Money Loose

We have not post for almost a year now. As a foreign investor, there was no point fighting the dollar weakness and we naturally focussed to other markets. I feel like the time may be right now to look for opportunities in the US as many stocks will try to move out of bottoming patterns which is precisely the kind of environment in which our scan works best.

Our weekend scans did not find many stocks of interest at this juncture, yet WMT is worthy of a post along with other less interesting picks.

CAI	DCL

SMA	WMT

Shorting the DOW

2007-08-31T20:46:00.000+08:00

I'll be going short as the DOW is likely to open right at 62% retracement (at 13,448). I think the risk/reward ration is very and the stop is above 13,500 on strength.

CAC closes at 5592....am flat

2007-08-31T00:08:00.000+08:00

As per my previous post I just deleted by mistake, I went long the CAC40 before the GDP numbers at 5535, it played out nicely.

cut at 13100

2007-08-29T22:21:00.000+08:00

13100 holding well, I have cut until the next opportunity.

went short at 13140

2007-08-29T21:40:00.001+08:00

Trading futures...

2007-08-29T19:45:00.000+08:00

This kind of market is very technical and ideal to trade futures rather than a basket of stocks. I do not own any individual stock right now and have been playing with turbos on the CAC40. This has worked well for me and I have therefore not run our scans in a month.
It is very obvious that every indices are very closely following the DOW resistance and support levels. This is the index I have been watching for market turns. On a 60 min chart, the DOW has been rejected at the test of resistance which is where I was waiting.

I'm slightly short after I have cut my position with a hefty profit this morning and I will enter short again if the DOW opens strong in the 13100 area whcih will act as resistance. I think there is more downside coming at least for today and there is plenty of money to be made short.
Watch for the financials to outperform before committing long.

Good trading

back from honeymoon...

2007-08-11T11:41:00.000+08:00

Been silent lately, got married and left for honeymoon.
In the meantime, the market has been on a roller coaster. I have not run our scan over the past 2 weeks and I shall resume this weekend. Our tool will keep us automatically out of a down market as there won't be many breakout patterns.
In the past 2 weeks, I have been playing European indices, I may post on that in the future.

As for my previous post not to short the financials, I was wrong and I did actually short them a few days after blogging. I'm 80% cash now, 20% being gold.

ACCL breakout

2007-07-24T11:30:00.000+08:00

Another sweet one from yesterday's pick...

NVT +20%

2007-07-23T21:52:00.000+08:00

We posted this one first time last Tuesday and a second time on Friday. Up another 20% today at the open, sweet....

breakout charts for an up day..

2007-07-23T17:26:00.000+08:00

Several charts for you to consider if today is green. Watch for resistance levels and only buy on breakout.

ACCL	CHR

CL	CPE

EEFT	PBI

PRSC	RDWR

IBM, NVT, SYNP

2007-07-20T17:48:00.000+08:00

No new charts today, I'm unfortunately busy but I shall post the scan results for next week over the weekend. In the meantime, 2 charts we posted this week which have moved favorably and SYNP which I think could breakout today.

Financials are not to short...

2007-07-18T23:57:00.000+08:00

Looking at the financial ETF and listening to all the noise on subprime, it is easy to conclude XLF is on the verge of a collapse. Indeed, the long term trend is threatened and it seems like 38 marks a double top.

Then I look at the option distribution and....WOW....the market is bearish on financials. As discussed about the QQQQ a few weeks ago, you got to be a contrarian here because there is no way those puts at 35$/36$ will expire in the money. XLF has a strong floor at 36$, you may want to sell puts at 35$/36$ strike but better not go short XLF just yet.

17-07-2007 scan

2007-07-18T17:56:00.000+08:00

Seems like we are good for a down day. GOLD is up 3$ at the time of posting so that I should nicely sail through the storm but with Bernanke speaking today, I'm on my guard.

Several charts from our scan and a few breakouts of our previous picks.

AEPI	ENTG

GKSR	KLAC

OIIM	SNDK

SYNP

busy times...

2007-07-17T17:38:00.000+08:00

I'm very busy with work and we are also upgrading our software, therefore updates are going to be scarce in the coming weeks, sorry for that.

Click on chart for bigger size.

