Usually a huge company like MasterCard isn’t such a stalwart on the IBD list, but both MA and V have been on and off the list a lot.  They’re both currently on the list, but I like the chart for MA more.  It’s currently at the bottom of the long term channel, so a nice move over something like $350 gives a nice 10% run with some upside.

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.

SodaStream was one of my favorite growth stocks last year.  When I mentioned it here the first time, it just had a breakout over $36.  I rode it up to $50, got shaken out, and then it promptly ran all the way up to $80.  Growth has still been impressive, and with the stock back down under $40 it has some potential for excitement once again. 

Apple has a bit of an ugly daily chart, but the weekly chart is still pretty nice, with the stock at the bottom of the long term channel.  The financials were skewed this year because the iPhone was shifted from the summer months to this quarter.  However, the initial market research is saying that the Kindle Fire will actually be a strong competitor to the iPad this holiday season, so who knows if they’ll be able to keep up their ridiculous growth.  Either way, it looks like AAPL is getting to a decent buy point if you’ve been waiting for a while.

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. 

When I last checked in, the market was dipping around $1100 and looking pretty shaky.  A month later I’ve changed cities, but the market is pretty much the same.  It’s a bit more positive – even bullish on the short term charts – but nothing to get super excited about yet.  You can try to play the swings between $1100 and $1250, but I’m still not seeing anything that would make me want to get super aggressive yet.  Maybe it was just waiting for me to get back in the saddle?  Well, I’m back.  Let’s go!

It’s been a hectic summer for me, but it’s probably a good thing that I’m not too active in this market.  There’s not too much to be said that hasn’t already been repeated a million times.  Limiting risk is the biggest thing to think about.  There will be some huge bounces, but you really want to wait for those confirmations before you jump in too hard.  Right now, that’s probably seeing the S&P 500 over $1200.  We’ll see how much further this can go…