WED. DEC. 1- Wikileaks

The most popular named searched on the likes of Google and Yahoo yesterday was “Julian Assange.” And just who is Julian Assange? He is the very controversial director of WikiLeaks. And what exactly is WikiLeaks and how does it work? WikiLeaks is a non-profit entity which allows for the publishing of documents that tend to be generally viewed as ‘unavailable’ by the American public. They procure these documents from supposedly anonymous sources ala Wikipedia. Among the things that have come out from WikiLeaks were almost 100,000 documents about the war in Afghanistan and documentation supposedly proving some suspicious police activity in Kenya. Most recently, there has been a voluminous amount of material released in which there is documentation indicating that several Arab nations have suggested that the U.S. should adopt a ‘strike first’ policy on Iran and that the Chinese government was directly involved in computer hacking with numerous other salacious charges and quotations found among the documents. Besides the obvious political effects the WikiLeaks saga can have along with the potential for economic affects if tensions are stirred among the parties in the documents, there is the potential for a day trading wrinkle here as well. Assange was recently granted an interview by “Forbes” magazine in which he asserted that WikiLeaks was planning a “megaleak” sometime in the first part of 2011 in which documentations would show the goings-on from within the private sector, specifically involving “a big U.S. bank.” Specifically, Forbes' Andy Greenberg blogs: "Early next year, Julian Assange says, a major American bank will suddenly find itself turned inside out. Tens of thousands of its internal documents will be exposed on Wikileaks.org with no polite requests for executives' response or other forewarnings. The data dump will lay bare the finance firm's secrets ... When? Which bank? What documents? Cagey as always, Assange won't say, so his claim is impossible to verify. But he has always followed through on his threats." This may well have widespread implications for all bank stocks and speculation will begin to mount with guesses ranging from Bank of America to Citicorp to Goldman Sachs to a myriad of other candidates. So, as time progresses, keep your eyes peeled to the headlines and try to have as thorough an understanding as possible about all of the portending documentation as well as the WikiLeaks entity itself.

On the heels of positive comments from EU Central Bank President Trichet regarding the debt crisis and good economic data out of China, the month got off to a great start overseas for the markets. Tokyo was up 0.5% with Hong Kong ahead 1.1%. Markets are even stronger in Europe as of this writing with London and Frankfurt up in excess of 1.5%. The dollar is weaker by a full euro. Oil is up 1.5% and gold up 0.5%. MBA Mortgage Applications were out at 7AM at a decent pace. The ADP report came out stronger than expected at 8:15AM at 93K vs 58K expected. Revised Productivity (2.4%) and Unit Labor Costs (-0.4%) are due out at 8:30AM. ISM (56.4) and Construction Spending (-0.5%) are due out at 10AM. Crude Inventories are due out at 10:30AM with Auto and Truck Sales at 2PM. The Beige Book is also due out at 2PM. The Fed’s Yellen is scheduled to give a speech on fiscal responsibility and global rebalancing at 2:10PM and the Fed’s Fisher is expected to give an ‘economic update’ speech at 5PM. Futures are very sharply ahead. Markets today will likely be headline-driven but highly likely to retain their very positive overall as the news flow has been great. The focus should be on the earnings plays (OVTI, APWR for instance), the recent smaller to mid cap momentum plays (DECK, ICGN), solars, metals, and any relative weakness play particularly in the first few minutes of trading amid this strong tape.

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

OVTI- decent earnings

APKT- closed near a high after posting good earnings

DECK- closed near a high after CEO appeared on “Mad Money” last night

NFLX- closed near a high

SGMS- closed near a high after the former CEO came back

TFM- closed near a high

GTLS- closed near a high

TZOO- closed near a high

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

UTI- poor earnings

SODA- closed near a low in a major reversal after posting earnings

AAPL- closed near a low

GS- closed near a low

CCSC- closed near a low

RIG- closed near a low

AMZN- closed near a low

GOOG- closed near a low amid rumors it is on the verge of a major acquisition of GroupOn

IGTE- closed near a low after announcing it was reportedly raising money in a bid for Patni Computers

THO- closed near a low after posting earnings

TTM- closed near a low

CTRP- closed near a low

CMED- closed near a low after announcing a share offering

HCN- 9 million share offering

APWR-terrible earnings



Earnings:

WED DEC 1 BEFORE

APWR SCMR

WED DEC 1 AFTER

ARO JAS KKD

PSS SMTC SNPS

ZUMZ


Epiphany Trading, LLC
www.epiphanytrading.com

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