Do you guys remember that great E-Trade commercial from the dot.com era where the distraught trader jumps out his office window?  He was on the first floor of his house and landed comfortably.  I'm wondering if the market just did something similar.  I've sort of felt like Ferris Bueller's sister this week with talk of "The Triangle" everywhere I turned.  Yes, it resolved to the downside yesterday on a pickup in volume (some technically driven piling on was likely), but did it land on a thick, fluffy zone of support?

The following chart suggests that might be the case:

(more…)

Most of what Jim Cramer has to say nowadays becomes fodder for ridicule in my newsletter.  The truth, however, is that before he became a media maniac he was a tremendously successful trader.  So hidden in his gobs of nonsense are occassional gems.  Years ago I heard him talk about the note-to-self he kept posted on his monitor that read "discipline > conviction."  Clearly the guy was aware of his own ego and it's ability to sabotage his performance.  At the moment he felt himself extending his middle finger to the screen and loading an order to double-down, there that note would be staring back at him.  A simple, though I suspect powerful, manual override.

(more…)

NOTE FROM TIM: I'll be doing a video post later today….because…….what a day it was! I extend my thanks, as always, to the various contributing writers to Slope; their work is much appreciated by me and the readers here.

It's late summer 1998.  Harry Stamper and his ragtag crew (below) have just saved the world from an asteroid impact on the big screen.  Steven Tyler 'Don't Wanna Miss a Thing', and the iMac has made a comeback in an assortment of lollipop flavors.  I am stationed at the then Pacific Coast Exchange, witnessing a real life end of the world tale unfold.  Sovereign debt stress (then in Asia and Russia) has created a maelstrom that will soon result in the take-down of Long Term Capital Management.  In what will become the norm in the following decade, the Fed gets cozy with Wall Street to contain the damage and creates an unofficial instrument that will come to be known as the "Greenspan put."

(more…)

When you're high you never, ever wanna come down.  Stocks continue to put up a fight.  They still flinch faster than my kid brother would at the sight of my fist, but like him they pop right back up again and are in your face.  The signals are garbage.  As Tim pointed out earlier in the week, bulls and bears alike are having a tough time.  That's what the bear does.  He wants your money, and he doesn't care whether you've got horns or a coat of fur.

(more…)

I know that shorting AAPL is one of those things that civilized people just don't do, let alone talk about.  But as the folks in Cupertino take the cover off of what will likely be another terrific quarter this afternoon, I thought I'd share a little iTrivia.  

Since bottoming in January 2009, today will be the 12th quarterly earnings report from Apple.  Almost every one has resulted in a gap higher in the stock, as investors trample each other to get it before it's gone like a Thanksgiving day sale on DVD players at WalMart.  All but one of those those gaps filled (the one exception being a modest jump in July 2009), and it's usually just taken days or weeks to do so.

Three years of earnings reports.  Same suckers bidding it up in the after-hours as if it might not be there the next morning.  You don't have to short it, but please think twice about buying it as everyone goes gaga over another monster quarter.  What about a gap down you ask?  Bite your tongue.

by Brian Thomas for varsityinvestor.com