angst over the jobs report which was released this morning.

On Today's Calendar:

• 10:00 -- Pending Home Sales
• 10:00 -- Wholesale Inventories

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

Potential swing trades:

Four longs and one short candidate:

99 Cents Only Stores (NDN):

First Solar, Inc. (FLSR):

Barrick Gold Corporation (ABX)

Here are ten charts that stood out to me while going through my swing trade scans. Almost all are short candidates. There are tons of charts like this right now, most of which are short-term overbought and near resistance. Many of these made some kind of bearish candle yesterday (bearish engulfing or some kind of star) or made an NR7. My normal swing trading rules would apply and I wouldn't want to chase any of these very far.

After I covered all of my shorts today I was convinced that I should take tomorrow off and not press my luck. That's because so many stocks seem oversold after all this week's selling. I was also seeing things like the QQQQ breaking its July low, the SOX breaking to a new 5+ year low and the indices and many stocks closing under their lower Bollinger Bands. "Surely the market's due for a bounce here", I was thinking. But once I started looking through the charts tonight I changed my mind. I think there's plenty of room left for even more selling. That's because none of the major indices I track have oversold stochastic reading yet. Even worse T2108 is still above 40. So I went looking to see what hasn't been sold yet. Small caps (IWM), financials (XLF) and homebuilders stood out. If we get more selling I'll be looking for shorts in those areas. Almost everything else seems too prone to snap-back rallies for me to be interested.

On Monday I wrote about the compression of the Multiple Moving Averages (MMAs) on the Nasdaq. SImilar to the range expansion theory that predicts a big movement in price (but not direction). Well, I think we've got our move. You can see that the short-term group of MMAs has now push through the long-term group and is chasing price lower. The compression of the short-term group is no more and the long-term group will likely follow suit.

Here's another shot of the Nasdaq chart:

The QQQQ chart shows that large cap tech has really been sucking wind of late. I'll be watching for a rally attempt at the July intraday low but I suspect that the S&P and/or Nasdaq touching their July lows will be what triggers a serious rally attempt.

The SOX tells the same story with its new 5-year low:

The S&P seems destined for a retest of 1200.

Here are the ETFs that I'll be watching for shorting opportunites if we get more selling in the coming days -- IWM, XLF and XHB. (Others include RKH, ICF, IYR and XLY)

Once again the "downs" are dominating the chart.

Here are some of the better looking swing trade setups I found going through my scans last night. They all happen to be shorts this time. My entry & exit rules are the same as always.

Note: Whenever I post swing trade candidates I always get asked if I've gone back to swing trading. I have not. I'm just posting these b/c I know many of you swing trade. I may day trade some of these if & when they trigger though. I still like to run my scans just to get a better feel for market.

As I see it today was nothing but a battle over control of the 200-day moving averages on the indices. The S&P 500 and Dow popped over their 200s early in the session and were cruising along until selling kicked in just before 2:00. By the close only the Dow remained above its 200 DMA. The Nasdaq and S&P 500 closed just a hair beneath their 200s. The Russell is still lagging a bit. It peaked less than 50 cents from its 200 DMA today before giving in to the late day selling.

It's starting to feel like a real stalemate right here. The bulls are so close to a solid move over these moving averages but there's just no volume. The volume that does show up intraday seems tends to be on these late day selloffs, yet the bears can't do much damage on the longer-term charts. It'll be interesting to see if the "sell in May" trade begins to take place ahead of the Memorial Day weekend. If so, the 200 DMAs would be the perfect places for the indices to peak.

The action in some of the momentum stocks was pretty wild today. Many of the solar plays look like they had blow-off tops today. For example, here's China Sunergy Co., Ltd. (CSUN):

The index charts are below:

Things are looking good for the bulls this morning. Intel had a good earnings report last night and this morning's CPI seems to be a non-factor.

On Today's Calendar:

• 10:30 -- Crude Inventories
• 2:00 -- Fed's Beige Book

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

Potential swing trades:

It's hard to find many stocks that don't have an earnings report due in the next few days but here are a few that caught my eye: Intel Corporation
(INTC), National Semiconductor Corporation (NSM), IKON Office Solutions, Inc. (IKN) and Aftermarket Technology Corp. (ATAC):

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates. Also be sure to check my typical swing trade entry & exit rules.

Potential day trades:

We've got some strength this morning thanks to folks taking the news of even more write-offs in the financial sector as a bullish sign. Go figure...

On Today's Calendar:

• 10:00 -- Construction Spending
• 10:00 -- ISM Index

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

Potential swing trades:

Here are a few charts that caught my eye:

PMC-Sierra, Inc. (PMCS)

Darden Restaurants, Inc. (DRI)

The indices continued their range-bound trading today. The early strength gave way to selling mid-morning. I'm not sure whether to blame it on Obama's economic press conference or technicals -- the Nasdaq approaching its 50-day moving average and the indices hitting last week's range tops. I suspect we will have more of this range trading through Wednesday's Fed decision.

Three sessions ago I said "My guess is that the bulls probably have two or three days of partying in AAPL before it hits the wall and is ripe for renewed selling..." It's been three days and the stock seems to be stalling right at the 50-day moving average. If I was still swing trading I'd have an order set to short it under today's low with a stop above today's high.

We made it through the week filled with bad economic data releases practically unscathed. After all the wild swings the Nasdaq and S&P 500 ended the week down 1.7% and 2.25% respectively. That's not so bad considering how bad the data was and how volatile the market is these days. A 2 percent move can be made in a flash in the current environment.

Here's a shot of the weekly S&P 500 chart which shows the sideways movement of the last 8 weeks.

