the Trade-Radar + TradingStockAlerts blog

OK, stocks rallied this week. But does the rally have legs? Sometimes the market rallies inexplicably. Given the bad news in economic reports this week, it looked like we might see another crash. We saw GDP come in with a 0.3% decline, a precipitous drop 3.1% drop in consumer spending, jobless claims stubbornly staying at recession-like levels, a major decline in the Chicago PMI and mixed numbers in the durable goods report. Despite all this, stocks rose. Perhaps investors felt all the bad news was priced in and stocks were finally cheap enough to buy. I am beginning to think that we may see more buying. Moving Average Analysis with a twist -- Below we present some statistics derived from the TradeRadar Alert HQ process. Each week we scan 7200 stocks on the NYSE, the AMEX and the NASDAQ and run a number of technical analysis screens against each one. One of the indicators I have found to be reliable this year is tracking how many stocks have their 20-day moving average above their 50-...

This post is to announce that the latest list of stock alerts is up and available at Alert HQ . Each week we scan over 7200 stocks and ETFs looking for fresh BUY and SELL signals. We apply a combination of proprietary and standard technical analysis techniques to identify those stocks that are beginning to move. Once again this week, the alert lists are free! Markets were mixed this week and so were our signals. Large caps more or less went sideways whereas small caps tacked on decent gains. In terms of our signals, the ones based on daily data delivered a decrease in BUY signals while the ones based on weekly data delivered an increase in BUY signals. In any case, we have another set of good sized alert lists this week. We have 45 BUY signals and 7 SELL signals based on daily data. In addition, we have 65 BUY signals and 29 SELL signals based on weekly data. Stop by Alert HQ and download your free lists. I myself like the lists based on weekly data and this week we have a nice increa...

As many readers may know, I have been running a scan of about 7200 stocks each weekend looking for TradeRadar BUY and SELL signals based on daily data. I have been making these signals available on the Alert HQ page of this site. Today, I ran the first scan based on weekly data. As this is still in a beta stage of development, i.e., working but with potential for further improvement, I thought I would make this first list available for free. Here goes. This first table is a list of all BUY signals: Symbol Name Last Price Signal Strength Aroon Indicator ABFS Arkansas Best Corporation $35.20 60% Strong Up trend - Up: 100 Down: 45 Osc: 55 MKSI MKS Instruments, Inc. $21.84 76% Strong Up trend - Up: 100 Down: 55 Osc: 45 PRAA Portfolio Recovery Associates, Inc. $47.82 77% Strong Up trend - Up: 100 Down: 55 Osc: 45 WRLD World Acceptance Corporation $34.09 61% Strong U...

I have been neglecting this blog lately and barely paying attention to the markets. Rest assured, though, I haven't been slacking. I have been working on a new approach for using the TradeRadar software. I have developed a method of scanning practically the whole stock market and applying an automated version of the TradeRadar signal software. The tests involved have been beefed up and made more rigorous. Given that the process is automated, there is less left to interpretation. How it works I scan the AMEX, the NYSE and the NASDAQ. That amounts to over 8500 securities including stocks, ETFs and closed end funds. The most up-to-date list of symbols for each exchange is read in. Then the software sequences through each symbol in each exchange, pulling in a year's worth of daily data and looking for recent trend reversals. In addition to the basic TradeRadar signal, trend lines are calculated and analyzed for direction (up or down) and steepness of the angle. To help confirm the ...

We saw a hint yesterday but today we got the confirmation. The iShares FTSE/Xinhua China 25 Index ETF (FXI) has been carving out a wedge-shaped chart pattern for weeks but it has now broken to downside. On October 31, 2007, FXI established its peak closing price at $218.51. At today's closing price of $151.81 it is now down about 30%. With huge gains in Chinese stocks over the prior year, China has been referred to as an equity bubble. For some months, however, it has appeared that Chinese stock markets were getting tired. On the charts, it could be seen that the price action in FXI has been increasingly compressed into the wedge mentioned above. As we got to the end of the wedge, expectations have grown for the ETF to finally break out one way or the other. The situation may have been resolved today and it appears to have been resolved in favor of the bears. Two days with downward gaps have taken FXI from the top of the wedge to clearly below the bottom of the wedge. These moves h...

