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Monday, December 13, 2010

MON. DEC. 13- The Middle Of The Day In The Middle Of December

Every Wednesday, the supermarket circulars arrive in either the local newspaper and/or the mail in my area. On Wednesday nights, typically the last thing before bedtime I do is a grocery list of what’s on sale in line of course with what I need. I go through the circulars of the two stores where I do my main shopping to do this. I mean, why should I pay $16.99 for a box of diapers at store 1 if there are on sale for $7.99 at store 2? I typically save myself $50-$75 per week for this 15-20 minutes of extra effort a week (including the couple of minutes between the two stores) with the shopping typically done on Fridays so it is one less thing to worry about for the weekend. This comes out to $2,500 to $3,500 a year which of course pays for a lot of things. I actually tell my wife every so often that our cable/Internet/phone bill is more than covered by this with money left over to comfortably do things like buy a new computer if need be. What does boggle my mind though as I undertake this weekly task is to form the list, go over said list with my wife, make sure we need nothing, go to cook something on a Sunday evening for the kids, and what we need is not there because she didn’t contribute the item to the list. And yes, I hope you’re reading this, Robyn, because it’s true! After bantering for a bit about how she cannot make a corn-based soup if we have no corn, I sigh loudly, grab one or both kids, and go buy some corn. Unfortunately, that is not how the stock market works. If there is nothing there, one cannot create something out of nothing if there’s little to no movement in the markets. I make this point because we now theoretically if not practically approach a relatively slow time for the markets. Traders tend to think August is slow, but the period between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day is usually very slow in the middle of the day. The one major difference is that the momentum stocks of the year and small caps with news can tend to whip around a great deal but usually only at select times of the day. So, whenever we encounter pockets of static prices, don’t use your boredom to try to make corn soup when you have no corn, er, uh, make trades when there are none to make else you’ll find yourself frustrated, impatient, and poorer much less merely frustrated.


Markets overnight were higher worldwide after China failed to take significant action to halt its economic growth. Tokyo was up 0.8% with Hong Kong ahead 0.7%. In Europe, Frankfurt is up 0.5% with London up over 1%. Gold is up almost 1% with oil up 1.5%. Bonds are down again with the 10-year yield surging toward 3.40% now. Futures are one again stronger as well. Look for a relatively slow session ahead of tomorrow’s FOMC meeting much less a slew of economic and corporate news. The bias will likely remain to the upside with a focus on big cap tech, small caps in the news, the takeover/merger stocks (such as NSTC and DNEX), commodities plays on the strength of metals and oil, and relative weakness plays off of the opening bell.


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

IDT- closed near a high after posting great earnings

LULU- closed near a high on continued momentum from its earnings report and a positive mention on “Mad Money”

CISG- closed near a high

SPMD- closed near a high

GS- closed near a high

FCX- closed near a high

FFIV- closed near a high after the announcement that it’d be added to the S&P 500 on Friday

MA- closed near a high

PZG- closed near a high

LOCM- closed near a high

BJRI- mentioned on “Mad Money” on Friday night

DNEX- to be acquired by TMO for $118.50/share in cash

NSTC- rumored to be in acquisition talks

FONR- wins jury verdict in anti-trust lawsuit

VICL- Vaxfectrin demonstrated potential as universal adjuvant according to company

AAPL- initiated as a “buy” at Goldman Sachs with a 430 price target

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

YOKU- closed near a low in an ugly reversal

HBAN- stock offering

MGLN- poor earnings guidance

CML- to be acquired for $27.75/share in cash by DELL


Earnings:

None today

Epiphany Trading, LLC
www.epiphanytrading.com

Erik R. Kolodny- Chief Markets Strategist
Brendan P. Byrne- President

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