The S&P daily chart shows that the index just barely broke its September trendline on Friday. That trendline breach along with the inability of sellers to break the market last week make me think that the path of least resistance in the short term is up. The index could rally as far as 1,000 and still just be range-bound though.

It's a similar story for the Nasdaq. I think its likely next targets are 1600 or its 50-day moving average.

The VIX was relatively calm last week and slipped under its 50-day moving average on Friday. It still has a long way to go to get back to normal levels though.

I'm starting to see more charts like BorgWarner Inc. (BWA), which is almost pinned to its 50-day moving average.

Here's another 50-day moving average play -- priceline.com Inc. (PCLN). I like it above the blue trendline.

EMC Corp. (EMC) closed above its 50 DMA for the first time since early September.

Nabors Industries Ltd. (NBR) is a good example of a lot of charts I'm seeing, especially oil stocks. It made a hammer-like candle on Friday after an attempt to breakdown below its 2008 lows. These type of charts seem ripe for bottom fishing (not my thing!) and I'd be tightening up my stops if I was short a stock with a chart like this.

Here's one for the gold bugs. Newmont Mining Corp. (NEM) is very similar to the Priceline setup above. I'm also watching this for a trendline break.

All the short term trends are up again...

It looked like the bulls were going to stage a rally this afternoon but that attempt got squashed just as quickly as it started. The result was more than 2% losses on both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq. Still, the mid-day bounce is encouraging since it shows that people are at least attempting to defend those nice round numbers of 900 and 1,600 on the indices. Both indices now have oversold short-term stochastic readings, so that's another thing working for the bulls in this range-bound environment.

You know things are bad when one of the best charts is an airline stock. Delta Air Lines, Inc. (DAL) looks pretty good here after its pullback to moving average support on decreasing volume.

If bottom fishing is your thing you may like the next two charts. The risk/reward on Google Inc. (GOOG) looks pretty good here. It made an NR7 candle today, so that gives a nice, tight range to trade against (buy above, stop below) which also found support at the nice round number of 300. Today's action looks like the market gunning for stops under the October lows. I'd like today's candle even better if it had gone under 300 to trigger any stops in the high 290's...

The setup on Coach, Inc. (COH) is similar to GOOG's -- and there are a lot of other stocks in similar positions. If the indices head back toward the top of their ranges these could get popping pretty quick.

no changes

We've got a flat/mixed open for a change, which may be a good sign given all the angst over the jobs report which was released this morning.

On Today's Calendar:

• 10:00 -- Pending Home Sales
• 10:00 -- Wholesale Inventories

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

Potential swing trades:

Four longs and one short candidate:

99 Cents Only Stores (NDN):

First Solar, Inc. (FLSR):

Barrick Gold Corporation (ABX)

Here are ten charts that stood out to me while going through my swing trade scans. Almost all are short candidates. There are tons of charts like this right now, most of which are short-term overbought and near resistance. Many of these made some kind of bearish candle yesterday (bearish engulfing or some kind of star) or made an NR7. My normal swing trading rules would apply and I wouldn't want to chase any of these very far.

After I covered all of my shorts today I was convinced that I should take tomorrow off and not press my luck. That's because so many stocks seem oversold after all this week's selling. I was also seeing things like the QQQQ breaking its July low, the SOX breaking to a new 5+ year low and the indices and many stocks closing under their lower Bollinger Bands. "Surely the market's due for a bounce here", I was thinking. But once I started looking through the charts tonight I changed my mind. I think there's plenty of room left for even more selling. That's because none of the major indices I track have oversold stochastic reading yet. Even worse T2108 is still above 40. So I went looking to see what hasn't been sold yet. Small caps (IWM), financials (XLF) and homebuilders stood out. If we get more selling I'll be looking for shorts in those areas. Almost everything else seems too prone to snap-back rallies for me to be interested.

On Monday I wrote about the compression of the Multiple Moving Averages (MMAs) on the Nasdaq. SImilar to the range expansion theory that predicts a big movement in price (but not direction). Well, I think we've got our move. You can see that the short-term group of MMAs has now push through the long-term group and is chasing price lower. The compression of the short-term group is no more and the long-term group will likely follow suit.

Here's another shot of the Nasdaq chart:

The QQQQ chart shows that large cap tech has really been sucking wind of late. I'll be watching for a rally attempt at the July intraday low but I suspect that the S&P and/or Nasdaq touching their July lows will be what triggers a serious rally attempt.

The SOX tells the same story with its new 5-year low:

The S&P seems destined for a retest of 1200.

Here are the ETFs that I'll be watching for shorting opportunites if we get more selling in the coming days -- IWM, XLF and XHB. (Others include RKH, ICF, IYR and XLY)

Once again the "downs" are dominating the chart.

Here are some of the better looking swing trade setups I found going through my scans last night. They all happen to be shorts this time. My entry & exit rules are the same as always.

Note: Whenever I post swing trade candidates I always get asked if I've gone back to swing trading. I have not. I'm just posting these b/c I know many of you swing trade. I may day trade some of these if & when they trigger though. I still like to run my scans just to get a better feel for market.

As I see it today was nothing but a battle over control of the 200-day moving averages on the indices. The S&P 500 and Dow popped over their 200s early in the session and were cruising along until selling kicked in just before 2:00. By the close only the Dow remained above its 200 DMA. The Nasdaq and S&P 500 closed just a hair beneath their 200s. The Russell is still lagging a bit. It peaked less than 50 cents from its 200 DMA today before giving in to the late day selling.