BCR	BK

KO	NVT

SWH

weekend charts

2007-07-09T17:04:00.000+08:00

BAX	IBM

KFRC	KLAC

MDZ	MU

SNDK	RSH

only gold stocks

2007-07-06T14:17:00.000+08:00

I will run the scan later today. At last run 2 days ago, I was not able to find a chart I would perhaps buy. My focus since the beginning of the week has been entirely on gold stocks and despite a down day in precious metals yesterday, stocks have done well. Amongst them, some I own and have advertised here.

AEM	BWLRF

CDE	GG

GSS	SLW

quick update - 2 breakouts

2007-07-05T15:37:00.000+08:00

2 of our latest posts have done rather well.

Short selection of gold stocks

2007-07-03T19:14:00.000+08:00

My post on gold before the open was very timely. I have browsed the 100 gold charts I follow and I suggest a few for you to consider of you want to buy in. Not sure I'll have the time to post the scan results later.

AEM	GG

LRR	SLW

weekend scan

2007-07-02T17:15:00.000+08:00

I ran the scan for the first time this weekend after one week break and for the least, I was not very impressed with the results. Only a few charts are worthy to follow, nice setups are rare.

DCEL which I posted here a month as being the perfect breakout chart has been bought over last Friday. I'll get 13$ from a buying price of 9.77$...Too bad I wanted to hold onto that one. So I'll be looking at the charts below and particularly ENTG and SYNP.

I also think GOLD is very interesting right now as it looks to bounce off the very important 65 weeks moving average. According to the latest COT report which you can find here http://news.goldseek.com/COT/1183145580.php, the commercial traders are short 83584 contracts. This low level has reliably been associated with bottoms in the price of gold. I'm a buyer at this level.

ENTG	OIIM

PWAV	SYNP

SNDK - VTNC

2007-06-22T15:02:00.000+08:00

I won't post much in the coming weeks as I'm in the middle of major personal changes.
Amongst the 4 charts posted on Monday, we recommended two and they did well.

SNDK	VTNC

Monday charts

2007-06-18T19:18:00.000+08:00

ORCL	SCMR

SNDK	VTNC

previous charts update

2007-06-15T00:26:00.000+08:00

Charts of interest

2007-06-13T23:54:00.001+08:00

ENTG	SYNP

VTNC

KIM is bearish

2007-06-13T22:58:00.000+08:00

One very bearish stock is KIM, see for yourself daily and weekly charts below.
[CLICK ON CHART]

As for the market, I don't believe the move down and to convince me further, I only got to look at the QQQQ options distribution. I have learned from bad experience never to play against it.

Open interest for June expiration

Number of put contracts exceeds call contracts up to 47$ with a strong floor at 44$. These contracts will provide support up to expiration this week. I do expect the QQQQ to close the week at 47$ or better but certainly not below 46$

Open interest for July expiration

July option distribution is even more bullish as the floor is set at 45$. It is very unlikely the QQQQ will move below this level in july.

Struggling to find charts

2007-06-12T17:31:00.000+08:00

I have been having a tough time to find charts relevant to post and without a good buy, I rather stay on the sideline for the moment. The charts below are really for I got to make a post today. Maybe I'll have something more interesting after we run our scan again later today.
Cheers

ACAD	DOV

GE	MGRC

Wednesday, June 06 scan

2007-06-07T23:26:00.000+08:00

No notable pattern breakout yesterday, not surprising on a down day as yesterday.
Here are a few breakdowns.

2 charts only

2007-06-07T00:29:00.000+08:00

Not much time, only those two for today

weekend post

2007-06-04T16:32:00.000+08:00

We have had a few new breakouts last week but there are not many I feel like posting here. Below weekend scan.
[CLICK ON PIC]

FLWS	PRST

BC	DOV

GET	GLW

KWK	MAIL

MIND	AMP

more charts

2007-05-31T23:13:00.000+08:00

AIT	CEPH

FFIV	PCL

PRGS	RCRC

charts follow-up

2007-05-31T17:13:00.000+08:00

Follow-up on some charts recently posted here.

EP	GOOG

MIVA	PDE

PXP

breakingpointtrades review

2007-05-29T11:03:00.000+08:00

Interesting read, hope they don't mind me posting the link. You can subscribe to their free newsletter.

http://www.breakpointtrades.com/controls/preview.php?nl_id=140

weekend charts

2007-05-28T17:04:00.000+08:00

Several charts of interest after the weekend, no update before Wednesday.
Watch IOMI chart, we recommended it as a short in a previous post, it lost 40% on Friday.
Have a good week.....

