the Trade-Radar + TradingStockAlerts blog

iSuppli recently published a study contending that the next big thing in hi-tech is the femtocell. Two questions immediately come to mind: what the heck are femtocells and can an investor make money on them? Background -- Femtocells are cellular base stations that improve indoor wireless coverage. Femtocell base stations improve 3G cellphone coverage inside buildings or homes — locations where wireless signals tend to be weak because of building materials blocking the signal or the site’s distance from a cell tower. A femtocell acts somewhat like a WiFi hotspot or a wireless router, providing access to the cell carrier's network for multiple devices within a building. With some carrier networks straining to keep up with the demands of increasing numbers of users surfing the web from their smartphones, femtocells are being looked at as a way to improve service without having to build as many expensive cell towers or spend so much to increase bandwidth. The growth story -- iS...

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: 33 Swing Signals -- 29 BUY signals and 4 SELL Signals and one Strong BUY. 386 Trend Leaders , all in strong up-trends according to Aroon, MACD and DMI. We have 74 stocks that are new additions to the list and 174 that fell off the previous list. 13 Trend Busters of which 6 are BUY signals and 7 are SELL signals. 138 Gap Signals -- stocks with upside or downside gaps or gaps that have been closed. 64 are bearish gaps and 74 are bullish gaps. The view from Alert HQ -- I'm buying into the opinion that the market is over-bought and ready for a pullback, but now I see a surge in BUY signals on the Swing Trading Signals list. What to do? Looking for some confirmation in the other Alert HQ lists, I see a contrarion indicator in that the number of stocks on the Trend Lea...

The SEC has decided to take a closer look at derivatives as they are used by ETFs and mutual funds. Here is what the SEC has said: "Pending the review's completion, the staff has determined to defer consideration of exemptive requests under the Investment Company Act to permit ETFs that would make significant investments in derivatives. The staff's decision will affect new and pending exemptive requests from certain actively-managed and leveraged ETFs that particularly rely on swaps and other derivative instruments to achieve their investment objectives. The deferral does not affect any existing ETFs or other types of fund applications." I used to write regularly about ProShares leveraged ETFs. Under the hood, leveraged ETFs, both the 2X or 3X and inverse 2X or 3X, make extensive use of derivatives. Swaps of one kind or another are commonly utilized to achieve results that are multiples of an underlying index. Let's look at the ProShares Ultra QQQ ...

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 3 Alert HQ BUY signals and 56 SELL signals Based on weekly data, we have 4 Alert HQ BUY signal and 9 SELL signals We have 68 Bollinger Band Breakouts based on daily data and 283 Breakouts based on weekly data. We have 708 Cash Flow Kings 13 Swing Signals -- 5 BUY signals and 8 SELL Signals 488 Trend Leaders , all in strong up-trends according to Aroon, MACD and DMI. We have 41 stocks that are new additions to the list and 145 that fell off the previous list. 9 Trend Busters based on daily data of which 3 are BUY signals. We also have 43 Trend Busters based on weekly data. 129 Gap Signals -- stocks with upside or downside gaps or gaps that have been closed. We see 56 downside gaps and 73 upside gaps based on daily data. We a...

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: 23 Swing Signals -- 8 BUY signals and 15 SELL Signals. 592 Trend Leaders , all in strong up-trends according to Aroon, MACD and DMI. We have 86 stocks that are new additions to the list and 309 that fell off the previous list. 15 Trend Busters of which 3 are BUY signals and 12 are SELL signals. 138 Gap Signals -- stocks with upside or downside gaps or gaps that have been closed. 65 are bearish gaps and 73 are bullish gaps. The view from Alert HQ -- Stocks haven't really fallen all that much but the Thursday signals at Alert HQ are surprisingly downbeat tonight. Let's start at the top. The Swing Signals list is growing but there are way more SELL signals than BUY signals. The Trend Leaders list is shrinking, not growing. The Trend Busters list has for the secon...