It's starting to feel like a real stalemate right here. The bulls are so close to a solid move over these moving averages but there's just no volume. The volume that does show up intraday seems tends to be on these late day selloffs, yet the bears can't do much damage on the longer-term charts. It'll be interesting to see if the "sell in May" trade begins to take place ahead of the Memorial Day weekend. If so, the 200 DMAs would be the perfect places for the indices to peak.

The action in some of the momentum stocks was pretty wild today. Many of the solar plays look like they had blow-off tops today. For example, here's China Sunergy Co., Ltd. (CSUN):

The index charts are below:

Things are looking good for the bulls this morning. Intel had a good earnings report last night and this morning's CPI seems to be a non-factor.

On Today's Calendar:

• 10:30 -- Crude Inventories
• 2:00 -- Fed's Beige Book

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

Potential swing trades:

It's hard to find many stocks that don't have an earnings report due in the next few days but here are a few that caught my eye: Intel Corporation
(INTC), National Semiconductor Corporation (NSM), IKON Office Solutions, Inc. (IKN) and Aftermarket Technology Corp. (ATAC):

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates. Also be sure to check my typical swing trade entry & exit rules.

Potential day trades:

We've got some strength this morning thanks to folks taking the news of even more write-offs in the financial sector as a bullish sign. Go figure...

On Today's Calendar:

• 10:00 -- Construction Spending
• 10:00 -- ISM Index

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

Potential swing trades:

Here are a few charts that caught my eye:

PMC-Sierra, Inc. (PMCS)

Darden Restaurants, Inc. (DRI)

The indices continued their range-bound trading today. The early strength gave way to selling mid-morning. I'm not sure whether to blame it on Obama's economic press conference or technicals -- the Nasdaq approaching its 50-day moving average and the indices hitting last week's range tops. I suspect we will have more of this range trading through Wednesday's Fed decision.

Three sessions ago I said "My guess is that the bulls probably have two or three days of partying in AAPL before it hits the wall and is ripe for renewed selling..." It's been three days and the stock seems to be stalling right at the 50-day moving average. If I was still swing trading I'd have an order set to short it under today's low with a stop above today's high.

We made it through the week filled with bad economic data releases practically unscathed. After all the wild swings the Nasdaq and S&P 500 ended the week down 1.7% and 2.25% respectively. That's not so bad considering how bad the data was and how volatile the market is these days. A 2 percent move can be made in a flash in the current environment.

Here's a shot of the weekly S&P 500 chart which shows the sideways movement of the last 8 weeks.

The S&P daily chart shows that the index just barely broke its September trendline on Friday. That trendline breach along with the inability of sellers to break the market last week make me think that the path of least resistance in the short term is up. The index could rally as far as 1,000 and still just be range-bound though.

It's a similar story for the Nasdaq. I think its likely next targets are 1600 or its 50-day moving average.

The VIX was relatively calm last week and slipped under its 50-day moving average on Friday. It still has a long way to go to get back to normal levels though.

I'm starting to see more charts like BorgWarner Inc. (BWA), which is almost pinned to its 50-day moving average.

Here's another 50-day moving average play -- priceline.com Inc. (PCLN). I like it above the blue trendline.

EMC Corp. (EMC) closed above its 50 DMA for the first time since early September.

Nabors Industries Ltd. (NBR) is a good example of a lot of charts I'm seeing, especially oil stocks. It made a hammer-like candle on Friday after an attempt to breakdown below its 2008 lows. These type of charts seem ripe for bottom fishing (not my thing!) and I'd be tightening up my stops if I was short a stock with a chart like this.

Here's one for the gold bugs. Newmont Mining Corp. (NEM) is very similar to the Priceline setup above. I'm also watching this for a trendline break.

All the short term trends are up again...

It looked like the bulls were going to stage a rally this afternoon but that attempt got squashed just as quickly as it started. The result was more than 2% losses on both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq. Still, the mid-day bounce is encouraging since it shows that people are at least attempting to defend those nice round numbers of 900 and 1,600 on the indices. Both indices now have oversold short-term stochastic readings, so that's another thing working for the bulls in this range-bound environment.

You know things are bad when one of the best charts is an airline stock. Delta Air Lines, Inc. (DAL) looks pretty good here after its pullback to moving average support on decreasing volume.

If bottom fishing is your thing you may like the next two charts. The risk/reward on Google Inc. (GOOG) looks pretty good here. It made an NR7 candle today, so that gives a nice, tight range to trade against (buy above, stop below) which also found support at the nice round number of 300. Today's action looks like the market gunning for stops under the October lows. I'd like today's candle even better if it had gone under 300 to trigger any stops in the high 290's...

The setup on Coach, Inc. (COH) is similar to GOOG's -- and there are a lot of other stocks in similar positions. If the indices head back toward the top of their ranges these could get popping pretty quick.

no changes

We've got a flat/mixed open for a change, which may be a good sign given all the angst over the jobs report which was released this morning.

On Today's Calendar:

• 10:00 -- Pending Home Sales
• 10:00 -- Wholesale Inventories

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

Potential swing trades:

Four longs and one short candidate:

99 Cents Only Stores (NDN):

First Solar, Inc. (FLSR):

Barrick Gold Corporation (ABX)

Here are ten charts that stood out to me while going through my swing trade scans. Almost all are short candidates. There are tons of charts like this right now, most of which are short-term overbought and near resistance. Many of these made some kind of bearish candle yesterday (bearish engulfing or some kind of star) or made an NR7. My normal swing trading rules would apply and I wouldn't want to chase any of these very far.

