Originally it looked like we may hit a correction, but now it looks like we might just have some consolidation.  Flat bases are always good for long term investors since you get the benefits of forming a base without the temporary scare of a correction.  There are a lot of stocks hitting buy points right now, and while the market looks like it’s in a decent place to buy, I’m still a bit cautious and keeping shorter leashes than normal.  I need to refresh the watch list on the blog, since I’m actually holding a lot of different things off the autotrader that I haven’t logged here…

After the first real correction in a long time, we finally had a bounce, followed by another reversal back to the downside.  Falling through here could get interesting, since there are only a few minor points of support all the way down to $1200.  Without all the breakeven sellers and missed the first boat buyers, the first long term level of support seems like the technical position traders acting on the 200 day moving average.  We’ll see if we get that follow through this week.

After weeks of running up, this is the first prolonged period we’ve had a slide.  I see two interesting lines that converge at $1350 right now.  The previous highs from 2011 and the bottom of the current longer term uptrend channel. Falling through could signal a rough summer ahead, a la 2011, but since this is an election year I’m guessing there’s a lot more news ahead that will swing this thing.  Time to go back to tighten up those stops…

There wasn’t much going on when I last checked in, but since then the market has been pretty interesting.  Pushing above all time highs, the new breakout shows that the recent run still has some legs.  We haven’t had a real correction since last fall at $1150, so I’m reluctant to bet that this can continue.

I’m currently taking a non aggressive approach, which differs for me from being conservative because I’m still holding trades from my autotrader overnight.  I keep looking for an excuse to go to cash, but as long as the run keeps going you kind of have to ride it.  Having said that, I’m not even scoping out any overnight short potentials right now.  Any dips will be seen as opportunities to buy, unless we burn off about 15%, and by that point any short screens I run today will be invalid.  Let’s see what bullish things are out there…

It’s been a while since my last post, but the chart hasn’t really changed.  We’re still on the same uptrend, we haven’t broken out yet, and we haven’t had any real pullbacks.  Oil seems to be coming to the forefront again, and Greece is still a big issue, so we’ll see where things go.  I’m expecting at least a short term pullback from $1350 regardless of where the long term trend is going, so if you’re in it for the long run make sure you don’t get shaken out too early, and if you’re looking at the short term look for some possible action soon…

Although it’s been a while since my last post, the market has been chugging along without me.  I’ve been sitting on a lot of positions for an extended period, but it looks like I may need to start making some adjustments to my current holdings — yeah, I’m looking at you MCD.  Earnings have generally been good so far, but I’m really interested in AMZN later on this week.  I’ll go through my watchlist to quantify some of my changes in the near future, but the market is overbought now anyway, so most plays are going to be waiting on pullbacks.  As bad as the global economy still looks, I wouldn’t go against the current uptrend anytime soon.

I would like to say that I called the last bounce, but then I’d have to point out all of my misses too.  We’ve had a couple tests of the previous resistance/support level at $1225, and now it’s forming a narrowing triangle.  When the price condenses around a certain range like this, that often means some excitement is coming.  More often than not this is a continuation pattern — which would mean a bullish run — but the breakdown could be just as profitable.  Stay tuned…

A couple big down days and the breakout already looks done.  You may have given up any bullish hope, but don’t forget that most breakouts end up testing support at some point.  That’s not to say I’m bullish, but until we break under that $1225 support, it’s premature to call this a false breakout.  Falling through that could lead all the way down to $1100 though, so hopefully you measured your risk on any new positions so that you don’t get shaken out early, but still account for the steep drop off to the next level of support.  As usual, it should be an exciting holiday period…

Time flies when you’re having fun.  It’s been almost a month since I last posted and we’ve been on a nice run since then, bouncing all the way from $1100 to over $1235.  Now we’re at another trigger point, this time of resistance right above $1225.  I hope that the trend continues up, but I would refresh my watch list with both bullish and bearish options since there’s a good amount of room to run either way once we find a direction.  Is it almost holiday time already?

Once again, we’re bouncing around the support level.  Falling through $1100 could be a steep drop, but it’s held a couple times before, so we’ll see where this goes.  I’d guess we’re going down a lot more, but wait for the confirmation first.  Either way, there are a ton of values starting to form.  Anything from GOOG and AAPL to ULTA and LULU are setting up nicely.  I would pretty much check into anything that you’ve liked over the past 2 years to see if it’s in a nice setup.