There is only one long tonight in all of my long scans which is impressive in and of itself as the market has been nothing short of disappointing so far, since the follow-through day. Not only do you normally have a lot of very bullish, green, and round chart patterns by now, on up days, if we were actually at a firm bottom, I also find them on the down days on low volume in my scans. Guess what I didn’t find yesterday or today? A LOT OF HOT AND GREEN LONGS. That is right; they still do not exist and therefore with today’s lame action I would start to get cautious already. Not only that the four big positions I am carrying have two that already are making me nervous. BRKR and BKE are NOT acting anywhere near what I expected. I thought, even without max green BOP for a long time and with short bases, that the patterns were strong enough. So far I am being proven that I am a little right and a little more wrong. So the fact that those two hotties can not immediately explode higher and BRKR can’t keep the max green is disturbing to me. They should both be up 2-5% by now, if this market was OK. That combined with action in stocks like WFR, WDC, and RBN which were all three leading is very troubling. Therefore the mantra that I have been preaching since late-January continues to be my M.O. now: CASH IS KING. It is so king in fact that I am at my highest cash position (68.5%) since May 2002. How has that been working out? Well, since 1/17/08 the NYSE has moved a whopping -0.02%. I wonder how many traders are down more than 0.02%? And cash isn’t king? No! IT IS VERY MUCH KING!!
new speculative Featured long position: HA
HA is bouncing right off the 50 day moving average, putting in a very bullish intraday reversal, closing at its HOD, on very strong volume. The stock has been very pretty since late September when strong volume and green BOP sent the stock higher. It moved into a flat base with a few shakeouts in January as it created the base with a lot of green BOP. Sadly in March, the pattern detierorated and the stock started to fall toward the 200 DMA on average volume. However, it found support right above the line and bounced on very strong accumulation with BOP going green the first day and max green the second day. It continues to dance on the line but the HOD close above all the January and February resistance should be very bullish and if the stock doesn’t get moving right away we will know we are wrong and it is not time to get long. Aloha Air just went bankrupt and if this company takes their orders they will have a monopoly on Hawaii air travel. This should make them a lot of money and if you have not looked they already are doing that. The fundamentals are getting better, with EPS growing 156% and 135% the past two quarters, sales growing 1%, 9%, 18%, and 14% the past four quarters, a ROE of 6%, and an SMR rating of D. Estimates for 2009 are for a .50 cent YOY gain so things are looking up. Cut your loss with a close below the 50 day moving average, if the stock does not move higher immediately.
