PREDICTIONS

[bryanmcn]

Nice Christmas rally. The DOW should move up now that the US year end selling is over. Canadian year end selling was over on Dec 24th and oil prices rebounded so we saw a stronger rally.

Lots of good charts forming. Could be a nice January!

Louis  - have you covered your shorts?

[garilou]

Hi Bryan!

Nice Christmas rally.

Yep, again I was pretty wrong on my predictions!

Nice from you to think about my shorts!
I was stopped out 2 of them, (will for one a big loss, the other not too big), a 3rd one I covered after loosing 90% of the paper profit I had.
But I am still short on one that really did not try to follow the up trend, and kept falling every up day.

But on this one, I have a stop that will prevent me from loosing too much of my already comfortable gain.
Remember when I told you I was thinking of buying WN, well I am happy I did not!
Then I wanted to short it... and just got prudent and did not.
I guess I should start to share everyone's enthusiasm, I look through all the stocks that I watched waiting for the Timing Level to turn green, and... I am not yet convinced.
I often said that I am neither a "bottom fisher", not a "skyscraper".
I do not know if my eyes are covered by a deforming lens, but I keep seeing short candidates everywhere!
And many are exactly those that did well during the DOWN trend: people are remodelling the portfolios..

I guess I will be at cash for a few days, till my eyes adapt to the new light

Have a good 2009 New Year, and not just on the investing side of it!

Louise

[bryanmcn]

Jan 3, 2009
I think there is an excellent opportunities for traders who have been sitting on the sidelines. We are seeing a definite rise off the bottom on both the TSX and the DOW and while there is some risk, most of the sellers are gone. Its a buyers market and there's lots of great potential out there. The market is a leading indicator of the economy and most analysts are predicting a bottom to the economy sometime in mid to late 2009 so that means the markets should do well this year.

[garilou]

Hi Bryan,
I hope you are right!
I agree that if this movement goes on for a while, the economy should go better in 6 to 8 months, the markets are always in advance.
On the other hand, so many stocks were way too low, and once they have recovered there proper value, if the economy does NOT improve, the markets could plunge again, probably not as low as they were, but still.

Now, I am full at cash, (apart from my fixed income investments), I have covered all my shorts, and I feel somewhat tired from the markets.
Or simply tired.
I'm sure I'll jump back in soon.
Still not sure in which way though.
For the moment, I'll try to take care a little bit more of my horse, and ride him more often, as I used to do before my husband died. An just keep an eye on my "baskets"...
But as I could see the way my last shorts went... there are certainly good buy opportunities out there!
But which?


You say:

I think there is an excellent opportunities for traders who have been sitting on the sidelines.

May I ask what you've been trading lately? Any way, you said the good word: it's more a matter of trading then "investing", I doubt there will be lots of long term opportunities.

I am not convinced yet that the stocks that were in SSP portfolios during the DOWN Market timing will stay good opportunities, as the signal turns to UP.
DCA had just bought some FFH, and right away it receives a sell order from SSP. I was not too surprised.

Louise   

[DCA]

I don't think I share fully Bryan's optimisim.  I expect there is more "shoes" to drop.  The CC still have not reported all their bad news.

Not suprised by the sell on FFH, but then I did make a small profit on it.  Thought it might have had a bit of 'legs" left and unlike WPK it was possible to get in.

On the other hand I have pulled in 45% so far this month with CSH.UN and it pays a handsome dividend to boot.  (I have to check to see if SSP is picking up on this one.)

D

[bryanmcn]

The SSP weekly portfolio looks fine. I also own CM. I'll be on a buying spree this week or next.

[garilou]

I used to joke, saying something like Bryan's nick name should be "BullBryan", and mine, "BearLou".

Another thing that makes me stay out of the market for some time still, is that the enthusiasm from the past 7 or 8 trading days is not enough to call it a "buyers" market.
The more the indexes went up, the lower the volumes.
As a matter of fact, most 20 days MA volumes have kept going down, and the stocks that did so well also had Volumes 20 days MA going down, and the more they went up, the lower the daily volumes (as % compared to the Vol.MA. )
This does is no good sign.

I've been following (in what I call "my basket") stocks pretty representative form the TSC, the DOW and the Nasdac.
Although the Nasdac was a little bit late to follow the turn around, it did.
But with almost no exception, (or maybe for one, and this was only one day), the 20 days Vol MAs not only went steadily down, (even on the days where the index gains were in the "triple digits") but the actual daily volumes were only fractions of those moving averages.

I think many TA investors pay too much attention to the price trend, and to all indicators linked to it, and too little to the volume evolution.
Sure I got stopped out from most of my shorts, because there is only one way to put a stop order: on the price.
Ideally, I would like to put a stop based on the volume :-) (One can always day dream  )
I would like to be able to give this type of order: buy on stop (in the case of a short) if the volume reaches that level or the opposite if I am long.
An up trend will falling volumes is not a lasting up trend.

Anyone agrees with me?

Louise