Live Lists (the long and short of it)

Alright, Friday's advance was notable, but it was a low-volume affair and well shy of anything extraordinary. I still think a very short-term approach is best here, unless you're a lot smarter than I am. I'm not particularly biased in either direction for the time being.

This weekend I've scoured my screens and charts (foregoing my usual bender) and below is some potential ammunition for firing long and/or short; on a short or even shorter-term basis.

Widows and orphans be damned - or at least don't do anything I do...


SWING LONG (1 to 5 day long-side trades; live names within healthy industry groups):

Pollution Control
-TISI (thin)
-CLHB (thin)

Energy-Other
-MEE
-CSIQ
-ENER

Medical-Biomed/Biotech
-GENZ
-CELG
-ALXN
-CVTX
-VPHM
-UTHR

Medical/Dental Svcs
-PRXL
-GXDX (thin)
-ICLR

Medical Systems/Equip
-VAR
-ISRG
-MR

Electrical Equip
-AZZ

Machinery-General Industrial
-FSYS
-FLS
-DXPE (thin)
-RBN

Transportation Rail
-KSU
-CSX

Retail Clothing/Shoe
-BKE
-URBN (21% short int.)
-ROST

DAYTRADE LONG (Big-volume, up-days in the market showing a clear, broad advance):
-RIMM
-SOHU
-ISRG
-CELG
-FSLR
-SYMC
-ADBE
(**I'll be looking for other high-volume, news-driven names the day of the big up-days in the mkt, which very well may be the better daytrade candidates for that particular session)

SWING SHORT (1-5 short-side trades; poorly behaving names within recently deteriorating industry groups):

Agricultural Operation
-DAR
-SYT
-BG

Chemicals-Fertilizers
-TNH
-IPI
-POT
-MOS

Metals-Ores
-BHP
-TCK
-CCJ
-PCU

Machinery-Construction Mining
-JOYG
-CAT
-ASTE
-MTW

Transportation-Ship
-OSG
-DRYS
-TNK (thin)
-TBSI

DAYTRADE SHORT (Big-volume, down-days in the market showing a clear, broad decline):
-WYNN
-PCLN
-MOS
-BUCY
-CAT
-POT
-GM
-GRMN
-EBAY
(**I'll be looking for other high-volume, news-driven names the day of the big down-days in the mkt, which very well may be the best daytrade candidates for that particular session)

One tidbit of note, very many of the longs on my list have high short-interest ratios. Typically I do not like betting against a large amount of shorts, but in this case I am looking short-term enough that I am not overly concerned. Perhaps it says something negative about the market overall; I'm not really sure but I doubt it's anything positive.

And another note, I won't be daytrading anything that is not moving in the direction of the larger trend on the big market days. For example, sometimes you will see the Ag's up on a big down-day in the market. In that case, I simply avoid that group and look elsewhere.

Good luck this week.

In Off The Limb

OK, I went a little further up-river than I expected, but I'm back - in the US even.

I like to get away in the low-volume months of summer, as I've mentioned, but I prefer a mostly an auto-pilot strategy while traveling. This summer's market has required much more attention than that, so after a couple of days not getting it right, I took the occasion to ignore it altogether.

While I was gone, we saw a decent turn in market direction, in the broad sense, but it was led by ugly, broken groups and the more defensive medical and biomedical groups; not exactly what a healthy bottom tends to look like. At the same time the leaderships groups gave back gains in dramatic fashion. Oils, Agro's, Solars, Metals, etc. were smathered in the short-term.

This is a an interesting market, to be sure, but it remains a perplex mish-mosh whereby the glass appears both half-full and half-empty at the same time.

I'm trading again, but I am not going to pretend I have any strong conviction as to what will happen next (in the larger sense). The financial's may indeed suck the broad-market light into their apparent black hole, or the broad-market may instead burn brightly and drive higher after surviving dramatic negatives associated with the (concrete block around the ankles) financial's, rising inflation, economic malaise, the looming month of September approaching, etc., etc.

So while holding anything like a normal portfolio seems too risky at the moment, there are some reasonable swing and even daytrades out there. I'll try to point these out in the days to come; especially on the more dramatic sessions.

Talk soon.