Member-only content. Please Login or get a free trial of Rick's Picks to view.
From the monthly archives:
February 2011
So much for our stink bid. For now, we’ll put aside plans to buy the stock, since we should prefer to do so on weakness. For what it’s worth, there’s a Hiden Pivot at 37.02 that seems likely to show some stopping power. It lies just a nickel above yesterday’s high. ______ UPDATE (11:05): My apologies for not supplying a minimum rally target above 37.02, since the 38.62 achieved thus far was almost precisely predictable via the coordinates (on the 60-minute chart): A=30.560, B=35.550, C=33.600, for C=38.59. _______ FURTHER UPDATE: Wow! Because SLW has blown past the target by 15 cents, let me put a more important one in play: 45.01. Its provenance and pedigree are shown in the chart, along with a ‘p’ midpoint at 36.93 that until this morning had precisely contained the uptrend for three days.
Member-only content. Please Login or get a free trial of Rick's Picks to view.
If you used the very tight, 1.00-point stop loss advised, you’re short from 1339.25 and have covered half the position at 1336.25. (This action was purely mechanical, based on a risk:reward of 1:3 held constant throughout the trade. Since initial theoretical risk was 1.00, we needed at least 3.00 points of favorable movement before we took our first partial profit.) For your further guidance, I’ll assume two contracts remain. Cover one at 1333.50, but tie the bid to a one-cancels-other order buy-stopping two contracts at 1340.25. On a profit-adjusted basis, we are short the two contracts with a 1342.25 basis. If you initiated the trade on a single contract, use a 1340.25 stop-loss, switching to a 2.50-point trailing stop and a 1327.00 minimum target if 1332.25 is touched. We will re-short if the futures surge to 1356.00, but the trade should be initiated using camouflage. Unofficially, however, you can use a 1357.75 stop-loss. ______ UPDATE (10:48 a.m. EST): We exited the position six minutes ago, buying back the shorts at 1340.25 for a theoretical gain of $200. Next stop for this meth-crazed Mother of All Bear Rallies: 1356.00.
Member-only content. Please Login or get a free trial of Rick's Picks to view.
Member-only content. Please Login or get a free trial of Rick's Picks to view.
Member-only content. Please Login or get a free trial of Rick's Picks to view.
Member-only content. Please Login or get a free trial of Rick's Picks to view.
The April contract finished well below the day’s highs, but not before re-energizing the bull trend by surpassing an ‘external’ peak at 1380.60 recorded January 19 on the way down. It would take a dip below 1344.10 to negate the bullish implications of yesterday’s thrust, but otherwise we can use as our minimum upside objective a Hidden Pivot at 1394.80 whose provenance is shown in the chart.
Bankruptcy of Borders Darkens ‘Recovery’ Story
by Rick Ackerman on February 18, 2011 12:01 am GMT · 63 comments
Every time we read or hear about the supposed economic recovery, or about how the Fed has raised its “growth” target for the next quarter, we are reminded that the nation’s retail sector — like its real estate sector — remains an absolute, unmitigated, Katie-bar-the-door disaster. Yesterday it got even worse when Borders Group declared bankruptcy. This is bad news for those who love books, of course, since the firm’s megastores, which average about 25,000 square feet in size, are a great place to browse. But it is even worse news for mall operators who count Borders as a major tenant. In the Boulder, Colorado, area where we live, there were three giant Borders stores until a few years ago, when one in the heart of the city’s shopping district closed. The space has remained vacant ever since, a drain on the owner — but also a huge dead zone on a street where retailers are struggling to survive. » Read the full article