After I covered all of my shorts today I was convinced that I should take tomorrow off and not press my luck. That's because so many stocks seem oversold after all this week's selling. I was also seeing things like the QQQQ breaking its July low, the SOX breaking to a new 5+ year low and the indices and many stocks closing under their lower Bollinger Bands. "Surely the market's due for a bounce here", I was thinking. But once I started looking through the charts tonight I changed my mind. I think there's plenty of room left for even more selling. That's because none of the major indices I track have oversold stochastic reading yet. Even worse T2108 is still above 40. So I went looking to see what hasn't been sold yet. Small caps (IWM), financials (XLF) and homebuilders stood out. If we get more selling I'll be looking for shorts in those areas. Almost everything else seems too prone to snap-back rallies for me to be interested.

On Monday I wrote about the compression of the Multiple Moving Averages (MMAs) on the Nasdaq. SImilar to the range expansion theory that predicts a big movement in price (but not direction). Well, I think we've got our move. You can see that the short-term group of MMAs has now push through the long-term group and is chasing price lower. The compression of the short-term group is no more and the long-term group will likely follow suit.

Here's another shot of the Nasdaq chart:

The QQQQ chart shows that large cap tech has really been sucking wind of late. I'll be watching for a rally attempt at the July intraday low but I suspect that the S&P and/or Nasdaq touching their July lows will be what triggers a serious rally attempt.

The SOX tells the same story with its new 5-year low:

The S&P seems destined for a retest of 1200.

Here are the ETFs that I'll be watching for shorting opportunites if we get more selling in the coming days -- IWM, XLF and XHB. (Others include RKH, ICF, IYR and XLY)

Once again the "downs" are dominating the chart.

Here are some of the better looking swing trade setups I found going through my scans last night. They all happen to be shorts this time. My entry & exit rules are the same as always.

Note: Whenever I post swing trade candidates I always get asked if I've gone back to swing trading. I have not. I'm just posting these b/c I know many of you swing trade. I may day trade some of these if & when they trigger though. I still like to run my scans just to get a better feel for market.

As I see it today was nothing but a battle over control of the 200-day moving averages on the indices. The S&P 500 and Dow popped over their 200s early in the session and were cruising along until selling kicked in just before 2:00. By the close only the Dow remained above its 200 DMA. The Nasdaq and S&P 500 closed just a hair beneath their 200s. The Russell is still lagging a bit. It peaked less than 50 cents from its 200 DMA today before giving in to the late day selling.

It's starting to feel like a real stalemate right here. The bulls are so close to a solid move over these moving averages but there's just no volume. The volume that does show up intraday seems tends to be on these late day selloffs, yet the bears can't do much damage on the longer-term charts. It'll be interesting to see if the "sell in May" trade begins to take place ahead of the Memorial Day weekend. If so, the 200 DMAs would be the perfect places for the indices to peak.

The action in some of the momentum stocks was pretty wild today. Many of the solar plays look like they had blow-off tops today. For example, here's China Sunergy Co., Ltd. (CSUN):

The index charts are below:

Things are looking good for the bulls this morning. Intel had a good earnings report last night and this morning's CPI seems to be a non-factor.

On Today's Calendar:

• 10:30 -- Crude Inventories
• 2:00 -- Fed's Beige Book

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

Potential swing trades:

It's hard to find many stocks that don't have an earnings report due in the next few days but here are a few that caught my eye: Intel Corporation
(INTC), National Semiconductor Corporation (NSM), IKON Office Solutions, Inc. (IKN) and Aftermarket Technology Corp. (ATAC):

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates. Also be sure to check my typical swing trade entry & exit rules.

Potential day trades:

We've got some strength this morning thanks to folks taking the news of even more write-offs in the financial sector as a bullish sign. Go figure...

On Today's Calendar:

• 10:00 -- Construction Spending
• 10:00 -- ISM Index

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

Potential swing trades:

Here are a few charts that caught my eye:

PMC-Sierra, Inc. (PMCS)

Darden Restaurants, Inc. (DRI)

The indices continued their range-bound trading today. The early strength gave way to selling mid-morning. I'm not sure whether to blame it on Obama's economic press conference or technicals -- the Nasdaq approaching its 50-day moving average and the indices hitting last week's range tops. I suspect we will have more of this range trading through Wednesday's Fed decision.

Three sessions ago I said "My guess is that the bulls probably have two or three days of partying in AAPL before it hits the wall and is ripe for renewed selling..." It's been three days and the stock seems to be stalling right at the 50-day moving average. If I was still swing trading I'd have an order set to short it under today's low with a stop above today's high.

We made it through the week filled with bad economic data releases practically unscathed. After all the wild swings the Nasdaq and S&P 500 ended the week down 1.7% and 2.25% respectively. That's not so bad considering how bad the data was and how volatile the market is these days. A 2 percent move can be made in a flash in the current environment.

Here's a shot of the weekly S&P 500 chart which shows the sideways movement of the last 8 weeks.

The S&P daily chart shows that the index just barely broke its September trendline on Friday. That trendline breach along with the inability of sellers to break the market last week make me think that the path of least resistance in the short term is up. The index could rally as far as 1,000 and still just be range-bound though.

It's a similar story for the Nasdaq. I think its likely next targets are 1600 or its 50-day moving average.

The VIX was relatively calm last week and slipped under its 50-day moving average on Friday. It still has a long way to go to get back to normal levels though.

I'm starting to see more charts like BorgWarner Inc. (BWA), which is almost pinned to its 50-day moving average.

Here's another 50-day moving average play -- priceline.com Inc. (PCLN). I like it above the blue trendline.

EMC Corp. (EMC) closed above its 50 DMA for the first time since early September.