Poking through Tuesday's Alert HQ stock signals I came across an interesting Trend Buster . The company is DynCorp (DCP) and the chart is below. Several things about this company grabbed my attention. Starting with the chart, we have the following positive developments: Price has broken above the trend line (downward sloping blue line) Price has broken above the 50-day moving average Chart pattern looks suspiciously like an inverted head-and-shoulders. This is generally considered a very bullish setup MACD is bullish Aroon is bullish, suggesting a strong positive trend Background -- DynCorp provides law enforcement training and support, security services, base operations, aviation services, contingency operations, interpreters and logistics support to civilian and military government agencies worldwide. The company is currently training police in Afghanistan and has been active in Iraq and Africa. As a contractor willing to work in the hotspots of the world, DynCorp ...

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: 34 Swing Signals -- 30 BUY signals and 4 SELL Signals and one Strong BUY. 811 Trend Leaders , all in strong up-trends according to Aroon, MACD and DMI. We have 271 stocks that are new additions to the list and 155 that fell off the previous list. 11 Trend Busters of which 9 are BUY signals and 2 are SELL signals. 136 Gap Signals -- stocks with upside or downside gaps or gaps that have been closed. 66 are bearish gaps and 70 are bullish gaps. The view from Alert HQ -- Investors don't seem particularly upset by passage of the health care bill. On the contrary, we now have two days in a row of nice gains. Things had been looking pretty toppy, we got the barest of pullbacks and now the market is looking strong again.For example, look at the improvement in our Swing Signals. ...

Semiconductor ETFs have been on the rebound lately. Here’s a roundup of semiconductor news from the Digitimes web site that illustrates what’s going on in the sector. 12-inch wafer prices to rise 10-20% in 2Q10 Demand is sufficient to allow suppliers to foundries to raise their prices. The article goes on to say that TSMC and UMC have both seen full utilization rates at their 12-inch fabs, thanks to orders for FPGA, GPU, network and wireless applications, according to the sources. Suppliers have kept capacity at recession levels while ramping prices. Pricing power is a good indicator of growth in demand so, from that point of view, this can be considered a positive. Supply chain remains tight amid conservative capacity management, says iSuppli "As iSuppli has been reporting for several months, the recovering economy has brought renewed demand. However, component suppliers have yet to jump in with both feet when it comes to ramping up capacity," These companies are...

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: 18 Swing Signals -- 3 BUY signals and 15 SELL Signals. 938 Trend Leaders , all in strong up-trends according to Aroon, MACD and DMI. We have 199 stocks that are new additions to the list and 165 that fell off the previous list. 25 Trend Busters of which 12 are BUY signals and 13 are SELL signals. 155 Gap Signals -- stocks with upside or downside gaps or gaps that have been closed. 73 are bearish gaps and 82 are bullish gaps. The view from Alert HQ -- Stocks muddled through the day today. The Dow showed a noticeable gains while most other averages barely broke even. On the three major exchanges, however, decliners outpaced gainers. We see the same situation at Alert HQ. SELL signals are in the majority on the Swing Signals and Trend Busters lists. And yet there are ...

One of the things I do at Alert HQ is scan the Trend Leaders list for stocks that not over-valued. I use a simple screen to identify those stocks that, while trending strongly upward, are showing what I call "reasonable value." Here are the criteria used for my reasonable 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 shows the results of this screen after it was run against those stocks that were added to the Trend Leaders list after the close on Tuesday, March 16. The Last Price column is also as of the close on Tuesday. Symbol Name Last Price Market Cap PE PEG Price To Sales Price To Book Debt To Equity COP CONOCO PHILLIPS $52.17 $76.84B 15.81 0.59 0.56 1.22 0.431 GGAL Grupo Financiero Galicia S.A. $5.50 $661.7M 10.88 1.2 1.14 1.22 N/A AIRM Air Methods Corporation $32.24 $38...

