the Trade-Radar + TradingStockAlerts blog

The Alert HQ lists of alerts and reversals are a great source for finding stocks and ETFs that are breaking out from down-trends or breaking down from up-trends. Finding stocks that are breaking out of a messy consolidation phase can be a bit harder to do. The good news is that the Premium Stock Screener at our new site TradingStockAlerts.com has a neat way of doing it. Putting the Trend Performance Score to work -- Start at the very top of this new screener where the focus is on recent changes. Set the Trend Performance criteria to "Somewhat bullish (>3)" and the Change in Trend Performance to "Bullish to Very Bullish (>1)" What this means is that we are looking for stocks that have been moving sideways or upwards and are suddenly showing a noticeable move upwards; ie: a breakout. If you want to eliminate those stocks that are already in an up-trend, you can add a couple of more criteria. For example, looking for MACD flipping to bullish or recent...

I occasionally read the emails from TheStreet.com. One of Jim Cramer's themes recently is that tech is in the "house of pain" and should be sold into rallies or avoided altogether. Having a particular interest in tech, I was wondering if I could prove or disprove his thesis. As it happens, the Durable Goods report for February was just released and we can see how tech in aggregate is performing. Shipments -- I generally give less importance to Shipments since this is a backward looking measure reflecting orders that have been confirmed, manufactured and shipped. It's similar to earnings reports -- it's good to know but the data is in the past and we're more interested in the future. The following chart shows how February shipments looked for the overall tech sector: It appears that shipments in the tech sector peaked back in September 2010. Furthermore, the six month moving average has turned down. If you're keeping score, you might say Crame...