Thursday Swing Signals, Gaps, Trend Busters and Trend Leaders for Oct 22, 2009

This post is announcing that Thursday's Swing Signals, Trend Leaders, Trend Busters and Gap Signals are now available at Alert HQ. All are based on daily data.

Today we have the following:

• 47 Swing Signals -- 32 BUY signals and 13 SELL Signals plus 2 Strong BUYs.
  
• 535 Trend Leaders, all in strong up-trends according to Aroon, MACD and DMI. We have 111 stocks that are new additions to the list and 254 that fell off the previous list.
  
• 28 Trend Busters of which 11 are BUY signals and 17 are SELL signals.
• 202 Gap Signals -- stocks with upside or downside gaps or gaps that have been closed.
  

The view from Alert HQ --

Stocks came from behind today and finished with solid gains. This doesn't change the fact that stocks have been more or less treading water for the last seven sessions or so. It's been a narrow trading range with the S&P 500 essentially flat and the NASDAQ showing only a small gain.

Our signals absolutely reflect this situation. Trend Leaders list decreasing, more SELL signals than BUY signals on the Trend Buster list and the Gap Signals list. If it wasn't for more of those municipal bond funds enjoying snapback rallies, the Swing Signals list would also show more SELLs than BUYs.

The question for those considering trading tomorrow is whether blow-out earnings from Amazon can lead the market to another gain. Apple failed to carry the market forward but perhaps Amazon has the required mojo.

In another "it's a wacky world" data point, we have a Strong BUY signal for AIG on the Swing Signals list. Though this company has been left for dead several times since the Great Recession began, it has more than rebounded. It now sits astride its 50-day moving average which is moving in a positive direction.


More intriguing even than the BUY signal is the fact that the Bollinger Bands have been getting narrower and narrower. This is generally considered to be a precursor to a big move in one direction or another. Our BUY signal suggests that move could be to the upside. Maybe that's what you get when the CEO gets to keep his ten million dollar salary courtesy of Obama's pay czar.

Using our signals --

If you're a momentum trader, the Trend Leaders list is a good place to go shopping. If you practice technical analysis, check out the Trend Busters. And if you are a short-term trader or even a day trader, our Swing Signals or Gap Signals may provide some good trading ideas.