Nabors Industries Ltd. (NBR) is a good example of a lot of charts I'm seeing, especially oil stocks. It made a hammer-like candle on Friday after an attempt to breakdown below its 2008 lows. These type of charts seem ripe for bottom fishing (not my thing!) and I'd be tightening up my stops if I was short a stock with a chart like this.

Here's one for the gold bugs. Newmont Mining Corp. (NEM) is very similar to the Priceline setup above. I'm also watching this for a trendline break.

All the short term trends are up again...

It looked like the bulls were going to stage a rally this afternoon but that attempt got squashed just as quickly as it started. The result was more than 2% losses on both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq. Still, the mid-day bounce is encouraging since it shows that people are at least attempting to defend those nice round numbers of 900 and 1,600 on the indices. Both indices now have oversold short-term stochastic readings, so that's another thing working for the bulls in this range-bound environment.

You know things are bad when one of the best charts is an airline stock. Delta Air Lines, Inc. (DAL) looks pretty good here after its pullback to moving average support on decreasing volume.

If bottom fishing is your thing you may like the next two charts. The risk/reward on Google Inc. (GOOG) looks pretty good here. It made an NR7 candle today, so that gives a nice, tight range to trade against (buy above, stop below) which also found support at the nice round number of 300. Today's action looks like the market gunning for stops under the October lows. I'd like today's candle even better if it had gone under 300 to trigger any stops in the high 290's...

The setup on Coach, Inc. (COH) is similar to GOOG's -- and there are a lot of other stocks in similar positions. If the indices head back toward the top of their ranges these could get popping pretty quick.

no changes

We've got a flat/mixed open for a change, which may be a good sign given all the angst over the jobs report which was released this morning.

On Today's Calendar:

• 10:00 -- Pending Home Sales
• 10:00 -- Wholesale Inventories

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

Potential swing trades:

Four longs and one short candidate:

99 Cents Only Stores (NDN):

First Solar, Inc. (FLSR):

Barrick Gold Corporation (ABX)

Here are ten charts that stood out to me while going through my swing trade scans. Almost all are short candidates. There are tons of charts like this right now, most of which are short-term overbought and near resistance. Many of these made some kind of bearish candle yesterday (bearish engulfing or some kind of star) or made an NR7. My normal swing trading rules would apply and I wouldn't want to chase any of these very far.

After I covered all of my shorts today I was convinced that I should take tomorrow off and not press my luck. That's because so many stocks seem oversold after all this week's selling. I was also seeing things like the QQQQ breaking its July low, the SOX breaking to a new 5+ year low and the indices and many stocks closing under their lower Bollinger Bands. "Surely the market's due for a bounce here", I was thinking. But once I started looking through the charts tonight I changed my mind. I think there's plenty of room left for even more selling. That's because none of the major indices I track have oversold stochastic reading yet. Even worse T2108 is still above 40. So I went looking to see what hasn't been sold yet. Small caps (IWM), financials (XLF) and homebuilders stood out. If we get more selling I'll be looking for shorts in those areas. Almost everything else seems too prone to snap-back rallies for me to be interested.

On Monday I wrote about the compression of the Multiple Moving Averages (MMAs) on the Nasdaq. SImilar to the range expansion theory that predicts a big movement in price (but not direction). Well, I think we've got our move. You can see that the short-term group of MMAs has now push through the long-term group and is chasing price lower. The compression of the short-term group is no more and the long-term group will likely follow suit.

Here's another shot of the Nasdaq chart:

The QQQQ chart shows that large cap tech has really been sucking wind of late. I'll be watching for a rally attempt at the July intraday low but I suspect that the S&P and/or Nasdaq touching their July lows will be what triggers a serious rally attempt.

The SOX tells the same story with its new 5-year low:

The S&P seems destined for a retest of 1200.

Here are the ETFs that I'll be watching for shorting opportunites if we get more selling in the coming days -- IWM, XLF and XHB. (Others include RKH, ICF, IYR and XLY)

Once again the "downs" are dominating the chart.

Here are some of the better looking swing trade setups I found going through my scans last night. They all happen to be shorts this time. My entry & exit rules are the same as always.

Note: Whenever I post swing trade candidates I always get asked if I've gone back to swing trading. I have not. I'm just posting these b/c I know many of you swing trade. I may day trade some of these if & when they trigger though. I still like to run my scans just to get a better feel for market.

As I see it today was nothing but a battle over control of the 200-day moving averages on the indices. The S&P 500 and Dow popped over their 200s early in the session and were cruising along until selling kicked in just before 2:00. By the close only the Dow remained above its 200 DMA. The Nasdaq and S&P 500 closed just a hair beneath their 200s. The Russell is still lagging a bit. It peaked less than 50 cents from its 200 DMA today before giving in to the late day selling.

It's starting to feel like a real stalemate right here. The bulls are so close to a solid move over these moving averages but there's just no volume. The volume that does show up intraday seems tends to be on these late day selloffs, yet the bears can't do much damage on the longer-term charts. It'll be interesting to see if the "sell in May" trade begins to take place ahead of the Memorial Day weekend. If so, the 200 DMAs would be the perfect places for the indices to peak.

The action in some of the momentum stocks was pretty wild today. Many of the solar plays look like they had blow-off tops today. For example, here's China Sunergy Co., Ltd. (CSUN):

The index charts are below:

Things are looking good for the bulls this morning. Intel had a good earnings report last night and this morning's CPI seems to be a non-factor.

