ABT

My friend Richard 'Doc' Postma reminded me the other day that Alcoa, always among the first big companies to report earnings, has traditionally been a pretty good mine canary when it came to warning investors of weak quarterly earnings. If bad news concerning Q1 does indeed lie just ahead, the stock has gotten quite a jump on the broad averages, which have been acting as though investors didn't have a care in the world. Alcoa has fallen by 25% since early February, reflecting global weakness and oversupply in the aluminum business. Judging from the look of the weekly chart (see inset), any rally would be an enticing short sale. Assuming the 'Alcoa indicator' has done its job, Wall Street will have no excuse when the bad numbers start rolling in.  With earnings due out April 8, the stock looks primed to rally as other stocks fall -- a case of sell-the-rumor, buy the news. This point was made by a trader in the chat room who noticed that the lesser charts look more bullish than the weekly shown.

So many dot-com stocks are so pumped with hubris and hot air that I seldom talk about the group in my commentary, other than disparagingly.  Nor would I deign to recommend the shares of any company, such as Twitter, whose profit model I don’t fully understand.  Not so,  Snipp Interactive, a Canadian-listed (CVE symbol: SPN) mobile-marketing firm worthy of your attention if for no other reason than that its core business is one that is easy to grasp.  If you’ve ever applied for a product rebate, you’ll know how frustrating the process can be. First you fill out a form, clip out a bar-code label and  some packaging material, and mail them to a rebate center. Then you wait for perhaps six to eight weeks or even longer, often to learn (as I have, more than once) that your effort has been rejected because you overlooked some small detail. Enter Snipp, with a cloud-based solution with the potential to leverage the increasing use of mobile devices by shoppers. Snipp’s methods are so customer-friendly that the company has begun to get traction with such corporate giants as Walmart, Burger King, Guinness, Electronic Arts, ESPN and Lexus. (For a brief demonstration of Snipp’s services and methods click here, then follow the links that interest you.)  A particularly appealing aspect of Snipp-powered promotions is that shoppers don’t need a special phone-based application to take advantage, only the ability to text and/or snap a photo. Success Metrics in Real Time As for Snipp’s growing list of clients, they can find out in real time who the customer is, what he or she is buying, and where -- all without the need to set up promotions in advance with the vendor.  Thus are Snipp’s corporate customers able to create a wide variety of mobile promotions,

We like Amazon shares as much as the next guy, although we're not too keen on what the retail landscape is going to look like in a decade, when this company has finally succeeded in destroying all competition.  So what is the stock up to as the broad averages continue to show signs of a major topping process?  The picture-perfect pattern shown implies that a fall of at least $15, or 5.7 percent, over the near-term is very likely if p is beached decisively. Traders should position from the short side on a breach of the 259.75 midpoint. It was penetrated by a dime at yesterday's low, but that is not yet enough for us to infer that a further fall to its 'D sibling, 245.21, is a done deal.  That last number will of course be a good place to try bottom-fishing with a very tight stop-loss, regardless of what our expectations are at the time for the broad averages. _______ UPDATE (2:16 p.m. EST):  Chat-roomers appear to be taking shots at getting short in this stock today, but the recommendation above wasn't meant to be implemented in shoot-from-the-hip fashion.  To give you an idea of how subtle an entry opportunity you should be looking for, and to allow you to determine whether your technique is up to speed, here is the first short I was able to find that was signaled on the one-minute chart via a pattern that meets all of our rules: A=259.19 at 11:00 a.m. EST; B=257.36 at 11:09 a.m.; and C=258.10 at 11:10 a.m.

The stock has been on a tear this week, but I'd be surprised if it's because the cud-chewing herd has caught the bullish scent of factors cited in yesterday's commentary.  We'll sit back for now, since the 6.76 bear market target identified in yesterday's commentary still looks pretty compelling. If the stock impulses above the 14.97 peak recorded on November 16, though, we may have to jump in.  Meanwhile, the chart shows a 14.52 rally target in prospect if its sibling midpoint at 13.59 is swept aside. _____ UPDATE (December 7, 12:40 a.m. EST): The stock has relapsed after having rallied no higher than 13.49. (Please note: The "Last Price" will always be the price of the stock at the time of the original post, or, when applicable, the last update.)  _______ UPDATE (December 24, 11:58 a.m. EST): Following an idiotic, one-day short-squeeze frenzy 25% above the market, Best Buy has relapsed and is flirting with new lows.  Under the circumstances, we'll continue to wait for that fabulous buying opportunity down near 6.76.  I still think the company is on the mend, but it could still take a few months before investors have their belated epiphany. ______ UPDATE (January 15 at 1:21 p.m. EST):  An explosive rally begun last Friday holds great encouragement for beleaguered shareholders. The so far high of the move is 14.67, and although it would take quite a bit more than that -- specifically, a push exceeding 48.83(!) -- to negate the 6.76 bear-market target, the thrust so far is powerful enough to have turned the daily chart (if not yet the weekly; that would take a print at 21.61) bullishly impulsive. What this means is that, 6.76 target or not, the stock is a short- to intermediate term "buy" on any b-c pullback from 14.67