[CLICK ON CHART]

APD	AMP

AVID	CSK

DLM	ERTS

GOOG	IOMI

QCC	UST

PRST	TLCV

TZOO

Thursday, May 23 after hours scan

2007-05-25T00:22:00.000+08:00

Potential Breakouts

GOOG	MSFT

MIND	QCC

Potential Breakdowns

ERTS	MRVL

UST

Tuesday, May 22 scans

2007-05-23T00:36:00.000+08:00

I don't have the time to post the charts tonight. It is already close to 1AM and I'm having a tough week at work.
I'm posting the tickers for breakouts, they are not filtered, some may not be valid as our software is still in development.

breakout:
AMSC
ANSS
ADSK
CALL
CNET
DGII
LUFK
QQQQ
NPSN
AT
ANR
GSP
EDO
EAC
FRO
IO
IRS
LBY
PXP
KWK
RRC
S
STE
WMB
BDH

breakdown:
KUB

....and finally, some stocks which may be within 2% of a breakout of some sort (before the open).
- The first column is the ticker.
- The second column is the number of days between the first top and the last top. It indicates how wide the pattern may be.
- The third column refers to the number of time the top has been tested.
- The fourth column represents the level of the actual top that which current stock value is within 2% to test.

As mentioned in a previous post, there are an unusual number of stocks close to a new breakout.,

CMCO, 71, 5, 25.73
EWBC, 176, 6, 40.68
FITB, 280, 5, 41.64
SNAK, 286, 7, 3.05
KEYS, 104, 3, 38.63
PCAR, 839, 3, 88.95
SMBI, 55, 4, 22.03
SYPR, 139, 3, 8.32
AMP , 54, 3, 62.67
BOH , 303, 6, 55
CYN , 277, 5, 77.86
CMA , 610, 8, 63.8
FIX , 79, 4, 14.08
CVD , 135, 3, 66.45
DHT , 90, 4, 16.48
LEG , 59, 6, 24.58
MTX , 107, 5, 68.98
NI , 461, 5, 25.39
PPP , 158, 3, 54.34
RRD , 2107, 4, 43.62
SEN , 48, 6, 7.75
LVB , 713, 3, 36.85
TWX , 54, 3, 21.96
WFC , 83, 9, 36.64
RLH , 104, 6, 13.07
WWE , 234, 3, 18.48
ALKS, 137, 3, 17.84
AZPN, 254, 4, 14.8
ASTE, 1982, 4, 43.8
BKMU, 63, 4, 12.04
CFFN, 53, 3, 39.78
CEPH, 1420, 4, 82.92
COCO, 43, 7, 14.36
DEPO, 61, 2, 4.14
EWBC, 43, 2, 41.17
ERIE, 64, 4, 56
FMER, 43, 4, 21.89
IFIN, 54, 4, 63.03
MOLX, 51, 3, 31.16
MOLXa, 51, 4, 27.46
NATI, 123, 3, 31.54
NWSB, 93, 6, 28.33
NUCO, 88, 4, 26.19
POOL, 76, 3, 40.6
PSEC, 71, 6, 17.79
QDEL, 93, 4, 14.3
SSCC, 55, 3, 13.16
ALU , 65, 3, 13.71
AEE , 406, 6, 55
AIG , 674, 7, 72.8
ARJ , 67, 5, 34.8
AJG , 57, 5, 29.5
AVX , 142, 3, 18.39
BAX , 1275, 3, 58.29
BDK , 261, 3, 95.58
SAM , 45, 5, 37.27
CTL , 1868, 5, 49.01
CIT , 63, 4, 61.05
CVH , 284, 3, 60.57
DBD , 430, 3, 50.25
EP , 980, 3, 16.39
GMA , 43, 6, 24.02
KMB , 46, 4, 72.19
JZD , 87, 9, 25
LMT , 46, 4, 100.1
MCY , 234, 4, 57.08
NUS , 57, 3, 18.11
PCZ , 50, 4, 51.38
ROK , 50, 3, 65.26
R , 92, 6, 55.15
SWX , 56, 4, 39.77
SM , 47, 6, 37.99
TCB , 180, 4, 28
TKR , 152, 3, 34.54
TUP , 2411, 8, 28.73
UU , 48, 3, 30.71
RTH , 43, 3, 106.15
MBJ , 42, 5, 9.69
USM , 1659, 5, 76.6

previous charts yet to make a move

2007-05-21T18:05:00.000+08:00

AIG	APD

DLM	EP

ERTS	GD

MGLN	MYS

PXP	WFC

Monday, May 20 breakout / breakdown

2007-05-21T17:42:00.000+08:00

Breakout:

APA	DDS

FDO	GRP

MIVA	RAI

Breakdown

DDR	MVL

charts follow-up

2007-05-17T22:35:00.000+08:00

I also use this blog as a journal, I look back at the charts I posted to see how accurate my reading at the time was.