I just wrote a post looking at the charts of the ETFs that track the major averages. In this post I'd like to look at the ETFs that track REITs, financials and technology using the TradeRadar software and traditional technical analysis. iShares Dow Jones US Real Estate ETF (IYR) Daily Chart / Sell Signal: with the Window Start set way back at the low made back around 5/23/06 we still have a clear TradeRadar SELL signal. There is no hint of it moving out of the SELL zone yet Daily Chart / Buy Signal: with the Window Start set at 2/7/07 there is a BUY signal almost formed but the peak has not yet made it into the BUY zone. With the Window Start set at 10/7/07 and the filter set to 4 days there is a better BUY signal that is just moving into the BUY zone though with somewhat weak signal strength. Weekly Chart / Sell Signal: with the Window Start set back in June of 2006 the SELL signal is still strong and solid Weekly Chart / Buy Signal: with the Window Start set at 2/12/07, this ETF...

Note to users of the TradeRadar software -- the FTSE/Xinhua China 25 Index ETF ( FXI ) generated a SELL signal about a week ago. Using a start date in early March of this year, you will see a clear signal with all green lights on the dashboard. No one can be sure if this is the bursting of the Chinese stock bubble. If you are interested in a trading opportunity, however, there is now an inverse ETF that will allow you to take a bearish position. It is the ProShares UltraShort FTSE/Xinhua China 25 ( FXP ). This TradeRadar SELL signal is based on daily data. Looking at a weekly chart, the SELL signal is not quite as strong as the daily signal but almost. As a result, this may not signal the big crash in Chinese stocks but it seems there is a good potential to see the intermediate term downturn continue for a while. Knowing how volatile the underlying index is, caution is advised. Be sure to determine a stop before opening the position. Disclosure: author is nibbling on a few shares of F...

I was looking at a list of stocks that made big moves today and I came across Rogers Corp. ( ROG ). They were up $4.67, or 11%, today. I hadn't ever heard of the company before so I took a look. Rogers is a 175-year old industrial company that now focuses on four segments: Printed Circuit Materials, High Performance Foams, Custom Electrical Components and Other Polymer Products. They sell primarily to electronics, aerospace and defense, ground transportation and consumer product original equipment manufacturers. This stock has the classic chart pattern we like to see in the TradeRadar software. It has been steadily dropping since November 2006 from a high of over $70 until it hit a low around $35 during the summer. In early August Rogers jumped from $35 into the $40's and stabilized. By August 15 the stock had flashed the TradeRadar BUY signal. We are a couple of months late in recognizing Rogers as a buy but there may still be gains to be made. Here is the chart from the Trad...

Today I decided it was time to climb on board the tech stock bandwagon. Accordingly, I bought the ProShares Ultra Technology ETF ( ROM ). I have been a schizophrenic investor for a while now. I have recommended a number of tech stocks in the TradeRadar model portfolio: Cisco, Qualcomm, BigBand; recently I sold SanDisk and Millicom Cellular. All the while I have also been maintaining a position in the Proshares UltraShort QQQ ETF ( QID ), which essentially comprises a bet against the tech-heavy NASDAQ 100. I picked up QID when the TradeRadar software generated a SELL signal on the QQQQ earlier this year and I have a hard time figuring out if I'm keeping it as a hedge or I'm just reluctant to take a loss. Maybe that's a discussion for a post on investor psychology. In an case, I am tilting much more toward being bullish on tech now due to several developments including the action in the markets as reflected in the TradeRadar software and the fact that underlying fundamentals...

Where does a regular person get investment ideas and how does he or she differentiate between the good ideas and the bad ones? I will present 10 tools that can help. And you don't have to be an investment professional to understand them. Getting good investment ideas Good investment ideas come from many sources. The key is to always be on the lookout. The five sources below cover a lot of ground: 1. Stocks with unusual behavior - this is one of my favorites. This category could include stocks with higher than normal volume, price spikes, options activity, crossing moving averages, breaking trend lines or resistance/support lines, gaps up or down, etc. There are a number of sources for lists of most active stocks ( Schaeffer's Research , Wall Street Journal Online , Quote.com , etc.) Briefing.com's InPlay feature (available here at Yahoo Finance) is great for stocks showing unusual price or volume activity, breaking resistance/support, reacting to various corporate news ev...

I am pleased to announce that the first TradeRadar training video is available. Many of you have asked for guidance on how to use the TradeRadar software. I will admit, it is not intuitively obvious how it works. This first video shows how to go about generating a BUY signal. SanDisk, an example from our model portfolio, is used. The video is about three minutes long so, with a size of 4MB, it may take a minute or two to download. The video should be viewed in Windows Media Player, a version of which should be installed on all Windows-based PCs. I tried to find a balance between picture quality and file size. In any case, it is fairly easy to see what the training is trying to demonstrate. It will show all the steps needed to look for and assess a TradeRadar BUY signal. View the video now!

