How To Safely Buy CLNE

By David Grandey | March 12, 2010 | 1:46 PM |  0 CommentsTweet This

Yesterday, Clean Energy Fuels (Nasdaq: CLNE) broke out on an earnings related news release. Blink your eye and you missed it. So now what? Do we do what the master TV herder says we should do and that is just blindly buy buy buy? Or should we do what we here at All About Trends preach all the time and that is to NOT CHASE BUSES and let them come to us.

That said, this issue broke out at the $19 and change range so we'll sit back let the dust settle and on a Pullback Off Highs Longside pattern look to enter the stock on the longside.

Back in early December we were on the prowl for names that were sporting what we call a "Coming Up The Right Side Of A Cup" Pattern. When the stock crossed over the first green line December 14, we bought the stock.  And we'll be buyers again on a pullback to the new green line.

A new FREE newsletter will be distributed this weekend.  Sign up at www.allabouttrends.net and receive our free report—"How To Outperform 90% Of Wall Street With Just $500 A Week."

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Consolidation under VWAP

By Jeff Pietsch | March 12, 2010 | 12:41 PM |  0 CommentsTweet This

After an easy gap fill, internals are marginally negative, but there is no real sign of potential breakdown yet as price consolidates under the VWAP.  In fact, the VIX is continuing to decline.  Keep a close eye on that slight edge in down volume and cumulative tick for any change.

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Testing Common Knowledge About Volume On An SPX Breakout

By Rob Hanna | March 12, 2010 | 10:53 AM |  0 CommentsTweet This

In last night's Subscriber Letter I looked at the breakout to a new closing high in the S&P 500. I defined a breakout to be a close at a 50-day high after having no closes at a 50-day high for at least 10 days. In general these breakouts showed positive momentum for about a week and then fizzled out. I broke down the breakouts a number of different ways. One way was by using volume. I wanted to test the common supposition that high volume was better when an index broke out. Those results were quite interesting and I've included them below. First instances like yesterday with lower NYSE volume.

Here we see a solid inclination for some upside follow through over the next week. But how does this compare to those times that the volume came in higher on the day of the breakout?

What was a decent edge over the first week is now essentially edgeless. Many times on this blog I've shown how common trading knowledge is often wrong. This serves as yet another example of why it is important to question common knowledge.

If you'd like to see more results related to my study of breakouts last night you may you may take a free 1-week trial of Quantifiable Edges by signing up here. If you've trialed in the past but not in a while, then you may email me at support @ quantifiable edges.com (no spaces).

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Qs Rule

By Bob Barnes | March 12, 2010 | 9:09 AM |  0 CommentsTweet This

We got the long awaiting dip yesterday morning, but it was quickly overwhelmed by muted accumulation that drove the markets into green at the closeaccompanied by multiple new highs in the majors. It was more like watching OJ's low speed Bronco chase than a real horse race, but the Qs crossed the finish line as the winner by a nose.
Not a lot of disparity between the top 4 and, with EWC slightly lagging 5th place, the old leaders continue to lead.
Yesterday's VIX action was a classic example of how frustrating it can be to try and capture VIX dynamics with VIX options. Although VIX did make a nice pop at the open, followed by a parallel action in the calls, for the remainder of the day the whole scenario went bizarro. After an early dip in the VIX it proceeded on up to new daily highs. . a situation that was accompanied by the plunge in call values to the low of the day. Now I understand that there are only 5 days left until expiration but I'm talking about the 20's here, not the 24's.
Following that 9:30 am pst high, the VIX plunged straight down, losing 1.34 points or 7% from the daily high to close at it's low of the day.
Meanwhile, the VXX actually closed up .4% for the day, further muddying the waters. Some days you just can't get a break with the VIX and yesterday makes the point in spades.

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Get Ready for Range Expansion Play from SPY Intraday Triangle

By Corey Rosenbloom | March 11, 2010 | 5:43 PM |  0 CommentsTweet This

If you've been lulled to sleep by the recent intraday market action, don't fret.

According to the long-standing price principle of "Range Expansion and Contraction," the next move in the market is likely to be a range expansion breakout swing move, that will offer opportunities for those aggressive enough to take them.

Let's take a quick ‘pure price' look at the S&P 500 ETF SPY and note the symmetrical triangle compression and the boundaries to watch for a potential breakout.

I drew the dominant trendline boundaries in blue, with the lower line coming in at the $114.75 level and the upper line resting at the $115.00 level - giving us a 25 cent compression boundary.

These levels correspond to 1,140 and 1,145 respectively on the S&P 500 Index itself.

Traders often fear taking breakout moves due to the potential for a bull or bear trap (a false break) to occur, and that is indeed a risk for trading these compression set-ups.

True breakouts trigger "positive feedback" where one side is forced to take stop-losses while the other side puts on fresh breakout positions.

A break above 1,150 in the S&P 500 would likely trigger a flood of stop-losses as the index breaks to new recovery highs, but should a downside break occur, we would see bulls running for the exits while bears put on fresh breakdown positions.

The edge often comes from the breakout itself (and relatively small stops) due to the potential large range expansion move that can occur (again, relative to the stop - popularly on the opposite side of the trendline).

I'm also showing the compression in the 3/10 Oscillator and the intraday TICK extreme readings (to show what happens to indicators in a price compression zone).

I wanted to put this chart up quickly to show the potential breakout that could occur if not by the end of this session (one hour left) then potentially overnight or into Friday.

Corey Rosenbloom, CMT
Afraid to Trade.com

Follow Corey on Twitter:  http://twitter.com/afraidtotrade

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