the Trade-Radar + TradingStockAlerts blog

Stocks eased off this week. On Tuesday, it was more like a tumble than an easing but when the week was over major averages had given up roughly half a percent. After two weeks of strong gains, this was a bit of a disappointment but then it's not unexpected to see rallies pause now and then. The question now is whether the rally can get back on track. We'll try to look for the most likely outcome in the following charts. They're derived from data collected during our Alert HQ process and they provide a high-level look at a number of the indicators we track across the whole market. The view from Alert HQ -- Let's start with our moving average analysis.  For this first chart we count the number of stocks above various moving averages and count the number of moving average crossovers, as well. We scan roughly 7000 stocks and ETFs each weekend and plot the results against a chart of the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY). The chart above shows that the number ...

Here's another post where I ran my simple value screen against the Alert HQ database. Once again I included stocks that are on the Trend Busters list as well as those that are on the Trend Leaders list. The screen looks for stocks with a reasonable valuation but also charts that are looking particularly attractive. Here are the criteria used for my loose value determination: PE between 0 and 20 PEG between 0 and 1.3 Price-to-Sales less than 2 Debt-to-Equity less than 1 The following table is run against those stocks that were added to the Trend Leaders list this weekend after the close on Friday, Feb 26. The Trend Leaders list identifies those stocks where Aroon, MACD and Wilder's DMI are all bullish. Symbol Name PE PEG Price To Sales Price To Book Debt To Equity GPS GAP, INC. 14.42 1.23 1.00 2.84 0 TJX TJX COMPANIES, INC. (THE) 16.77 1.07 0.89 5.96 0.268 WST WEST PHARMACEUTICAL SERVICE...

This is our usual quick post announcing that the weekend's free stock signals are now available at Alert HQ . Today we have the following stock picks and signals: Based on daily data, we have 25 Alert HQ BUY signals and 8 SELL signals Based on weekly data, we have 3 Alert HQ BUY signal and 21 SELL signals We have 96 Bollinger Band Breakouts based on daily data and 181 Breakouts based on weekly data. We have 777 Cash Flow Kings 20 Swing Signals -- 15 BUY signals and 5 SELL Signals 278 Trend Leaders , all in strong up-trends according to Aroon, MACD and DMI. We have 79 stocks that are new additions to the list and 46 that fell off the previous list. 27 Trend Busters based on daily data of which 24 are BUY signals. We also have 52 Trend Busters based on weekly data. 168 Gap Signals -- stocks with upside or downside gaps or gaps that have been closed. We see 84 downside gaps and 84 upside gaps based on daily data. We also have 56 Gap Signals b...

There was plenty of grumbling about the Advance Report on Durable Goods for January 2010 that was released today. The headline number showed new orders up 3% but ex-transportation, new orders were actually down 0.6%. If you're overweight tech, like I am, though, you would be smiling happily. I'll run through a few charts and you'll see why. Let's start by looking at shipments for the tech sector as a whole and than for the sub-sectors of computers, semiconductors and communications equipment. You can see that shipments have surged over the last two months and, except for communications equipment, are reaching levels last seen in 2008 just before the worst of the Great Recession took its toll on the global economy. The tech sector as whole showed shipments up 8.5% and semiconductor shipments up over 32% With the great improvement in shipments, it's disappointing to see Tech lagging other sectors like Materials and Consumer Discretionary. Some would argue...

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: 24 Swing Signals -- 13 BUY signals and 11 SELL Signals. 245 Trend Leaders , all in strong up-trends according to Aroon, MACD and DMI. We have 68 stocks that are new additions to the list and 129 that fell off the previous list. 23 Trend Busters of which 12 are BUY signals and 11 are SELL signals. 158 Gap Signals -- stocks with upside or downside gaps or gaps that have been closed. 85 are bearish gaps and 73 are bullish gaps. The view from Alert HQ -- Things today seemed to conspire to send stocks down. The Durable Goods report was disappointing to many and jobless claims increased over the previous week, surprising economists who expected a decrease. After being down as much as 1.5% at mid-day, stocks turned up and finished the day down only slightly. Finishing strong is an enco...

