Sept 14th – A Little Choppy

When the markets are choppy and seem a little indecisive, it can be hard to make money consistently.  It becomes a stock pickers market, where some stocks are doing well, others may be struggling.  Various sectors of the markets are currently a bit choppy, so we’ll discuss that here on this Friday,  the last trading day of the week…

 

NASDAQ –  After last weeks sell down, the NASDAQ landed above the 50sma and at this point that level has held as support, but it has been choppy here this week.

 

 

I have expected more of a dip in the General Markets too, but again, they’ve been a bit choppy .

 

DJIA   – The DJIA has actually run up nicely since July, and it just peaked at a new high Thursday and then pulled back. Within this run, you can see rallies & sell offs though, so it also was rather choppy trading with occasional bursts higher.

 

SOX  – Unlike the other sectors, The Semiconductors sold off hard this week, but they did reverse higher wednesday after losing the 50sma.  Choppy? Well, after a 12 day run up at the end of August, it gave it all back in 5 days  last week and into this week. July was all choppy and sideways too.

 It is not easy to make money in choppy markets.  Occasional 1 or 2 day pull backs are fine, but this choppy ‘running higher’  and then ‘selling off’  is tough.  We are within the timing to expect an ICL,  the last one was in February,  but for now the Bull market continues to have surprises to the upside, so I would not recommend shorting it at all. It is a stock pickers market with some stocks looking great  (SAIL, SQ, COUP, etc ), and other former flyers dying  ( FB, TWTR, HUYA, etc).

.

WTIC  – I’ve been expecting a drop into an ICL in Oil.   This was so close to making a higher high, but so far we still have a peak on day 12. THIS is choppy too,  last week looked quite bearish, then yesterday it looked like it would break out above day 12, and Thursday, it drops again.  Choppy.  Overall, I am expecting a drop into an ICL over the next couple of weeks.

 

USD  – Day 11 saw the USD drop further and close below the 50sma for the 2nd day. A break below that day 23 DCL is a ‘failed daily cycle’.

 

 

GOLD    – Gold paused at the 50sma on day 19.   I see nothing wrong with this at this point.

 

GDX   –  GDX & GDXJ dropped back to the 10sma. So far, this is fine too, and the LOWS on September 11 are what would cause this to fail. This chart would have us view day 17 on Sept 11 as a dcl (ICL?), and Thursday would be day 2.  If it breaks below day 17 lows, I would say that this is continuing and Thursday would have been day 19.  We need more time.

 So far a buy was triggered when GDX closed above the 10sma, so at this point all you can do is Use stops.  Right now,  several individual Miners are looking fine and acting correctly, so this still looks like a low  for GDX  & GDXJ.  We’ll see what Friday can throw at us,  wear your life jackets in case things get a bit too choppy (stops)  and we should be fine.

.

Enjoy your Friday trading!

.

 

~ALEX

 

.

Speaking of choppy,  the MJ stocks have been ramping up nicely, many running strongly along the 8 ema,  until Thursday. Let’s take a quick look…

.

CANN – Some drops were big,  but did not hurt the overall ‘set up’.  CANN has dropped before like this, and dropped to the 20sma. On Thursday however, MANY  MJ stocks dropped all at once, so that can be concerning.

 

TGODF  – TGODF was posted as a buy near $4 and again just under $5 recently. It ran from $4.50  to $6.50 in 4 days this week!   It is VERY volatile with big gains one day and big losses on another day.  I sold TGODF Thursday and posted this in the comments section. It may have formed that CUP and I’ll be watching it on the pullback to see if it ends up being ‘orderly’  and remains bullish, or is the sector entering a prolonged period of consolidation again.   So far,  this MJ stock looks fine too.

.

THEN WE GET TO SOME OF THE OVER EXTENDED ONES

.

TLRY –  The funny thing is that I grabbed this chart after lunch, before the heavy selling started,  and I wrote that these extended stocks are not to be bought in overbought runs like this. These are not buy & hold when they get this extended,  this is unsustainable.

 

IGC   – This is what I mean.  This is an MJ stock that got overextended too.  I was asked about an entry point recently and I did recommend NOT buying this before it fell.  It was actually up yesterday, because it has already endured some ‘correcting’ to the 20sma.

 

CGC  – Look how this rode the 8 ema all the way up.  beautiful.   Thursdays drop was almost 14%, not so beautiful.

I will repeat this… I’ll be watching these on the pullback to see if it ends up being ‘orderly’  and the sector remains bullish, or is the sector entering a prolonged period of consolidation again. This MIGHT work its way to the 50sma eventually if a prolonged consolidation is in the works.

 

ACBFF  – Just a Coincidence –  I mentioned in yesterdays report that I sold this all of this position on Tuesday. I actually sold the very top with my last portion (coincidence).  Notice that the run here was also very steep along the 8 ema – the 10sma shown here.

 

ACBFF  – it dropped almost 17% Thursday. This does not look like a normal pull back , but the run higher wasn’t normal either.  I’ll patiently allow some time to go buy and watch how these pull back.  look at the drop from the top in January. Drop, bounce, Drop, bounce, Drop and back at the lows.   This could tag the 50sma too.

 

 

ACBFF  – I drew this chart and posted it in the comments too,  that my stop was at $6.50, the trend line.  If that uptrend was broken, I would have to assume that something has changed.  I am now stopped out of this position too, because it broke down after I posted this.

 

 

VVCIF – This one took a 7% drop ( not so bad) but I saw it at the close and it looked like a bearish engulfing, so I sold it at the close. I actually still like the chart.  This could even drop a bit more and yet continue to put in a round bottom base, so ( again) I will be watching the pull back and see if it becomes a buying opportunity in a bull sector, or is the party over for now?

So I am still holding EMHTF and CBWTF, with pretty good gains on CBWTF, but since I now have 5%  Losses on EMHTF, I sold 1/2 of that position.  I had decent gains on it and now I am in a losing position.   Friday I will decide what to do with those two.  I need a little more time to see how these act going forward. After a sharp drop, we may get a bounce too, and positions can be unloaded into the bounce if one still owns some.   It was a tricky day in this sector Thursday.