Smart Money's Swing Trades Thru T.A.

S

Smart Money

Hey all,

I'm an Engineer in a Podunk town in the South. I'm a quant with a wry sense of humor. I think I made a career mistake by not going into business/finance as a career. I've followed markets since I was a little kid, starting with silver and gold prices which were posted next to the comics in the newspaper. I've always given financial advice to my friends. One day a "friend" challenged my advice based on my credentials. That stuck in my craw, and so I went back to school to get an MBA at a state college. I had hopes of going into finance, but when I graduated, I was offered jobs making 2/3 of my salary and couldn't follow my dream because by then I had a wife, a kid, a mortgage, etc.

So did I use my MBA? Sort of. I'm good at consulting and many of my customers are now banks. I can speak their language. My MBA also helps me in making my own financial decisions, including real estate investment, and teaching myself T.A. I'm now making a decent profit with T.A., but I still have a long slog ahead of me before I can quit my day job. Even if a guy can double his money every year, it can still take years to put together a large sum of money to support a family.

Why am I telling this(not so) sordid tale? Because I still dream of a career in finance. But like I say, I'm well paid where I'm at and starting over again in a new career isn't in the cards. So this journal is an effort to demonstrate what I can do. Hopefully demonstrate talent. Maybe somebody out there will see that I'm good at T.A. ...good enough to put on a payroll doing T.A. for them.

Lastly, yeah, I've set myself up by giving personal information and I know my life story is humorous to some. Thats OK. Laugh it up. But I do know that heavy hitters patrol this place and a guy should always try to improve his lot in life.

About my tips. I won't warrant a thing. If you mirror my trades, you do so at your own risk. I'm here to tell you what I think about market direction, what I'm buying, and what I'm selling. I invite you to look at the times that I post things. If information isn't fresh, it isn't any good. Again, I'm using T.A. The fundamental flaw with T.A. is it doesn't account for information that may be released. It also doesn't factor in "noise", so it is up to you to decide whether counter-movement is noise or the unexpected. Use stops and never risk what you can't lose.

SM
 
Here's what I'm looking at for Thursday.

My charts are telling me that the markets in general, will be on the upswing for one to three days. My crystal ball generally doesn't see much farther than a few days.

Because of this, I'm looking at taking on a long position.

BTW, I monitor a handful of stocks, and also trade ETFs that are broad based. I like TNA (and the short fund TZA) because it is broad based. I also like following oil, though I hate that the bid/ask spread is so high. I also follow silver an gold, and tend to invest in silver more often than gold because it is more predictable, being both a precious metal and an industrial metal. I will play long or short ETFs.

So if I could own something right now, I'd own NFLX, F, and I like the ETF "TNA" which is a 3x leveraged fund.

I'll likely buy NFLX or TNA on Thursday morning based on which one is up less as a percentage. I'll give target sell prices in a moment.

SM
 
Ok, took another look at my charts.

I also like WNC

I think that at a MINIMUM, unless a war breaks out, or a country goes broke, we'll see these prices within 3 days.

WNC: $6.90
F: $11.60
NFLX: $120
TNA: $41 (this implies we'll see the market in general moving up)

Each of these could go 5% beyond these figures in the next 3 days, but things change.

SM
 
NFLX will absolutely contine upward to 120. Undervalued, great EPS, looks great across numerous t/f's, etc.,

(Yes, I have a position in NFLX to be fair.:) )
 
Quote from LEAPup:

NFLX will absolutely contine upward to 120. Undervalued, great EPS, looks great across numerous t/f's, etc.,

(Yes, I have a position in NFLX to be fair.:) )
More...

It looks strong in general, but I haven't reviewed any of it's financials. They were climbing while the market was falling. My analysis is just from my charts and is a conservative near term goal...I've been waiting for really "sweet" entry position on it, but it's just too strong lately and now I'm seeing more movement to the upside despite how high it sits on it's bollinger. In layman's terms, it seems like they are inheriting a lot of the business from the brick and mortar movie rentals which seem to be falling like flies. Anyway, yeah...nice stock...though I haven't even looked at the P/E and I don't own it yet.

FWIW, I'll be happy to give T.A. second opinions on other stocks as long as you know my time horizon is 3 days forward based on where it's been.

SM
 
Quote from Smart Money:

ZSL should hit $37 within one or two days. It is a short silver fund.
More...

Yes, but where does the stop go? Will it hit $37 before it hits $33? Or do you ride it to zero if there's a panic and silver goes to the moon, while this short silver fund dives toward the center of the earth?
 
Quote from Retief:

Yes, but where does the stop go? Will it hit $37 before it hits $33? Or do you ride it to zero if there's a panic and silver goes to the moon, while this short silver fund dives toward the center of the earth?
More...

Tough crowd! I'd put it at $33. It's at about $35 a share now.
 
I wanted to explain my philosophy of how T.A. works.

Please...lets not contaminate this thread with a "T.A. Works/T.A. Doesn't Work" philosophy. Please?

I view Technical Analysis as like being on the back of a cow in a herd of cattle. But, you're facing backward. You can't see where you're going, but you can feel when the cow is starting to move, or acting like it will move. You can also see the herd around you and tell if they are moving or not. Your cow mostly moves with the herd, but sometimes moves against the herd...depends on the cow.

But from your vantage point, (my vantage point), I'm trying to guess whether the cow will start moving. And then (this is important), once it moves, I need to try to guess how far it will go. Got that? It is one thing to decide if the cow will move. But it is an entirely different though process to figure out how far the cow might go once it starts moving.

It is alot easier to tell when the cow is acting like it might start moving based on it's behavior, how often it stops to graze, how the wind is blowing etc. But it's really hard to tell how far it's going to go.

To complicate things further, you can't see where the cow is going to go. You don't know for sure if there is a ditch ahead, or a cowboy who is going to start shooting a gun, spooking your cow at any moment. So you want a nice smooth un-interrupted field with no cowboys and you'd like to be on a cow that doesn't spook very easily. Or...a big fat cow that can't turn on a dime because it is just too fat to shift its momentum easily.

So the key is to go through the herd, look over all of the cows to pick the one you want based on how predicatable it is and how the field looks. Then you want to jump on once the cow starts acting like its going to move. But where do you jump off? Thats another decision entirely.

So I use different charts for selecting the cow than I use for deciding when to jump off the cow. And I pray that when I pick my cow, that it won't get spooked. And since I'm looking backward, I hope that if it starts deviating from the expected, I can figure out whether the cow will just go around that obstacle and/or not change it's mind, or whether it is an all new idea in the cow's mind.

SM
 
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