Posts Tagged ‘RTH’

Swing Trading Week in Review – March 5, 2010

Friday, March 5th, 2010

And UP we go again!

Last week we said we were hopeful that the market would give us a clear direction and this week it did exactly that!

Last Thursday's price action had us looking to the LONG side and this week started off on Monday with a nice UP day letting us know we were on the right side of the market.

The market stalled a little mid week but by Thursday the buyers stepped in again and pushed the market higher right until the close on Friday!

The rally was wide spread with most sectors having nice gains this week.

Retail (RTH), Real Estate (IYR), and the Steel (SLX) sectors continued their strong runs.

Several stocks in these sectors had GREAT price and volume patterns that lead to some very nice swing trade set ups!

X, AKS, KIM, O, TIF, and JCG all are good examples of these set ups.

The Financials (XLF) and the Homebuilders (XHB) also rallied nicely allowing us to take some profits in these sectors by weeks end.

So how do we look going into next week?

After such a nice strong run up this week we see some stocks that are approaching short term overbought levels as well coming up to overhead resistance areas.

As Swing Traders its our job to identify the clues that the market gives us and to put all the pieces of the puzzle together to make a decision.

We the fast run up in these stocks, combined with short term overbought conditions AND coming into OBVIOUS overhead resistance it would be smart to tighten up your stops at this point to protect your open profits.

Some of our more recent positions are just starting to move into positive territory but the positions we opened at the end of last week we will be quick to exit at the first sign of weakness.

Do NOT chase the market up!

If we continue to rally sit on the sidelines and wait for the market to either pullback a bit or at least consolidate near the highs.

Be patient and wait for the low risk/ high reward opportunities…you will be glad you did!

Until next week…Good trading to YOU!

 

 

 

Swing Trading Week in Review – February 26, 2010

Friday, February 26th, 2010

A pullback in market this week but what an interesting pullback it was!

The markets opened this week with a low volume lackluster Monday.

Tuesday the market popped out of the gate but quickly rolled over confirming the retrace was underway.

As we noted last week we entered into several new SHORT positions by the close on Friday.

These SHORT positions (AMSC comes to mind) sold off nicely with the market and we booked profits on most of these trades.

Wednesday price "stalled" on low trading volume again creating an "inside day".

Then on Thursday things got a little interesting…

The market gapped down BIG TIME on Thursday but buyers stepped in and the market rallied strong and closed near the high of the day on BIG VOLUME.

Then the week finished off with a low range, choppy day on Friday.

A few interesting things to note here.

During this most recent pullback we saw the buyers step into the market when prices retraced "far enough" and drove prices right back up.

There was only one day, Tuesday, when the market closed BELOW the swing high of 10314.84 that was put in on February 2nd.

We told you last week that until the week shows us which way its going we will continue to play both sides of the market.

Thursday's price action had us looking to the LONG side and we were able to find several strong stocks with chart patterns that were just too good to pass up!

One sector really shined that really shined this week?

RETAIL!

Yes retail…the RTH…broke its DOWN TREND CHANNEL last week and after a mere one day pullback on Tuesday it rallied nicely right into Friday.

RTH - Retail Sector ETF

TIF, M, HD and ANN all had nice UP moves this week.

On the other end of the spectrum is the SOLAR sector.

The SOLAR ETF, symbol TAN, continued its downward spiral finishing just off the low of year.

TAN - SOLAR ETF

So once again we find ourselves at a crossroads.

UP or DOWN?

LONG or SHORT?

Want our opinion?

We say….WHO CARES!

Have a great trading plan in place and be prepared for whichever way the market goes from here.

If you are getting whipsawed in this current environment then reduce your trading size or even sit on the sidelines until YOU see the trading set ups that make the most sense to YOU and your trading style!

Hopefully next week we can get some follow through one way or the other.

Until next week…Good Trading to YOU!

 

 

 

 


Swing Trading Week in Review – February 12, 2010

Friday, February 12th, 2010

DOWNUPDOWNwait noUP!

Wow! What a roller coaster this week has been.

Well after last Friday's reversal day (Hammer in candlestick terms) we knew we would we in for an interesting week this week.

Would buyers step back into the market and drive it higher?

Or would the sellers regain control and push the market back down?

Well after all is said and done the market finished up a mere 87 points ( under 1%) for the WEEK.

Not very impressive!

This week the market appears to have simply put in a retrace in a longer term down trend.

DIA Swing Trading Chart

As you see from the chart of the Diamonds (DOW ETF) we are trading well under the 50 day SMA.

We havent traded BELOW the 50 day SMA for this many days since MARCH of last year!

A bearish sign?

We believe so, but as always, we don't want to try to PREDICT what the market will do.

As Swing Traders we simply want to ANTICIPATE what it will do and hopefully take the appropriate and profitable action in time.

A few sectors ETF's, XLF (Financials), RTH (Retail), XLE (Energy), OIH (Oil Services), still look very weak in the short term.

Some sector ETF's however are showing some interesting chart patterns.

The Homebuilders ETF (XHB) is trading ABOVE its 50 day SMA and has held up quite well during the recent down move in the market.

XHB Homebuilders ETF

Stocks like PHM, DHI, MTH, TOL and LEN had decent gains this week.

We aren't sure, of course, if this strength will continue in this sector but we have some small gains already "locked in" so we will trail our stops accordingly.

There has also been some individual names on our watch list that have performed quite well this week.

ASH, CMI, G, AAP and DLB have all done well while RIMM has been a rock star!

Its very hard to get aggressive to the LONG side when the market is acting the way it is.

So while we continue to have a SHORT bias we take a few LONG positions in strong stocks just in case the market continue to move up.

On the SHORT side there are a TON of charts showing potential SHORT swing trade set ups.

Regardless of what the market does next week we will be ready!

Until next week…Good trading to YOU!

 

Off to a good start for 2010

Saturday, January 9th, 2010

So the New Year started off with a bang!

The markets continued to show tremendous strength during the first trading week of 2010.

The Dow opened the the week at 10,430 and never looked back, closing up 1.8% at 10,618!

The S&P 500 was up 2.7% for the week and closed at 1144.

Some of the sectors were absolutely on fire!

Steel stocks were on a roll and stocks like X, AKS, STLD, and NUE all had a big  week.

SLX, the Market Vector Steel ETF, finished up almost 10% for the week.

Energy and Oil stocks also continued to rise with stocks like BHI, DO, RIG,and APC having great weeks.

OIH was up over 11% for the week while XLE finished up almost 6%.

The heavily watched financial and home builder sectors also show some very nice upside moves.

The home builders had some great swing trade set ups.

XHB closed up over 7% for the week after breaking out from a nice pattern on the daily chart.

PHM, LEN, DHI and MTH all finished the week up nicely.

Swing traders should have capitalized on the financials as GS, JPM , and WFC all had BIG weeks after breaking their respective DOWN TREND lines.

Casinos, Airlines and Solar stocks also had a great week

Some of the other sectors, however did not fare very well during this strong week in the market.

The retail sector had a weak showing with a few exceptions like RL and BBBY.

The Real Estate sector also had a weak showing with IYR only up a tad over break even for the week.

There were plenty of opportunities for Swing Traders to profit from last weeks action and we hope you were able to do just that!

We look forward to see what next week brings and Good Trading to you!

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