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: 14 Swing Signals -- 4 BUY signals and 10 SELL Signals and one Strong BUY. 904 Trend Leaders , all in strong up-trends according to Aroon, MACD and DMI. We have 170 stocks that are new additions to the list and 214 that fell off the previous list. 34 Trend Busters of which 22 are BUY signals and 12 are SELL signals. 141 Gap Signals -- stocks with upside or downside gaps or gaps that have been closed. 72 are bearish gaps and 69 are bullish gaps. The view from Alert HQ -- Investors applauded the Fed's statement today and stocks turned in another advance albeit on low volume. The brief pause I discussed in the weekend's post so far has seemed to consist of a mild one-day pullback. The Alert HQ signals continue to show slowing momentum overall but there are still stocks t...

I've introduced a new feature to the Trade Radar web site tonight. It's called the Trade Radar Stock Market Research Assistant . What it does -- When doing stock research, you might want to see a description of the company, a chart, headlines and blog posts, various sets of financial data and financial ratios, earnings call transcripts, etc. It's not unusual to have to visit several sites to see the best data in each category. At each site you have to enter a ticker symbol and navigate to the page you are actually interested in. The Trade Radar Stock Market Research Assistant removes the drudgery. Just enter a ticker symbol one time and the Research Assistant will hit up to eleven sites to retrieve pages that present best in class data. When I refer to "best in class" data, I mean that some sites are better at presenting certain kinds of information. I've evaluated a number of sites and created a set of resources that meet my standards for offering th...

I spent a big part of the weekend working on the soon to be released major update to the TradeRadar software. As a result, I fell behind on the usual weekend blog posts. What follows then, is a combination of our Weekly Review and the Weekend Winners and Losers where we announce the weekend's free stock signals available at Alert HQ . Today we have the following stock picks and signals: Based on daily data, we have 14 Alert HQ BUY signals and 8 SELL signals Based on weekly data, we have 11 Alert HQ BUY signal and 6 SELL signals We have 100 Bollinger Band Breakouts based on daily data and 396 Breakouts based on weekly data. We have 727 Cash Flow Kings 13 Swing Signals -- 2 BUY signals and 11 SELL Signals 951 Trend Leaders , all in strong up-trends according to Aroon, MACD and DMI. We have 156 stocks that are new additions to the list and 108 that fell off the previous list. 20 Trend Busters based on daily data of which 18 are BUY signals. We a...

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: 14 Swing Signals -- 3 BUY signals and 11 SELL Signals. 902 Trend Leaders , all in strong up-trends according to Aroon, MACD and DMI. We have 286 stocks that are new additions to the list and 165 that fell off the previous list. 33 Trend Busters of which 29 are BUY signals and 4 are SELL signals. 145 Gap Signals -- stocks with upside or downside gaps or gaps that have been closed. 66 are bearish gaps and 79 are bullish gaps. The view from Alert HQ -- A week ago, it looked to me like stocks were getting tired. Since then, markets have put in a nice advance and I am once again getting skittish. Alert HQ is showing signs that the market is over-bought and ready for a pause. The Swing Signals are showing more SELL signals than BUY signals. The number of stocks on the Trend Leade...

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: 13 Swing Signals -- 6 BUY signals and 7 SELL Signals and one Strong BUY. 783 Trend Leaders , all in strong up-trends according to Aroon, MACD and DMI. We have 247 stocks that are new additions to the list and 139 that fell off the previous list. 38 Trend Busters of which 33 are BUY signals and 5 are SELL signals. 162 Gap Signals -- stocks with upside or downside gaps or gaps that have been closed. 53 are bearish gaps and 109 are bullish gaps. The view from Alert HQ -- Stocks wimped out today when they were on the verge of closing at new highs. If you look at the chart of the Vanguard Total Market VIPERs (VTI), the ETF that I often use to compare to the Alert HQ signals, you will see that after a nice mid-day rally stocks fell back to the previous high from January 19. This l...