On Today's Calendar:

• 10:30 -- Crude Inventories
• 2:00 -- Fed's Beige Book

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

Potential swing trades:

It's hard to find many stocks that don't have an earnings report due in the next few days but here are a few that caught my eye: Intel Corporation
(INTC), National Semiconductor Corporation (NSM), IKON Office Solutions, Inc. (IKN) and Aftermarket Technology Corp. (ATAC):

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates. Also be sure to check my typical swing trade entry & exit rules.

Potential day trades:

We've got some strength this morning thanks to folks taking the news of even more write-offs in the financial sector as a bullish sign. Go figure...

On Today's Calendar:

• 10:00 -- Construction Spending
• 10:00 -- ISM Index

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

Potential swing trades:

Here are a few charts that caught my eye:

PMC-Sierra, Inc. (PMCS)

Darden Restaurants, Inc. (DRI)

The indices continued their range-bound trading today. The early strength gave way to selling mid-morning. I'm not sure whether to blame it on Obama's economic press conference or technicals -- the Nasdaq approaching its 50-day moving average and the indices hitting last week's range tops. I suspect we will have more of this range trading through Wednesday's Fed decision.

Three sessions ago I said "My guess is that the bulls probably have two or three days of partying in AAPL before it hits the wall and is ripe for renewed selling..." It's been three days and the stock seems to be stalling right at the 50-day moving average. If I was still swing trading I'd have an order set to short it under today's low with a stop above today's high.

We made it through the week filled with bad economic data releases practically unscathed. After all the wild swings the Nasdaq and S&P 500 ended the week down 1.7% and 2.25% respectively. That's not so bad considering how bad the data was and how volatile the market is these days. A 2 percent move can be made in a flash in the current environment.

Here's a shot of the weekly S&P 500 chart which shows the sideways movement of the last 8 weeks.

The S&P daily chart shows that the index just barely broke its September trendline on Friday. That trendline breach along with the inability of sellers to break the market last week make me think that the path of least resistance in the short term is up. The index could rally as far as 1,000 and still just be range-bound though.

It's a similar story for the Nasdaq. I think its likely next targets are 1600 or its 50-day moving average.

The VIX was relatively calm last week and slipped under its 50-day moving average on Friday. It still has a long way to go to get back to normal levels though.

I'm starting to see more charts like BorgWarner Inc. (BWA), which is almost pinned to its 50-day moving average.

Here's another 50-day moving average play -- priceline.com Inc. (PCLN). I like it above the blue trendline.

EMC Corp. (EMC) closed above its 50 DMA for the first time since early September.

Nabors Industries Ltd. (NBR) is a good example of a lot of charts I'm seeing, especially oil stocks. It made a hammer-like candle on Friday after an attempt to breakdown below its 2008 lows. These type of charts seem ripe for bottom fishing (not my thing!) and I'd be tightening up my stops if I was short a stock with a chart like this.

Here's one for the gold bugs. Newmont Mining Corp. (NEM) is very similar to the Priceline setup above. I'm also watching this for a trendline break.

All the short term trends are up again...

It looked like the bulls were going to stage a rally this afternoon but that attempt got squashed just as quickly as it started. The result was more than 2% losses on both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq. Still, the mid-day bounce is encouraging since it shows that people are at least attempting to defend those nice round numbers of 900 and 1,600 on the indices. Both indices now have oversold short-term stochastic readings, so that's another thing working for the bulls in this range-bound environment.

You know things are bad when one of the best charts is an airline stock. Delta Air Lines, Inc. (DAL) looks pretty good here after its pullback to moving average support on decreasing volume.

If bottom fishing is your thing you may like the next two charts. The risk/reward on Google Inc. (GOOG) looks pretty good here. It made an NR7 candle today, so that gives a nice, tight range to trade against (buy above, stop below) which also found support at the nice round number of 300. Today's action looks like the market gunning for stops under the October lows. I'd like today's candle even better if it had gone under 300 to trigger any stops in the high 290's...

The setup on Coach, Inc. (COH) is similar to GOOG's -- and there are a lot of other stocks in similar positions. If the indices head back toward the top of their ranges these could get popping pretty quick.

no changes

We've got a flat/mixed open for a change, which may be a good sign given all the angst over the jobs report which was released this morning.

On Today's Calendar:

• 10:00 -- Pending Home Sales
• 10:00 -- Wholesale Inventories

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

Potential swing trades:

Four longs and one short candidate:

99 Cents Only Stores (NDN):

First Solar, Inc. (FLSR):

Barrick Gold Corporation (ABX)

Here are ten charts that stood out to me while going through my swing trade scans. Almost all are short candidates. There are tons of charts like this right now, most of which are short-term overbought and near resistance. Many of these made some kind of bearish candle yesterday (bearish engulfing or some kind of star) or made an NR7. My normal swing trading rules would apply and I wouldn't want to chase any of these very far.

After I covered all of my shorts today I was convinced that I should take tomorrow off and not press my luck. That's because so many stocks seem oversold after all this week's selling. I was also seeing things like the QQQQ breaking its July low, the SOX breaking to a new 5+ year low and the indices and many stocks closing under their lower Bollinger Bands. "Surely the market's due for a bounce here", I was thinking. But once I started looking through the charts tonight I changed my mind. I think there's plenty of room left for even more selling. That's because none of the major indices I track have oversold stochastic reading yet. Even worse T2108 is still above 40. So I went looking to see what hasn't been sold yet. Small caps (IWM), financials (XLF) and homebuilders stood out. If we get more selling I'll be looking for shorts in those areas. Almost everything else seems too prone to snap-back rallies for me to be interested.