I have been bearish lately, especially on tech stocks until this last week. Now it seems some beaten down quality tech stocks are bouncing off a bottom and finding their way higher. A case in point is SanDisk ( SNDK ). With the bottom falling out of flash memory prices, SanDisk began a long slide that started last November. It appears to be over now. Several analysts have recommended the stock, quoting an expected pick up in sales later in the year with that higher volume driving higher prices. In addition, there have been announcements that SanDisk, in partnership with Hynix, may be rolling out a new fabrication process that could double the amount of data per chip and lower manufacturing costs. There is a perception that we have seen the bottom in SanDisk's share price and that now is the time to get in. The stock has already shot up from the mid-30's to 43.38. The TradeRadar chart below confirms this outlook and shows a clear BUY signal generated just within the last couple ...

Many of us use various trend reversal indicators to time our trades. Our desire is to determine when prices have changed direction so that we can ride the new trend. Why doesn't it always work out? The first reason, of course, is that unforeseen events often drive prices in unexpected directions. That is something we can't change and it often makes all of us technical traders crazy. On the other hand, sometimes an unforeseen event is a prelude to a new trend. A stock spikes up on a what seems to be a one-time piece of good fortune and soon falls back. Does it start making its way back up or does it resume a previous down trend? The conflict within trend reversal indicators is that, though they can definitely tell when prices change direction, they suffer from two problems. One, they often can't determine how significant that move in prices actually will be. Two, they are often lagging indicators. As such, they can be late in providing a signal, sometimes leading the investo...

First, I would like to thank all of you who have downloaded the TradeRadar software. As you have probably discovered, it is quite different than many typical stock market indicators and takes some getting used to. I would like to offer some tips and tricks that I have accumulated from my experience using the software. Keep up to date on the releases - I have added a number of features that make it easier to use and I recently fixed a bug in the Signal Strength calculation for SELL signals. Full installs and upgrades are available on the Download page. Interpreting the indicators on the Buy-Sell Indicators screen - the Dashboard is intended to help evaluate how good the BUY or SELL signal is by using a red/yellow/green scheme to provide a quick determination at a glance. This is a ballpark estimation. You may not agree with the color indicated. For example, a Signal Strength of 55% may be good enough for you but TradeRadar characterizes that as yellow (caution). That's OK if you...

It is getting about that time when we announce the Trade Radar Pick o' the Month. I haven't made my mind up yet but I wanted to list a few stocks that have developed promising patterns but haven't quite generated unambiguous BUY signals. The current list is as follows: National Interstate ( NATL ) - provides insurance for the transportation industry (today's close: $26.70) Diodes Inc ( DIOD ) - semiconductor manufacturer (today's close: $36.27) Evergreen Energy ( EEE ) - provides lower emission fuel to coal-fired utilities and industries (today's close: $10.48) Alkermes Inc ( ALKS ) - a pharmaceutical company with an alcoholism treatment (today's close: $15.04) Abaxis ( ABAX ) - makes easy-to-use blood test kits for humans and animals (today's close: $21.80) All of these stocks have been trending downward for the last few months, some more steeply than others, but have recently announced better earnings and/or have garnered analyst upgrades. I am def...

I have been busy enhancing the blog and the associated web site. I have added two new features which will be updated on a regular basis: The Weekly Market Call - here I use the Trade Radar signal to indicate whether the current trend in the three major market averages (Dow Industrials, S&P 500, NASDAQ 100) is steady or changing. This is presented as a simple up or down indicator. The current week is compared to the previous week. If last week was up and this week is down, for example, it means Trade Radar is signalling a top with a reversal to the downside in progress. Pick o' the Month - here I will highlight stocks or ETFs that, according to the Trade Radar signal, are undergoing a reversal. On the web site, I will soon be rolling out a page that shows what the Trade Radar software looks like. Here you can see screen shots of some of the most important features of the program. I will also provide a link to the Help file so you can get an idea of how to set up and use the syst...

I am a middle aged guy who has been trading stocks for more than 20 years with various degrees of success. I have an engineering degree and an MBA so I have an interesting mix of the technical and the economic in my background. Years ago I was fooling around with Visual Basic (a programming language now somewhat obsolete) and trying to develop a good application for tracking my trades and doing charting. This was way before much of this functionality became available via the web for free. As part of the charting exercise, I began to run stock prices through various kinds of equations to see what the charts might look like. (For those of you who like the math details, I just considered the closing prices as simple time-series data and wrote code to process the series using different kinds of functions that might commonly be found in a college calculus text book). I stumbled upon two functions that seem to provide signals whenever there is a reversal in the direction of prices. One...