Updated Industrial Metals Chart /EBS

Housekeeping: When I post the daily sector sort, the YTD information is from the day before. The data must be updated over night. I'll continue to post the daily with the YTD--but I wanted to make you aware of that. I'll label these columns accordingly.

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Here's an updated chart on the GS Industrial Metals Index (with the qualification that I'm not chartist):



If we embrace Gartman's rules of keeping our technicals simple, I think that we can all agree that the slope of the line is on the decline and not the incline AND the line prices are
sitting at important support. To be sure, we should slap the USD on this as well--we would see an inverse relationship. But you get my point.

NG notes the strengthening against other currencies. Though I've no fondness for our OVERALL fundamentals, I believe that (1) we've some stocks with good fundamentals that have taken a beaten; (2) our market has been the overall underperformer relative to foreign markets; and (3) as stronger USD bodes well for our stock market sans the multinationals who derive a significant source of revenues from overseas.

We are also seeing more news about the softening in Europe. (Though this has been a fact for some time--it has not worked its way into the media pipeline. I'm still of the mind that when WE see this stuff reported in a regular fashion, the positioning of "big money" has already been underway). Further, Asian economies are beginning to see our consumer pinch and are seeing inflation as NG notes in the comments section. I do see that pundits are still recommending foreign investments--and South America is getting the big push as well. Brazil (and Canada and Australia) will go the way of metal, mining, and oil.

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I found this company, EBS, by going through a chart scan (no fancy parameters, just eyeballs on the screen). The company became public in November, 2006. Here's a blurb from the company website--the key word is profitable:

Emergent BioSolutions Inc. is a profitable, multinational biopharmaceutical company dedicated to one simple mission—to protect life. We develop, manufacture and commercialize immunobiotics, consisting of vaccines and therapeutics, that assist the body's immune system to prevent or treat disease. Our products target infectious diseases and other medical conditions that have resulted in significant unmet or underserved public health needs. Our marketed product, BioThrax® (Anthrax Vaccine Adsorbed), is the only vaccine approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for the prevention of anthrax infection.

I have a small position in this issue. I don't offer this stock as a recommendation, but rather the importance of the "doing more what works" (a la Gartman). I know that there are so many profitable, proven ways to scan for stocks. But I'm finding that for my style--which is very time intensive--it is looking at charts. I've been experimenting with chart formats. I've settled on this one for the moment! Having said that, nothing beats the simplicity of the charts that I presented above.


The nice thing about Stockcharts is that it has a button feature that allows you to instantly click a button to toggle between different views. The GYX above is a "view".

I've found that by doing these visual scans (which I can do rather quickly), I find interesting stocks that are under the radar. When I see charts that appear to my eye to be strong, I also have a tab open on Yahoo--and I immediately look at their profile. By looking at charts in a sector, I can see (1) what is happening overall in the sector and (2) how A particular stock is doing relative to others.