On Monday I wrote about the compression of the Multiple Moving Averages (MMAs) on the Nasdaq. SImilar to the range expansion theory that predicts a big movement in price (but not direction). Well, I think we've got our move. You can see that the short-term group of MMAs has now push through the long-term group and is chasing price lower. The compression of the short-term group is no more and the long-term group will likely follow suit.

Here's another shot of the Nasdaq chart:

The QQQQ chart shows that large cap tech has really been sucking wind of late. I'll be watching for a rally attempt at the July intraday low but I suspect that the S&P and/or Nasdaq touching their July lows will be what triggers a serious rally attempt.

The SOX tells the same story with its new 5-year low:

The S&P seems destined for a retest of 1200.

Here are the ETFs that I'll be watching for shorting opportunites if we get more selling in the coming days -- IWM, XLF and XHB. (Others include RKH, ICF, IYR and XLY)

Once again the "downs" are dominating the chart.

Here are some of the better looking swing trade setups I found going through my scans last night. They all happen to be shorts this time. My entry & exit rules are the same as always.

Note: Whenever I post swing trade candidates I always get asked if I've gone back to swing trading. I have not. I'm just posting these b/c I know many of you swing trade. I may day trade some of these if & when they trigger though. I still like to run my scans just to get a better feel for market.

As I see it today was nothing but a battle over control of the 200-day moving averages on the indices. The S&P 500 and Dow popped over their 200s early in the session and were cruising along until selling kicked in just before 2:00. By the close only the Dow remained above its 200 DMA. The Nasdaq and S&P 500 closed just a hair beneath their 200s. The Russell is still lagging a bit. It peaked less than 50 cents from its 200 DMA today before giving in to the late day selling.

It's starting to feel like a real stalemate right here. The bulls are so close to a solid move over these moving averages but there's just no volume. The volume that does show up intraday seems tends to be on these late day selloffs, yet the bears can't do much damage on the longer-term charts. It'll be interesting to see if the "sell in May" trade begins to take place ahead of the Memorial Day weekend. If so, the 200 DMAs would be the perfect places for the indices to peak.

The action in some of the momentum stocks was pretty wild today. Many of the solar plays look like they had blow-off tops today. For example, here's China Sunergy Co., Ltd. (CSUN):

The index charts are below:

Things are looking good for the bulls this morning. Intel had a good earnings report last night and this morning's CPI seems to be a non-factor.

On Today's Calendar:

• 10:30 -- Crude Inventories
• 2:00 -- Fed's Beige Book

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

Potential swing trades:

It's hard to find many stocks that don't have an earnings report due in the next few days but here are a few that caught my eye: Intel Corporation
(INTC), National Semiconductor Corporation (NSM), IKON Office Solutions, Inc. (IKN) and Aftermarket Technology Corp. (ATAC):

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates. Also be sure to check my typical swing trade entry & exit rules.

Potential day trades:

We've got some strength this morning thanks to folks taking the news of even more write-offs in the financial sector as a bullish sign. Go figure...

On Today's Calendar:

• 10:00 -- Construction Spending
• 10:00 -- ISM Index

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

Potential swing trades:

Here are a few charts that caught my eye:

PMC-Sierra, Inc. (PMCS)

Darden Restaurants, Inc. (DRI)

The indices continued their range-bound trading today. The early strength gave way to selling mid-morning. I'm not sure whether to blame it on Obama's economic press conference or technicals -- the Nasdaq approaching its 50-day moving average and the indices hitting last week's range tops. I suspect we will have more of this range trading through Wednesday's Fed decision.

Three sessions ago I said "My guess is that the bulls probably have two or three days of partying in AAPL before it hits the wall and is ripe for renewed selling..." It's been three days and the stock seems to be stalling right at the 50-day moving average. If I was still swing trading I'd have an order set to short it under today's low with a stop above today's high.

We made it through the week filled with bad economic data releases practically unscathed. After all the wild swings the Nasdaq and S&P 500 ended the week down 1.7% and 2.25% respectively. That's not so bad considering how bad the data was and how volatile the market is these days. A 2 percent move can be made in a flash in the current environment.

Here's a shot of the weekly S&P 500 chart which shows the sideways movement of the last 8 weeks.

The S&P daily chart shows that the index just barely broke its September trendline on Friday. That trendline breach along with the inability of sellers to break the market last week make me think that the path of least resistance in the short term is up. The index could rally as far as 1,000 and still just be range-bound though.

It's a similar story for the Nasdaq. I think its likely next targets are 1600 or its 50-day moving average.

The VIX was relatively calm last week and slipped under its 50-day moving average on Friday. It still has a long way to go to get back to normal levels though.

I'm starting to see more charts like BorgWarner Inc. (BWA), which is almost pinned to its 50-day moving average.

Here's another 50-day moving average play -- priceline.com Inc. (PCLN). I like it above the blue trendline.

EMC Corp. (EMC) closed above its 50 DMA for the first time since early September.

Nabors Industries Ltd. (NBR) is a good example of a lot of charts I'm seeing, especially oil stocks. It made a hammer-like candle on Friday after an attempt to breakdown below its 2008 lows. These type of charts seem ripe for bottom fishing (not my thing!) and I'd be tightening up my stops if I was short a stock with a chart like this.

Here's one for the gold bugs. Newmont Mining Corp. (NEM) is very similar to the Priceline setup above. I'm also watching this for a trendline break.

All the short term trends are up again...

It looked like the bulls were going to stage a rally this afternoon but that attempt got squashed just as quickly as it started. The result was more than 2% losses on both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq. Still, the mid-day bounce is encouraging since it shows that people are at least attempting to defend those nice round numbers of 900 and 1,600 on the indices. Both indices now have oversold short-term stochastic readings, so that's another thing working for the bulls in this range-bound environment.