AMPL	AMAT

PVSW	XRIT

GOLD at key support

2007-05-17T22:16:00.000+08:00

There are many levels of support for Gold, depending at whether you look at a daily of weekly chart. 540$ is the end of the bull, we are still far from there, 620$ is also strong resistance but right now the level to look at on GLD is 65$, I will start closing some gold position if it were not to hold. We are right at 65$ at the time I'm posting.

Wednesday, May 16 breakout / breakdown

2007-05-17T21:50:00.000+08:00

Am on business trip, I'm updating the blog from my hotel room in Singapore. As a general comment, some ugly charts have shown up in the filters. I'm posting a few here but the number of breakdowns as measured by our scan is higher than the number of breakouts. From the short history of our scan results, this would indicate a short term correction is in the process. Again, not much history to back this.

Breakout charts first:

OME	PDE

And a few breadown charts:

CACS	IOMI

IVC	PLAB

Friday, May 11 scans

2007-05-14T00:20:00.000+08:00

Four new charts made the scans this Friday after the session but nothing very exciting.

AIG	FDO

PXP	RAI

Week in review

2007-05-13T17:17:00.000+08:00

Let's review last week's charts. First, stocks posted here which have made a breakout.
CLICK ON CHART !

CAO	CYD

DCEL	ICOP

KEYN	SUNH

XRIT

Then, charts which are still valid for the week to come.

AMAT	AMPL

APD	CMP

DLM	EP

EXAR	GD

INTC	MGLN

MGRC	NAFC

PVSW	WFC

Thursday, May 10 after hours scann

2007-05-12T09:39:00.000+08:00

[Problem with blogger, posted 1 day late]

We had several decent breakout yesterday, go check PPS, MGA, TXN, HB. I'm not keen to chase on those.
If you are following us, then maybe you bought the breakout in some stocks that made an alert here this week like ICOP, CYD, SUNH or KEYN.

I'm posting only a few of the stocks identified by our scan when I have the time, usually those appealing to my style and within 2% of a potential breakout. Everyday, we generate an excel sheet with all the stocks within 5% of a breakout. I hope in the future being able to automate the posting and trendline drawing. In the meantime, if you are interested in the excel sheet in its raw format, drop me a mail at didier.gilbert@gmail.com to receive it in your mailbox before the trading day.

No chart I like for today's session, yet some attempting a breakout. CLICK on the chart to make it bigger.

AMPL	CMP

HB	WMI

Tuesday, May 08 scans

2007-05-10T00:15:00.000+08:00

Charts to watch for breakouts in the coming days.

APD	EXAR

PVSW

....good trading.

Tuesday, May 08 breakouts

2007-05-09T23:18:00.000+08:00

3 very nice breakout charts

DCEL	XRIT

GBN

And 2 bearish ones

FRP	MSTR

Monday, May 07 scans

2007-05-08T23:53:00.000+08:00

And a few more charts, nearing a bullish breakout.

BDK	DLM

WFC	MGLN

SUNH	CAO

Monday, May 07 breakouts

2007-05-08T21:19:00.000+08:00

A few breakouts of interest from yesterday's session.

BAS	CYD

GD	ICOP

KEYN	PFE

Scan is back

2007-05-07T23:38:00.000+08:00

We are back with a short update from this weekend scan. I'm not quite excited by the charts I see, this market is overbought. I would not venture into shorting right now as the trend is strong and bearish sentiment will support the market.

AMAT	EP

INTC	MGRC

NAFC	PFE

scan to resume next week

2007-04-25T11:57:00.000+08:00

We will resume our scan posting next week. My friend who runs the scans is on a long business trip to Europe right after mine late last month. Scans are expected to return the weekend after next.

