Friday, April 11, 2008

GaryK on the Fly: 04.10.08

Usual caveats from Gary's 04.10.08 show: Quick comments

Market is back and forth. When the market is bad, we want to get you out. When it is good, I we want to get you in some of the monster stocks.

Most important thing: the news stinks. Retail numbers were terrible; retail stocks were up. NOvellus, bad; semi's are rallying. Even the Fed is admitting that economy is worse than thought. The market is hanging in there.

12767--DOW needs to get over this.
1387/88/96 S&P
2391 nasdaq
1886 Nasdaq 100

Stocks acting well: FSLR; RIMM; ISRG; NKE;MA; CRM;POT; MOS; CF (Ag stocks extended);X; MTL;AKS;SCHN; STLD.(Steel stocks are not buyable here and need a pullback). IBM; PCLN; Do not buy in front of earnings.

Set ups: I'm finding more and more.

However, if the market cannot get above levels noted above, then the market can go down, and it will take everything with it.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

My 2 cents on these comments from Gary K fwiw

IMHO this is a market which is "splitting" into 2 halves:

1/2 of the market is going sideways down - while another 1/2 of the marekt will show strength with many stocks going on the make new highs. (eg: DOW down 180 points today but AGU & POT today touching new intraday highs)

So I disagree where he says:
"When the market is bad, we want to get you out. When it is good, I we want to get you in some of the monster stocks."

This is exactly what you do not want to do IMHO.

As trying to time trades or investments to the major indices could prove a waste of time in a split market.

And sector rotation (except for perhaps into or out of commodities) will be a mess.

The "prop desks" are making their money by dropping the market to marginal new lows (making the TA which the crowd follows look bad) - and enticing everyone to sell.

At the other end of the trade - they move the market up with the usual spin (bottom is in, TA divergences yada yada) to distribute stock to them.

Of course they do this all the time - and this is nothing new -but in a "split" market I think it is more profitable for them to pursue this tactic- and perhaps they have little other choice since we are not in a roaring bull campaign.

So this seems to be an environment for either:

(a) clever stockpickers

(b) for very very narrow sector plays (coal, iron ore being two examples so far this year)

or

(c) short term day traders

Maybe I'm wrong on all this - or maybe things will change...

But this is what I have been observing since last Fall.

--

Hopefully soon, we will get some resolution on these Middle East games being played out the last few weeks... and hopefully things won't escalate any further than the usual 'flare' firings.

And China is increasingly looking less and less stable... in all aspects..... no wonder the "Street" was pushing the decoupling idea the last 5 months --> to entice everyone into the emerging market stocks.

It's also interesting that the one market which is the focus and where all this mess originated (yes - the US) - is down less than many others? Why?

PPT - no.

Could it be money flowing out of other "world" assets, emerging markets, maybe even Europe soon (if they lower rates) and or course out of bonds???

Some of the money has got to go somewhere (besides Oil, Gold, Manure and Corn)...

...enjoy your weekend Leisa...

Leisa♠ said...

NG--thanks for sharing your thoughts. To be fair, my snippets are not always a fair encapsulation of GK's comments. In his same show he mentioned that there are 200+ sectors that he follows--and in a market some are going up and some are going down--and he sees his job as stating what those are. He was very good at getting folks out of the sectors that were failing prior to the general market downturn.

In general, though, if the market is in a bear market (the market is bad) he gets out and gets in based the IBD philosophy--on confirmed rallies after a follow through day. That is his style and his discipline--and that would make sense if clever stock picking, day trading and exceedingly narrow sector plays are out of the realm of average investors.

He's very clear on his disciplines and I don't try to capture those in the snippets.

I am of the belief that if our USD is bottoming that would be very good for our markets. Particularly given that we have better regulation and the world markets may still have not come clean with some of their securities.