This post is announcing that Tuesday'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: 19 Swing Signals -- 7 BUY signals and 12 SELL Signals. 304 Trend Leaders , all in strong up-trends according to Aroon, MACD and DMI. We have 134 stocks that are new additions to the list and 82 that fell off the previous list. 28 Trend Busters of which 11 are BUY signals and 17 are SELL signals. 165 Gap Signals -- stocks with upside or downside gaps or gaps that have been closed. 78 are bearish gaps and 87 are bullish gaps. The view from Alert HQ -- After two good weeks the market took it on the chin today. A worse than expected Consumer Confidence report was blamed for the downdraft. It was surprising to me that investors took it so seriously. With a raft of better than expected retail sales results coming out, it's hard to believe that this Consumer Confidence number was anyt...

In the new, soon-to-be released version of the TradeRadar software I will be more than quadrupling the number of fundamental indicators that will be evaluated for every stock. One of the indicators is beta. In my research to determine how to evaluate beta in the program, I realized I needed a refresher course on what beta means for an investor. The following is the result of my investigation. Definition -- The beta (β) of a stock or portfolio is a number describing the relation of its returns with that of the financial market as a whole. It tells you how fluctuations in the return of a stock co-vary with an index, often the S&P 500. An asset with a beta of 0 means that its price is not at all correlated with the market. A positive beta means that the asset generally follows the market. A negative beta shows that the asset inversely follows the market; the asset generally decreases in value if the market goes up and vice versa. Another way of distinguishing between beta ...

If you're wondering whether the current rally has legs, I'd like to submit the following charts. They're derived from data collected during our Alert HQ process and they provide a high-level look at a couple of the indicators we track across the whole market. The view from Alert HQ -- Let's start with our moving average analysis. For this first chart we count the number of stocks above various moving averages and count the number of moving average crossovers, as well. We scan roughly 7000 stocks and ETFs each weekend and plot the results against a chart of the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY). The yellow line has crossed above the magenta line. This is a clearly bullish development as the number of stocks above their 50-DMA has moved above the number of stocks whose 20-DMA is over their 50-DMA. We almost always see stocks advancing when this situation occurs. In addition, please note that well more than half of stocks are now above their 50-DMA which is ...

This weekend I have a bigger than usual list of Alert HQ BUY signals based on daily data so I began to browse through them. Clicking on the column headings allows you to sort by that data element. I started by  sorting by Signal Strength. I was surprised to see a bunch of REITs at the top of the list. After spending last fall in a trading range, many REITs surged into the end of December and then fell back in the new year.They now appear to be making an effort to climb back to new highs. I'm no expert in the fundamental analysis of REITs. What I can say is that it's worth paying attention when an entire sector begins to move. Here is the list of REITs that are on this weekend's buy list: Symbol Name Signal Strength Dividend Yield ARE ALEXANDRIA RE EQUITIES 99% 2.27% AVB AVALONBAY COMMUNITIES 99% 4.53% BXP BOSTON PROPERTIES, INC. 91% 3.00% FIO ISHARES FTSE NAREIT INDUSTRIAL/OFFICE CAPPED INDEX FUND ...

This is our usual quick post announcing that the weekend's free stock signals are now available at Alert HQ . Today we have the following stock picks and signals: Based on daily data, we have 120 Alert HQ BUY signals and 7 SELL signals Based on weekly data, we have 3 Alert HQ BUY signal and 22 SELL signals We have 93 Bollinger Band Breakouts based on daily data and 169 Breakouts based on weekly data. We have 778 Cash Flow Kings 14 Swing Signals -- 11 BUY signals and 3 SELL Signals 254 Trend Leaders , all in strong up-trends according to Aroon, MACD and DMI. We have 85 stocks that are new additions to the list and 26 that fell off the previous list. 83 Trend Busters based on daily data of which 75 are BUY signals. We also have 36 Trend Busters based on weekly data. 192 Gap Signals -- stocks with upside or downside gaps or gaps that have been closed. We see 81 downside gaps and 111 upside gaps based on daily data.  We also have 56 ...