21-03-2007 scan

2007-03-22T22:08:00.000+08:00

I don't have much time today, I just post here the tickers as given by our tool without applying the filters. Go have a look at the charts. Feel free to mail me at didier.gilbert@gmail.com for any question.

ps: I went short at the open, we have reached fib 78% on the S&P and I really don't see what is gonna push this market higher now. Also, our scan did not find one breakdown yesterday, that is extreme.

Breakouts:
ACAT FSRV LFUS NTCT NEXT NUAN PRXL PRKR PRGX THQI WRNC WFSL WPPGY XRTX T BJ BRP BTM CNQ CMO GIB ED CR DST FLR SJM LGF MC NYB SLF TKP TKR UBA WMK TTH

Stocks within 2% of a breakout:
CHRZ CRRC XRAY FRED GSBC IMMR INSP KLAC LCUT SMTL STRA WFSL WMAR ABT AEP ARD SAN BGG CP CPK CGI DBD EMN FRK GR GFR GXP IPX MIM NST OMC PNM POM STR Q SNE TRK TSM TU TUP SNG BJRI BPFH CORI HCBK ICUI INTL MXRE PETM VPFG ADX AKS BBG BA BNE CKP CYN CNX DCX ENS GXP HSY KSS KCC MKC MSA NOK OKS DCM PH RVI SCG SLB SXT BID SFN SCS TCB TE TIF THE TY TUP VGR WAT

Stocks within 2% of a breadown:
GKM HAQ BFIN DHOM MSII NARA AKF APL ETV JNJ KVR THO WSH SFH ACGL BOKF FXCB IFLO NATI RSTO VMSI WSTL FCZ HCC IRM NFS DGX SNS IN SNJ

Good trading

20-03-2007 scan

2007-03-21T21:51:00.000+08:00

Update from Singapore tonight. Several of our scans have made nice moves yesterday. Click to enlarge.

FD	GOT

CBR	EQT

FCBP	PPG

CMRT	MTLK

WRNC	T

OTIV	PRKR

18-03-2007 scan

2007-03-20T17:48:00.000+08:00

I have been very busy with my day job and other activities, the scan below is from last weekend. Some of the stocks I intended to post yesterday have already broken to the upside. I'll try to post the new scan later today.
I will not play any upside breakout. Even if the market is moving against me for the moment, I still believe there is more downside to come as shown on the QQQQ chart below. I have cut my most aggressive shorts ahead of the fed meeting.

QQQQ	TDW

SUPG	PPG

NAFC	FCBP

FD	EQT

EE	CBR

ASTSF	AINN

AAP

13-03-2007 scan

2007-03-14T23:25:00.000+08:00

Sorry again for the late post, I was busy at the open modifying my portfolio to a definitely bearish bias. I have sold 60% of my longs over the past 2 days and turned them into aggressive shorts as I believe the downside will continue.

The scan this morning is absolutely stunning, there are 9 stocks within 2% of a breakout compared to 146 within 2% of a breakdown. Increase the range to 3% and the count is 26 against 227.
In other words, there are just too few stocks which chart looking good enough to buy right now, and without buyers, the market can only go down.

The breakout scan first: NRGN had a nice chart this morning but won't break this time as it is already down 4% today. If you really want to be long, you may want to look at ABT. It is in a defensive sector, holding pretty well and challenging some high dating back 2002. Sorry that is really the best I can find right now.

As for the potential breakdown, here is the list of tickers, I cannot reasonably post 146 charts.

ASML BHLB CADE CSAR FTBK ROCK ISBC KNBT MAFB MBFI MLAN TSFG OKSB WDFC ALE ILA AIZ BMO COF CBC CHZ DOV EMR ENZ RE FCZ HBC LXK CLI NUS PRE PL PSA PSD DGX ROH TMK TY WOS ZLC BHH PPH PWC VGT VV VTV ACXM ACGL BELFB CFFN CVCO CITZ SCHW CHRS CGNX CSTR CMCSA CMCSK BSH CVGI CORE CRVL ONEQ FRME FNFG GBCI KRNY MBWM MGEE NARA NSANY PPBI PTEN PEAK PRGO PETS PPDI PRFZ PBKS RLRN ROSE SNMX SHPGY SBIB SLFI SUPR TECH PANL VMSI WYNN ADX AMB AM NLY AVB BMC BYD BRE CSH LYV CHT ED DFG EGP LLY EAS EQR FMD FRX GBM GNW GGC GKM HPY HEI HLT IHI LEG MI MDT MGI MOT NI PBG PTR PFE PMI SNY SLE SCG LUV STU THO TD TOT UBH UPS WB WBS XEL FEU VXF VUG VBK VB VTI

Good trading

GOLD charts I like

2007-03-13T23:27:00.000+08:00

Many GOLD charts after the recent correction don't look so good but there are still a few ones that I like. Here they are:

GSS	JIN

MFL	NGD

SPM

12-03-2007 scan

2007-03-13T22:37:00.000+08:00

4 new charts today.

