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Friday, July 31, 2009

FRI. JUL. 31- Oh, It's Real

When I sat in horror watching the Twin Towers burn, my first thought was “I can’t believe this is happening.” On an infinitely happier note, when my wife was in labor with my two beautiful daughters, both times my initial thought was “I can’t believe this is happening.” In a tragic way, we all witnessed the debacle of the financial markets in 2008 and thought “I can’t believe this is happening.” Yet that sentiment of “I can’t believe this has happening” has actually been even more present in what has become a bit of a snapback 2009 market. A newsletter that I read everyday (written well by a very intelligent person) has the following disclaimer at the bottom: “As we are experiencing a bear market, the long term buy list is simply a list of more conservative and defensive names.” I kept track: seven people used the word “overbought” on CNBC when referring to the state of the stock market. Four more people used the words “exercise caution.” I could say this was “yesterday,” but it was actually last Monday aka 400 Dow points below where we are now. There are two points to take from this: first, I am beyond tired of hearing people use the words ‘bear market bounce.’ Whether it is a bear market bounce or the bull market that any rational indicator tells us the rally of the last several months has been, if one is short longer-term, one is losing money. More relevantly for the day trading world is the fact that many people carry biases with them to day trading; while one should never do that, having the wrong bias is the worst kind of arsenic for one’s financial health. If one shorts a stock just because it happens to be up 150% and that individual thinks that the prospects for the real estate market aren’t good, well, these are two disparate thoughts which have no relevance as to whether that stock will soon be up 165% or 135% for the day. Thus, do not carry any bias whatsoever with you into the trading pit- and if you do- study the facts and the way the market acts rather than where you think it should be just by looking at the deltas of the movements.



Markets in Asia were strong to end the week with the Nikkei and Hang Seng up just over 1.5%. In Europe, prices were much more stagnant with the bourses hovering around unchanged. The other markets (commodities, bonds, et al) are quiet for a summer Friday morning. Yesterday marked the climax of the earnings season so traders who’ve been actively trading this stretch are more exhausted than normal thus the last Friday of the first month of each quarter tends to be traditionally slow. The sell-off yesterday combined with negative reaction to some good earnings reports likely signals an immediate-term cap yet the trend is still solidly higher. Thus, look for the crosscurrents to result in choppiness today with trading on both sides of unchanged (albeit with a slight downside bias overall due to the weak GDP report) in quiet action with the bulk of the activity occurring in the very early going.

Watch list:
07312009Eriklist.zip

Reiterating-

Please understand that if the ideas do not get to the hoped for set-ups cited below, more often than not, one should not blindly trade the symbol next to said idea.

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

ANDS- got FDA clearance on phase II hepatitis C drug study

MFE- decent earnings

MET- good earnings

MHK- good earnings

NVTL- fantastic earnings

ABAX- good earnings

GXDX- good earnings

RST- good earnings

BEC- good earnings

SGY- good earnings

BMRN- good earnings

DLB- good earnings

VSEA- good earnings

UTHR- closed near a high

MITI- closed on a high

PWRD- closed near a high

EME- closed near a high

KMP- CEO on “Mad Money” last night

ITT- great earnings

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

AIQ- closed on a low

LVS- poor earnings; MGM, WYNN likely move in sympathy

DIS- bad earnings

FSLR- good earnings, but stock was down after-hours after its huge run-up

SWN- bad earnings

GNW- bad earnings

PBI- bad earnings

SYNA- terrible revenue guidance

GPRO- bad earnings

PKI- bad earnings

YRCW- bad earnings

IM- bad earnings

GERN- bad earnings

VPRT- bad earnings

DNB- bad earnings guidance

MPWR- bad earnings

ARIA- revised development deal with MRK

BEZ- bad earnings

BOOM- bad earnings

V, MA- island reversals yesterday after posting earnings

MCO- closed near a trend low

AN- in ‘Sell Block’ on “Mad Money” last night; they did, however, beat earnings estimates this morning

SFI- poor earnings

AGP- poor earnings

CVX- missed earnings

Earnings:

FRI JUL 31 BEFORE

AGN AGP AIV

AN AU CEG

CPF CPN CVX

D DRYS ITT

MDC NRF PEG

PKD SFI SNA

SRE TWI WY


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

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