Monday, April 20, 2009

Fading the rally

Rally looks artificial and long in the tooth by every measure I look at.

Got hit at 56.75 on 400 SKF for a green banana trade. Want to stress, there's no technical reason within the framework of my methods to do this here.

Turned loose half the SU at 25.75, basis was around 18 off that double-bottom. That was a pretty clearly an intraday triple top at 25.90. You really want to be shedding longs here.

Also, half the BHI, again, bought off that double-bottom weeks ago. This has been a very disappointing position.

It's basically been the overlevered junk leading this rally off the bottom.

Actually, I am thinking this will be a buyable pullback. You see this kind of move frequently on the Monday after expiry.

Builders look good on a pullback... XHB at that 12 support, I think, is where you want to enter. I like the composite ETF chart better than any of the individual charts.

As a rough guide, I'm thinking in terms of a 50% retracement of the whole move since early March. This would be, very roughly, S&P 750/Dow 7250. Some reasonable support there as well.

I think very precise technical levels are nonsense to try to trade by. Stocks in the real world come up a little short, or go over just enough to rape you. I think in terms of scaling in, in 2, 3, 4 trades, then put a stop on the whole basis.

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