TDW	PPG

BA	ASTSF

breakout - BBI

2007-03-13T22:03:00.001+08:00

BBI mentionned yesterday made a nice move up, should retrace back to 7$ for a nice entry.

11-03-2007 scan

2007-03-11T17:01:00.000+08:00

9 charts to watch on Monday. They are posted here because they are within 2% of a potential breakout. There is no indication that they will break out, and, if they do, that it will be on Monday. You should therefore keep the charts posted daily here in your watchlist for the following trading days, not only the day they appear on this blog.

I won't often alert when those stocks are making a substantial move but if you look back at the previous posts, I think the track record is quite good. We are not yet able to provide with backtesting data but we will certainly do so when our tools are finalised. Do not forget to buy after breakout, preferably in an impulse of volume and always place your stop after entering a position.

OMC	NEXT

K	FCBP

FD	EQT

BBI	ARG

AAP

08-03-2007 scan

2007-03-09T00:00:00.000+08:00

This morning, there are still a very low number of stocks within a 2% range of a breakout of some sort. When the time is right, we gonna study whether this could be used as a timing indicator as I tend to think it is probably worth more than bullish percentage index or number of stock above the 50 days moving average.

I have also noticed that we have a lot of fake moves. From that measure only, the current bounce is pretty weak. It is in its third day after which the decline usually resume. With the job numbers tomorrow and a nervous market, I think it is probably better not to have too many open positions at the close. Market could go either way and speculating on one direction is gambling, not investing.

Only one chart I want to post today; the other ones don't appeal to me. The charts of the 2 previous day are still valid and usable I believe.

BGFV

07-03-2007 scan

2007-03-08T01:07:00.000+08:00

Late scan today, a consequence of problems with our data feed.
Yesterday's CHRZ and NAFC are still valid. I quite like NAFC actually. SPM broke out with the gold stocks.

Amongst today's featured stocks, FLWS will be on my watch list. AINN and DRC don't quite make it for me, maybe they do for you.

FLWS	AINN

DRC

As our tool has improved greatly, I hope to make significant improvements to the contents of this blog during the coming weeks. I'm not short of ideas, one of the reasons we went into developing our own software was because I was not satisfied with the tools available to individual investors. I'm quite excited with what I think our software will be able to do for us.

06-03-2007 scan

2007-03-06T22:43:00.000+08:00

Surprising to me, the scan found a few charts of interest this morning.

CHRZ	HSY

NAFC	SPM

TYG

SILVER

2007-03-06T14:36:00.000+08:00

I was asked to comment on silver. Yesterday, silver tested long term support but was able to bounce back slightly. At the time of this post, it is worth 12.84$ quite safely above 12.32$ which is the level I'm watching.
Here is the chart.

As for GOLD, it bounced close to our target of 630$. I will call a temporary bottom here.
A look at the weekly chart of HUI, the unhedged and more speculative gold stocks index, shows that the 6 years uptrend is still in force and unless it is broken, gold stocks are still bullish over the long term.

GOLD support at 630$ !!!

2007-03-05T00:15:00.000+08:00

No time over the weekend to blog.

We ran our scan but there is again not one breakout chart to advise. However, we looked for breakdowns for the first time and found more than 250 of them. I can't figure which to post as there are just too many. I may post a few during the week.

I'm only showing the daily chart of gold here. Despite heavy losses last week, GOLD is still in a solid uptrend. The level to watch is 630$ formed by the convergence of very significant supports:
- the dotted blue uptrend line which served as support during the last January correction.
- the upper level of the previous 9 months consolidation wedge, in black. After breaking out in mid January, a test of the 630$ would only reconfirm the bullish breakout. A break below 630 would sort of invalidate the move and I will use this level to close all my gold positions.
- the 200MA is now at 625. Although I find it lesser reliable, buyers may wait for it to be reached.

