WED. MAR. 17- What I Do To Prepare

Many people have asked me what it is that I do to prepare for the trading day and stock watch list I put out for the firm when doing trades within the particular system I utilize. Mind you, everybody has their different ways of doing thing and no one way is right or wrong per se, but I do a few notable things pre-open and post-open which I feel help me prepare for the day. Let’s start with the previous night. After a close once I am done trading, I analyze that night’s earnings in a bit more detail. I then make sure I’ve read every headline on my news service since the close. Then, around 5:20PM ET, “WSJ.Com” publishes that day’s closing price stock tables with a tremendous amount of data. With that information, within the website, I go to MarketData, and then download the spreadsheets for the four major packets of data (NYSE, AMEX, NASDAQ, NASDAQSmall Cap), ‘rank’ them by percentage movers, and note everything that moved up or down at least 5% or more that day, traded at least 1 million shares, and closed near a high or low. I then look at the charts on all of them and then put them on a watch list. I do it this way because these are the stocks which were clearly the most volatile with the most momentum that particular day. Then, I monitor a few other extraneous things such as which stocks were mentioned on “Mad Money” that night and add them to the list along with the technical stuff and the news-related stuff. I them monitor the futures on and off at night until I go to bed around 12AM-1AM in seeing what the trend and overseas news is. Upon waking up around 5AM, I look at www.bloomberg.com as well as a host of news sites to see what happened while I was sleeping. I’m usually in the office by 6AM-7AM depending on how busy the day is setting up to be. Upon getting there, I peruse every headline on the wire that occurred overnight. I then use two different earnings services to see which companies reported their earnings that morning and analyze the data (and hopefully make a few trades off of the earnings very very early particularly during earnings season. I then monitor the wires for the rest of the morning while putting all of the news-centric stocks on the watch list mixed in with what I did the night before in ranking them in the order in which I think I will trade them that day. I quickly hammer out my observations for the day on the “good” and “bad” part of the blog based on how the stocks are performing. As the trading day progresses and it gets slower, I delete stocks which aren’t moving or are trading in the middle of a range and do research for the first part of the daily post if necessary and/or type out whatever is on my mind based on questions I’ve received or behaviors I’ve observed (in myself and in others). Thus, what I do is very work-intensive, but it thankfully has served me fairly well over the years and gives me a daily knowledge base to work off of.

Markets in Asia were very strong overnight with Hong Kong up 1.7% and Tokyo 1.2%. Prices are strong in Europe as well with markets up ¾% on average. Commodities continue their recent rally with oil up 1%. The dollar and bonds are little changed. Ostensibly, the actions of the Fed maintaining the “extended period” language through gas onto the fire of this relentless albeit slow yet steady march higher. Don’t look for much to change today. Focus on the various story stocks as well as the tech and finance stocks; follow the big caps for the true story of the market…that sounds obvious, but it’s really not today in particular as there will likely be some motion this morning. Trading should be fairly active early on, but make sure you get your stuff done early as the St. Patrick’s Day parade in Manhattan will slow things down as the day progresses.


Reiterating-


If the whole story is not there -

If something is good, assume either a short thru unchanged or an A-B-A2 (preferably to the downside in a downside market and the upside in an upside market) based on direction of the market unless specified.

If something is bad, assume either a buy thru unchanged or an A-B-A2 (preferably to the downside in a downside market and the upside in an upside market) based on direction of the market unless specified-


Good- The following stocks have good news and/or a strong technical pattern

FMCN- good earnings

KONG- good earnings

FNGN- closed near a high

CIT- decent earnings

VHC- awarded a $106 million judgment against MSFT…not bad for a company with a $220 million market capitalization

MDCO- A Virginia court set aside the Patent and Trademark’s Office’s denial of one of MDCO’s patents

OPMR- received buyout bid of $2.40

PLCM- according to a Reuters report, Reliance Communications has formed a partnership with PLCM to launch video conference services in India

AKNS- signed a deal with LOW to provide installation services

ABII- Abraxane met primary endpoint for phase III trial for advanced non-small cell lung cancer




Bad-The following stocks have bad news and/or a weak technical pattern

MEE- acquiring Cumberland Resources and sees 1st quarter results below expectations

FUQI- abominable earnings

AMSC- downtrend continued in closing near another new low

EM- poor earnings

HRP- share offering

TOO- share offering

DFS- lukewarm earnings

MIPI- poor earnings and issued ‘going concern’ note

MOV- closed near a low after posting terrible earnings

CAGC- closed near a low

HGSI- phase 2 trial results of Mapatumumab not fantastic

VIVO- earnings warning

CSKI- bad earnings






Earnings:

WED MAR 17 BEFORE

ATU GIS HEAT

WED MAR 17 AFTER

GES MLHR NKE



Good luck today.


Epiphany Trading, LLC


www.epiphanytrading.com


Erik R. Kolodny- Chief Markets Strategist
Brendan P. Byrne- President
Joseph R. McCandless- Managing Partner
D. Timothy Seaquist- Managing Partner