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: 33 Swing Signals -- 28 BUY signals and 5 SELL Signals. 195 Trend Leaders , all in strong up-trends according to Aroon, MACD and DMI. We have 100 stocks that are new additions to the list and 16 that fell off the previous list. 93 Trend Busters of which 85 are BUY signals and 8 are SELL signals. 217 Gap Signals -- stocks with upside or downside gaps or gaps that have been closed. 94 are bearish gaps and 123 are bullish gaps. The view from Alert HQ -- The rebound continued today but progress was halting. It appears the initial surge is slowing down. Though all of our lists of stock picks are definitely bullish, the decrease in Swing Trading Signals is an early warning sign. Oh well, markets never go straight up. Today the Fed announced a modest increase to the discount rate and in...

I ran my simple value screen against the Alert HQ database again yesterday. This time I included stocks that are on the Trend Busters list as well as those that are on the Trend Leaders list. The screen looks for stocks with a reasonable valuation but also charts that are looking particularly attractive. Here are the criteria used for my loose value determination: PE between 0 and 20 PEG between 0 and 1.3 Price-to-Sales less than 2 Debt-to-Equity less than 1 This first table is based on those stocks that meet the value criteria and are on the Trend Busters list. This list identifies stocks via automated chart analysis that are breaking out above a trend line. The following five stocks popped out when looking at the breakouts registered on Tuesday, Feb 16: Symbol Name PE PEG Price To Sales Price To Book CORE Core-Mark Holding Company, Inc. 7.19 0.47 0.07 1.02 FDEF First Defiance Financial Corp. 12.81 1.31 1.1 0.4 ...

This post is announcing that Tuesday'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: 116 Swing Signals -- 114 BUY signals and 2 SELL Signals. 111 Trend Leaders , all in strong up-trends according to Aroon, MACD and DMI. We have 48 stocks that are new additions to the list and 33 that fell off the previous list. 91 Trend Busters of which 80 are BUY signals and 11 are SELL signals. 202 Gap Signals -- stocks with upside or downside gaps or gaps that have been closed. 83 are bearish gaps and 119 are bullish gaps. The view from Alert HQ -- It's good to see all our lists of stock picks are so bullish. The Swing Signals and Trend Busters lists have BUY signals way, way outnumbering SELL signals. The Trend Leaders list is starting to turn around and is now growing. Finally, we are again seeing more upside gaps than downside gaps. All of this implies that this market ...

This is our usual quick post announcing that the weekend's stock signals are now available at Alert HQ . Today we have the following stock picks and signals: Based on daily data, we have 44 Alert HQ BUY signals and 13 SELL signals Based on weekly data, we have 5 Alert HQ BUY signal and 75 SELL signals We have 72 Bollinger Band Breakouts based on daily data and 149 Breakouts based on weekly data. We have 823 Cash Flow Kings 86 Swing Signals -- 85 BUY signals and 1 SELL Signals 96 Trend Leaders , all in strong up-trends according to Aroon, MACD and DMI. We have 35 stocks that are new additions to the list and 18 that fell off the previous list. 34 Trend Busters based on daily data of which 27 are BUY signals. We also have 115 Trend Busters based on weekly data. 165 Gap Signals -- stocks with upside or downside gaps or gaps that have been closed. We also have 43 Gap Signals based on weekly data. The view from Alert HQ -- A week can sure make...

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: 208 Swing Signals -- 207 BUY signals and 1 SELL Signal. 79 Trend Leaders , all in strong up-trends according to Aroon, MACD and DMI. We have 24 stocks that are new additions to the list and 44 that fell off the previous list. 37 Trend Busters of which 25 are BUY signals and 12 are SELL signals. 168 Gap Signals -- stocks with upside or downside gaps or gaps that have been closed. 72 are bearish gaps and 96 are bullish gaps. The view from Alert HQ -- On Tuesday I thought the bulls were returning and today they seem to have arrived. Markets moved up nicely as the dollar moved down thanks to potential defusing of the Greek sovereign debt issue. Also reported today, initial jobless claims decreased more than expected and that provided added support for stocks. On Tuesday I pointed ou...

Earnings season has nearly run its course and, judging by stock prices, investors seem to be disappointed. Today I'll provide an update to my tech stock earnings scorecard and see what it tells us about the tech sector, where it's been and where it might  be going. Again, I'll refrain from publishing all the data in tabular form and just provide summaries of a number of measures. Note that I have captured data on 332 stocks  so far and percentages referenced below are based on this total number. Earnings -- 256 stocks beat First Call estimates which amounts to 77% 104 of those stocks beat earnings estimates by 20% or more or almost one third 209 stocks or nearly two thirds showed at least some year-over-year earnings growth whether they beat estimates or not 83 have shown year-over-year growth in earnings of 20% or more Revenue -- 205 stocks have shown year-over-year revenue growth. That amounts to about 62% 78 have shown revenue growth of 20% or more Guidance -...