In all instances, 625/630 is a level where buyers have 3 strong reasons to come back.
Good trading week.

01-03-2007 scan

2007-03-02T00:59:00.000+08:00

The morning scan pointed us to one chart only. Am sure it is not a good idea to play breakouts right now but here is the chart.

TYG

28-02-2007 scan

2007-02-28T23:13:00.000+08:00

Not one chart made it through the scan this morning before the open. I'm quite not surprised, maybe time for us to scan for bearish patterns.....

When I woke up this morning in Asia, my screen was all red with the damage done overnight in the US.
Things were still quite like any other day though, I drank my coffee and went to work. My neighbor left pretty much at the same time in his Mercedes and he will probably buy another Porsche this weekend, new houses and condos are still building at the same rate on the way to the office, seems like the economy here is still booming.

Now those charts don't look good, your grand mother could tell you that too so it's probably time to put some money aside. We have had some similar corrections in India, China and more recently Thailand. Not long later, it was all back to normal. Chinese are short of money after their New Year, I guess it just take a few millions of them to crash a market. China is a big country but its financial market is still small.

27-02-2007 scan

2007-02-28T00:49:00.000+08:00

I'm sorry for the late update, we are already in the middle of the session, I try to post before the opening on this blog.
Today, our scan has revealed only 2 charts worth being posted here. The quantity and quality of the potential breakout picks has been decreasing since last week. Perhaps, we could use this as a forecasting indicator of the market. That will certainly be back tested some time this year.

In the meantime, find 2 charts of interest for today.

KLIC	MIVA

25-02-2007 scan

2007-02-26T21:50:00.000+08:00

Here below the scan results for stocks which are within a 2% range from a horizontal breakout.

R	FITB

BA	ASML

AIN	AFL

GOLD stocks for Monday

2007-02-26T18:34:00.000+08:00

To start with, 2 stocks mentioned here last week.

ASM	RNO

And 4 new candidates for this week.

BWR	GOCM

GSS	SPM

Scan for this week later today.

Thursday's breakout

2007-02-23T17:44:00.000+08:00

Four charts from yesterday's update made interesting moves.

ADI	BLC

MTX	TEAM

GOLD picks

2007-02-23T16:28:00.000+08:00

It's not too late to join the gold bandwagon if you missed it, here a few suggestions for stocks which are about to or have just broken out.

My 2 favorite picks are GOLD and KGC. If you have a profile prone to more risks, I recommend you look at Avino Silver (ASM), New Gold (NGD) or Northgate Exploration (NGX).

ASM	GBU

GOLD	GFI

GORO	GRS

KGC

21-02-2007 scan

2007-02-22T21:38:00.000+08:00

In our tentative to improve the software, we have introduced a small bug with consequence that the scan rejected valid patterns. I have still decided to post the result as I find there are very good breakout candidates.
Many of the charts suggested in last scan have nicely broken to the upside.

As one can see, the focus is on ascending triangles. It is working fine but there is still a lot of work before the results can be used for automatic trading. We are focusing on minimizing human intervention before turning to other patterns.

ACCL	ADI

ARJ	ARM

BLC	CHUX

DFC	DMF

ED	ELNK

FCBP	GCFB

HOC	HRT

IBM	KYPH

MIVA	MTX

NOVM	PGNX

QD	RESP

RNO	TEAM

TXT	VRSN

WRE	WRNC

YRCW	ZILG

some more breakouts

2007-02-15T17:12:00.000+08:00

A few more stocks from our last week scan have broken to the upside. I plan not to follow-up on the breakouts as I give no buy/sell recommendation for the moment. I hope the tool will be able to do that for me later. In the meantime, I'll operate twofold:
1. I post the picks as detected by our tool
2. I update when the stock breaks up or down (and when I'm given the time)

If, when you buy and when you sell is entirely up to you.

Precious metals are hot, you may want to look at Rangold (GOLD) and Golden Star (GSS). I'm already in.

CCC

CRUS

GRS

PAYX

YHOO

previous scan update

2007-02-14T17:21:00.000+08:00

We have not had enough time this week to run a fresh scan, therefore we'll update the charts from last post whose stock moved significantly. The rest is pretty much unchanged. After the patterns are invalidated, I won't mention about them anymore. Later, we will post statistics on success/failure rate of the patterns detected and calculate expectancy for each year backtested. We are still a few weeks down that road.