You know things are bad when one of the best charts is an airline stock. Delta Air Lines, Inc. (DAL) looks pretty good here after its pullback to moving average support on decreasing volume.

If bottom fishing is your thing you may like the next two charts. The risk/reward on Google Inc. (GOOG) looks pretty good here. It made an NR7 candle today, so that gives a nice, tight range to trade against (buy above, stop below) which also found support at the nice round number of 300. Today's action looks like the market gunning for stops under the October lows. I'd like today's candle even better if it had gone under 300 to trigger any stops in the high 290's...

The setup on Coach, Inc. (COH) is similar to GOOG's -- and there are a lot of other stocks in similar positions. If the indices head back toward the top of their ranges these could get popping pretty quick.

no changes

We've got a flat/mixed open for a change, which may be a good sign given all the angst over the jobs report which was released this morning.

On Today's Calendar:

• 10:00 -- Pending Home Sales
• 10:00 -- Wholesale Inventories

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

Potential swing trades:

Four longs and one short candidate:

99 Cents Only Stores (NDN):

First Solar, Inc. (FLSR):

Barrick Gold Corporation (ABX)

Here are ten charts that stood out to me while going through my swing trade scans. Almost all are short candidates. There are tons of charts like this right now, most of which are short-term overbought and near resistance. Many of these made some kind of bearish candle yesterday (bearish engulfing or some kind of star) or made an NR7. My normal swing trading rules would apply and I wouldn't want to chase any of these very far.

After I covered all of my shorts today I was convinced that I should take tomorrow off and not press my luck. That's because so many stocks seem oversold after all this week's selling. I was also seeing things like the QQQQ breaking its July low, the SOX breaking to a new 5+ year low and the indices and many stocks closing under their lower Bollinger Bands. "Surely the market's due for a bounce here", I was thinking. But once I started looking through the charts tonight I changed my mind. I think there's plenty of room left for even more selling. That's because none of the major indices I track have oversold stochastic reading yet. Even worse T2108 is still above 40. So I went looking to see what hasn't been sold yet. Small caps (IWM), financials (XLF) and homebuilders stood out. If we get more selling I'll be looking for shorts in those areas. Almost everything else seems too prone to snap-back rallies for me to be interested.

On Monday I wrote about the compression of the Multiple Moving Averages (MMAs) on the Nasdaq. SImilar to the range expansion theory that predicts a big movement in price (but not direction). Well, I think we've got our move. You can see that the short-term group of MMAs has now push through the long-term group and is chasing price lower. The compression of the short-term group is no more and the long-term group will likely follow suit.

Here's another shot of the Nasdaq chart:

The QQQQ chart shows that large cap tech has really been sucking wind of late. I'll be watching for a rally attempt at the July intraday low but I suspect that the S&P and/or Nasdaq touching their July lows will be what triggers a serious rally attempt.

The SOX tells the same story with its new 5-year low:

The S&P seems destined for a retest of 1200.

Here are the ETFs that I'll be watching for shorting opportunites if we get more selling in the coming days -- IWM, XLF and XHB. (Others include RKH, ICF, IYR and XLY)

Once again the "downs" are dominating the chart.

Here are some of the better looking swing trade setups I found going through my scans last night. They all happen to be shorts this time. My entry & exit rules are the same as always.

Note: Whenever I post swing trade candidates I always get asked if I've gone back to swing trading. I have not. I'm just posting these b/c I know many of you swing trade. I may day trade some of these if & when they trigger though. I still like to run my scans just to get a better feel for market.

As I see it today was nothing but a battle over control of the 200-day moving averages on the indices. The S&P 500 and Dow popped over their 200s early in the session and were cruising along until selling kicked in just before 2:00. By the close only the Dow remained above its 200 DMA. The Nasdaq and S&P 500 closed just a hair beneath their 200s. The Russell is still lagging a bit. It peaked less than 50 cents from its 200 DMA today before giving in to the late day selling.

It's starting to feel like a real stalemate right here. The bulls are so close to a solid move over these moving averages but there's just no volume. The volume that does show up intraday seems tends to be on these late day selloffs, yet the bears can't do much damage on the longer-term charts. It'll be interesting to see if the "sell in May" trade begins to take place ahead of the Memorial Day weekend. If so, the 200 DMAs would be the perfect places for the indices to peak.

The action in some of the momentum stocks was pretty wild today. Many of the solar plays look like they had blow-off tops today. For example, here's China Sunergy Co., Ltd. (CSUN):

The index charts are below:

Things are looking good for the bulls this morning. Intel had a good earnings report last night and this morning's CPI seems to be a non-factor.

On Today's Calendar:

• 10:30 -- Crude Inventories
• 2:00 -- Fed's Beige Book

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

Potential swing trades:

It's hard to find many stocks that don't have an earnings report due in the next few days but here are a few that caught my eye: Intel Corporation
(INTC), National Semiconductor Corporation (NSM), IKON Office Solutions, Inc. (IKN) and Aftermarket Technology Corp. (ATAC):

See one of the recent 'Chart Reading' posts for some potential swing candidates. Also be sure to check my typical swing trade entry & exit rules.

Potential day trades:

We've got some strength this morning thanks to folks taking the news of even more write-offs in the financial sector as a bullish sign. Go figure...

On Today's Calendar:

• 10:00 -- Construction Spending
• 10:00 -- ISM Index

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

Potential swing trades:

Here are a few charts that caught my eye:

PMC-Sierra, Inc. (PMCS)

Darden Restaurants, Inc. (DRI)