This post is announcing that Tuesday'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: 188 Swing Signals -- 184 BUY signals and 4 SELL Signals. 99 Trend Leaders , all in strong up-trends according to Aroon, MACD and DMI. We have 16 stocks that are new additions to the list and 25 that fell off the previous list. 35 Trend Busters of which 14 are BUY signals and 21 are SELL signals. 196 Gap Signals -- stocks with upside or downside gaps or gaps that have been closed. 105 are bearish gaps and 91 are bullish gaps. The view from Alert HQ -- Last Tuesday I titled the post "The bulls are back!" That was based on the huge number of Swing Trading BUY signals we found. Here we are again on a Tuesday with a rally in the stock market and a pretty sizable list of Swing Signals. The question today is whether the Swing Signals are delivering another head fake, like last...

The family wants me to watch the Super Bowl with them and stop this darn blogging. And you know, I think that's a pretty good idea so I'm just going provide a really abbreviated post that looks at our Alert HQ overall market statistics. The following charts are derived from data collected during our Alert HQ process and they provide a high-level look at a couple of the indicators we track across the whole market. The view from Alert HQ -- Let's start with our moving average analysis. For this first chart we count the number of stocks above various moving averages and count the number of moving average crossovers, as well. We scan roughly 7000 stocks and ETFs each weekend and plot the results against a chart of the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY). This chart shows the broad-based deterioration in the market. Almost 70% of stocks are now below their 50-DMA. The number of cross-overs to the downside has accelerated. I don't show it on the charts but roughly ...

Everyone is aware that the market has been going through some tough times for the last few weeks. Major averages are off their peaks roughly 7% and a full-fledged 10% correction or worse is not out of the question. It turns out, however, that not every stock is taking a dive. I ran a screen that that looks at the Trend Leaders list at Alert HQ and looks for which stocks have increased their dividends. These dividend growers seem to be practically impervious to the downturn. And they stand out because so many others on the Trend Leaders list these days are inverse ETFs. Here is the list of 10 dividend growers that are exhibiting strong up-trends on their stock charts. Note that in order to be on the Trend Leaders list a stock has to show strong results in all three indicators: Aroon, DMI and MACD. Symbol Name Dividend TTM New Dividend % Increase MTR MESA ROYALTY TRUST 2.169 3.43 58.14% NRGP Inergy Holdings, L.P. 3.32 3.76 13.25%...

This is a little different than the usual quick post announcing that the weekend's stock signals are now available at Alert HQ . I wanted to announce that I have made some changes to how some of the signals are generated. I have blended a calculation of Slow Stochastics into the determination of the Swing Trading Signals. Slow Stochastics is another approach to determining when a stock is moving from being over-bought and into a decline or from being over-sold and then into a rally. Combined with the Bollinger Band analysis and Williams %R calculations that were already in place, the Swing Trading Signals should be more reliable. There may also be fewer signals generated on any particular day now that the criteria have become a little more stringent. There has also been an improvement in the way we identify Trend Busters. The algorithm is now more precise and determining when the stock price broke above or below the trend line has become more accurate. The result is that you w...

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: 5 Swing Signals -- 4 BUY signals and 1 SELL Signal. 117 Trend Leaders , all in strong up-trends according to Aroon, MACD and DMI. We have 47 stocks that are new additions to the list and 48 that fell off the previous list. 19 Trend Busters of which 3 are BUY signals and 16 are SELL signals. 221 Gap Signals -- stocks with upside or downside gaps or gaps that have been closed. 123 are bearish gaps and 98 are bullish gaps. The view from Alert HQ -- With almost all other Alert HQ indicators looking pretty bearish, we got a huge surge of BUY signals on our Swing Trading signals list on Tuesday. This was the result of a couple of good days that allowed stocks to bounce off their lower Bollinger Band. I read this as a precursor to a rally and predicted that stocks might begin to recover ...