AMGN

CCC

GORO

PEP

SHLD

TEVA

GOLD

2007-02-12T19:06:00.000+08:00

Not the result our scan program, just a few precious metal stocks which I monitor manually and caught my attention this morning. I have been a gold bull since October, best looking patterns are here for the moment, popping out one after another. In silver, I like HL and SLW. In gold, I like CLG, KGC, MFN, AEM, GOLD

XAU - for those who do not yet believe we are potentially on the eve of a very, very significant breakout. XAU is a basket of gold stocks commonly used to measure the gold sector.

GFI - a descending triangle for once, not my favorite chart but good risk/reward at this price.

GOLD - One of the best chart out there, after breakout

GORO - only for those who have a little money to allocate to a highly speculative play.

MFN - getting overstretched but can't miss out on that pattern. Textbook breakout.

08-02-2007 scans

2007-02-12T01:27:00.000+08:00

We have added NYSE, NASDAQ and AMEX stocks to the database, that should make about 8,000 of them now but I have not counted. Below is a subset of the list generated by our pattern detection tools. It attempts to detect ascending triangles but simple breakout of minimum 6 months range will also be accepted. Note that I have no idea whether the stocks below will go up or down, the comments I have made are based on my modest experience and what I see as weight of evidences. It is recommended to wait for the breakout out of low volatility and expansion of volume.

I have been struck this week to see how few good patterns are in the market right now, actually I see an increasing number of stocks which have already broken down rather long support and significant support. This is quite bearish for the market in general.

ADBL

ADI

ALTR

AMGN

CBE

CCC

CRUS

FDRY

FSP

GLD

GRS

MORN

NPM

PAYX

PEP

PFO

PGNX

PJC

SHLD

TEVA

YHOO

07-02-2007 scans

2007-02-08T20:25:00.000+08:00

Below, yesterday's scans of interest. We will extend the scan to 5000 stocks from 500 only currently. Breakout patterns are working satisfactory, we are now focusing on improving the recognition of "buy on support" candidates.

ALTR
AMGNPAYXSHLBTEVA
YHOO

First run

2007-02-05T00:18:00.000+08:00

We ran the program for the first time after new modifications this weekend. It is behaving as expected with the advantage that a simple design allows to understand very well what is going on. At this point of time we are detecting way too many short term patterns which was purposely made so. Now the work in the coming days will focus on filtering out detection of lesser importance.
The pattern sought is the ascending triangle, most of the time it is a continuation pattern but I like it most as a reversal at the end of a downtrend.
Amongst the many alerts, 2 charts got my attention: PEP and WM

PEP does not qualify as an ascending triangle, yet the chart is interesting. It is forming a congestion zone right below resistance, a sign of potential breakout. Caution is advised as the ADX is above 30. Look for more volume and prefer buying on a retracement after breakout.

WM is a much better chart and this time the program was spot on. Volatility is low and increasing, MACD made a new momentum high, that favors a breakout in the days to come.

Recognition method

2007-02-01T13:25:00.000+08:00

We are now pretty clear about how we want to recognise patterns. After trying a number of elaborated mathematical methods, we came to the conclusion that adding complexity certainly does not improve the detection capability of the engine, at least for the time being.
We have been able to achieve the same level of detection with a rather visual approach. The first concept we want to try is based on what a human would do confronted to a chart, how it would recognise pivot points and draw trendlines.

That is nothing like rocket science but I'm not convinced that neural network or fractals would give better results. Indeed, I tend to think now that the mathematical complexity hides too much of the physical and natural significance of what is being modeled.

One month since we started and we have made reasonable progress. A first instance of the program was able to detect very good bottoming triangle patterns which is the first we decided to work on, reason being that they have proven to be very successful in my timeframe and investment style. Unfortunately, it was depending on too many constants which most efficient values would be very difficult to determine other than by empirical methods.

After trying smoothing methods, we concluded they work no better than simple average with minimum computation complexity but it gave us a number of ideas which we are implementing now. I'm very hopeful it will give the results we are trying to achieve.

As of today, we have a recognition module, a bare money management module which is not the priority and a back testing module that will allow us to determine the expectancy of each trading system derived from pattern recognition over a flexible period of time.

I'm now very satisfied with what we are doing, hopefully within a few days we shall reach very significant improvements after Bruno is able to change his code.