6-7-2015 Comments

Watch lists are updated.

I was away from home last week so only monitored the market and did no trading.
Last year very few momentum stocks were working. If they broke out they stalled or failed so often that making money was problematic. This year is different. If you buy Volume Alerts near the 50-day or sloping pivot line breakouts progress is being made. For example if you were using the watch lists I publish each weekend this is what could have happened:

AVGO volume alert trigger on 5/15 at $125.15 is up 15%
BOFI volume alert trigger on 6/4 at $96.00 is up 2.1%
CAVM volume alert trigger on 5/27 at $69 is up 7%
CYBR volume alert trigger on 6/5 at $64.60 is up 3.5%
EPAM volume alert trigger on 5/27 at $67.47 is up 6%
LAD volume alert trigger and flat base sloping pivot breakout on 6/3 at $108.20 is up 4.6%
NXPI volume alert trigger and sloping pivot line breakout on 5/21 at 104.54 is up 2.3%
PANW volume alert trigger on 4/21 at 149.56 is up 16.1%
SWKS volume alert trigger and sloping pivot line breakout on 5/18 at $98.89 is up 7%
ZBRA volume alert trigger and short stroke breakout on 6/2 at $ $111.58 is up 2.4%

I own EPAM, NXPI, PANW, SWKS from the above list and the buy prices above for these stocks are my entries. I would have bought ZBRA last week if I were home. Some of the gains above are not stellar but the point is they aren't negative and they have been easy to hold.

If you subscribe to the watch lists you get real time email alerts of the volume alert triggers. I watch the volume alert page in the morning and don't always wait for the email as the email waits a bit for the quality of the alert to meet an additional threshold. Quality in this sense looks at how much the end of day projected volume is above the volume alert trigger threshold and how much time is left in the trading day.

The Market School exposure model is 100% long with 4 days of distribution in the 25-day look back window. One more day of distribution or a close below the 21-day would drop the exposure to 90%.

Some time ago I wrote that I am unconcerned about the direction of the market unless the 27-week moving average is broken on the NASDAQ. This average is kind of the "magic" average that has been obeyed since last October and that breach was momentary.

What I see is: every time we move to a new high the market pulls back scaring everyone. Then the pullback is shallow and we move back up. Until this pattern is broken (27-week) my task is to stay long in the market. I produce short watch lists for the reason of determining when shorts are working. For my trading style a short needs to produce 20% profits or I am not interested (same threshold on the long side).

On another note I notice that the 200-year anniversary of the Napoleon defeat at Waterloo is coming up next weekend. I think Pascal lives nearby and I am guessing the neighborhood is going to be interesting with all of the reenactments going on.

Very good post Mike!!

Good to see that volume alerts are working well.
An example of the Volume Trigger email Alert is shown below (This was the May 22 alert)

[ATTACH=CONFIG]30697[/ATTACH]



Pascal

PS: The Waterloo battle reconstitution will take place between June 19 and June 21. It will be fun, but really noisy!!

Mike, thanks for this update. One question I have is at what level of Quality% do you feel comfortable enough to pull the trigger? I know the higher the better but what's the minimum?

Best regards,

Pablo

[QUOTE=barbados11;29947]Mike, thanks for this update. One question I have is at what level of Quality% do you feel comfortable enough to pull the trigger? I know the higher the better but what's the minimum?

Best regards,

Pablo[/QUOTE]

Pablo,

Quality was created to prevent too many marginal set ups from triggering an email alert. I can't remember whether we set the quality threshold for an email alert to 60 or 70 but one of those numbers. Quality is equal to the volume percent margin (excess end of day projected volume above minimum) divided by the estimate of percent of end of day volume already traded. So if the volume margin is 30% above threshold volume and half of the day's trading is completed we get a 30/(0.5) = 60 quality.

I use the EV Volume Trigger Alert page to highlight the potential alerts (row becomes highlighted in green) and then I do my own due diligence from there. If I really want a particular stock I don't wait for the Quality number. The stocks have all been vetted through my weekend stock selection routine thus my due diligence essentially goes to answering one single question: If I buy the stock can I suffer through a pullback without getting stopped out? If I am buying a 50-day MA trigger I want to be able to sit through a pullback to the 50 day, so it comes down to how far extended is the price above the 50-day. Similar thinking with a 10-day alert. In today's market I am comfortable buying more 50-day set ups than 10-day set ups.

Mike,

Thanks for your detailed, thoughtful and candid answer. Buying off the 50 makes a lot more sense as you explained, especially in the current QE environment.

Best,

Pablo