Read an interesting article at ComputerWorld today that got me thinking. The title: "IT centralization is back in fashion." It is useful to think about what this means for IT organizations and the vendors that support them. Why centralize? With technology assets centralized in one place, it's easier to take advantage of opportunities for efficiency and streamlining such as virtualization, storage de-duplication, cloud computing and outsourcing, all of which promise to lower costs. Centralization also makes it easier to create an effective disaster recovery strategy, minimize labor redundancies (ie, reduce expensive IT staff), get volume discounts on technology purchases, and lower maintenance and training costs through standardization. Is the trend real? There's some statistical evidence of a tilt toward IT centralization. In Computerworld's recent Forecast survey, 37% of 312 respondents said it's likely that their IT units will become more central...

Cyber attacks against Google have recently been in the news.Yahoo and other companies have been attacked, as well.  Microsoft, in turn, has gone to court to attack a network of malicious botnets. With all this activity in the cyber security arena, it is worth investigating which companies are at the forefront of the battle against hackers. With a wave of concern over hacking attempts, there should be some good investment candidates in the network security sector. Background -- When I talk about security I'm talking about intrusion detection and protection. An intrusion-prevention system (IPS) is an inline security device that performs deep-packet inspection to identify and block malicious traffic. IPSs are considered an improvement over intrusion-detection systems (IDS), which are passive devices that simply identify an attack but take no action to block it. IPSs are designed to respond in real time to attacks by dropping data packets deemed malicious. There several ways that...

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 28 Alert HQ BUY signals and 3 SELL signals Based on weekly data, we have 9 Alert HQ BUY signal and 5 SELL signals We have 169 Bollinger Band Breakouts based on daily data and 421 Breakouts based on weekly data. We have 752 Cash Flow Kings 20 Swing Signals -- 15 BUY signals and 5 SELL Signals 675 Trend Leaders , all in strong up-trends according to Aroon, MACD and DMI. We have 184 stocks that are new additions to the list and 58 that fell off the previous list. 54 Trend Busters based on daily data of which 49 are BUY signals. We also have 33 Trend Busters based on weekly data. 148 Gap Signals -- stocks with upside or downside gaps or gaps that have been closed. We see 42 downside gaps and 106 upside gaps based on daily data. We also have ...

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: 14 Swing Signals -- 7 BUY signals and 7 SELL Signals. 549 Trend Leaders , all in strong up-trends according to Aroon, MACD and DMI. We have 180 stocks that are new additions to the list and 65 that fell off the previous list. 54 Trend Busters of which 49 are BUY signals and 5 are SELL signals. 165 Gap Signals -- stocks with upside or downside gaps or gaps that have been closed. 71 are bearish gaps and 94 are bullish gaps. The view from Alert HQ -- Stocks have put in a week of gains but those gains have been smaller and smaller of late. Momentum is fading and it's a good bet a down day is on the way but so far, there are no indications the market is going to fall off a cliff. At Alert HQ, the Trend Leaders list continues to grow, reflecting the fact that more and more stocks ...

Today's screen looks at cool cash or, more precisely, cash plus cash equivalents plus short term investments. These are classic balance sheet entries. The screen actually identifies those stocks whose Cash on Hand, as defined above, is greater than 50% of it's market value. The screen then does a cross-reference with those stocks that just recently joined the TradeRadar Trend Leaders list. The result is in the table below: Symbol Name Market Cap PE Price To Sales Price To Book Debt To Equity Cash On Hand Dividend AFP UNITED CAPITAL CORP. $211,300,000 31.91 3.85 1.12 0.1428 $147,530,000 $0.00 GFIG GFI Group Inc. $652,600,000 39.63 0.79 1.25 0.1182 $327,280,000 $0.20 AAWW Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings $951,100,000 8.3 0.87 1.26 0.8096 $637,070,000 $0.00 ISH INTL SHIPHOLDING CORP. $208,200,000 4.88 0.55 0.9 0.4375 $120,090,000 $2.0...