Looks like the market is in a "wait and see" mood...

The stock market has been fairly lackadaisical this week - probably just treading water until the Fed meets and makes its interest rate changes - if any - over the next few days. I think the market is looking for one more decrease of a quarter point, and then that might be it for quite some time.

 

There was more rotation today out of the former market leaders such as Energy and Ag Chemicals and into what may become the new leaders of the next bull market upleg - areas such as Semiconductors and Retail. Credit Services and Pawn Shops have seen some buying lately as well. In the Credit Card area - both MA and V look very solid.

More great charts today...

I don't have many comments today about the market that are different from my recent previous ones - I'm still seeing TONS of great charts in this market as it storms off the March bottom.

Add the Homebuilding sector back to the list of industries showing nice charts today. I'm also seeing lots of great setups in the small Oil & Gas stocks, which have literally been "money in the bank" recently. I'm giving one to my B/R/A Members below that was up over 20% today on huge volume, with much more to come.

Wow! I'm like a kid in a candy store again...

I haven't seen this many great looking charts in a long time.

What's most interesting is that I'm seeing lots of great charts in sectors outside of the recent "usual suspects", such as Ag Chemicals, Coal, Steel & Iron, and Energy. Railroads are starting to "steam" ahead for example, as well as Semiconductors, Retail and Hospitals.

But - get this. I'm even seeing strong charts in REITs and (gasp) - even Banks! Are we looking at the midpoint of this recession (if we're even in one)? The stock market usually bottoms and starts heading back up about that time, so we could very well be.

Well, the market popped, flopped, popped, flopped and popped today...

The stock market was all over the place today, but the major indexes all ended the day up nicely. You just needed some dramamine along the way.

We may be seeing the initial rotation out of the big winning sectors like the Ag Chemicals and Metals and into up-and-coming ones like Semiconductors and - one that was huge a few months ago but has fallen out of favor recently - China stocks.

In fact, the Shanghai Composite is up huge over there tonight, with the entire market up - get this - a tody 8% on the open. That would be like the Dow opening up 1,021 points tomorrow! Not too shabby.

Here's the news: Stocks listed in Shanghai opened sharply higher Thursday, a day after Chinese securities regulators announced a two-thirds reduction in the tax on stock trades, the second major market-supportive measure unveiled in the past week.

Sweet.

We'll certainly be on the lookout for our favorite "Chinese Firecracker" stocks tomorrow.

We're probably due for at least a minor pullback here...

With the torrid strength of stocks in certain sectors lately (such as Ag Chemicals and Energy), I'm now seeing tons of overextended stock charts. So I expect at least a few days of pullback action. We saw Day 1 of that today.

But unless and until the price of a barrel of crude oil can go down (not very likely as we head into the summer driving season), I expect any pullback in the Energy stocks to be very brief, and good times to buy back into. Coals and the Steels & Irons still look pretty good here.

Great charts are all over the place...

First of all, I apologize for not having a pick for today. I ran into some personal issues over the weekend which required my time.

What a difference just a couple of weeks can make in the stock market.

A month ago, I couldn't find a great stock chart to save my life. Now - all of a sudden - they're everywhere.

I'm talking about scads of textbook Reverse Head and Shoulders bottom formations. And Cup and Handle breakouts that William O'Neil might feature in the next edition of his fantastic book "How To Make Money In Stocks." Classic setups that are making astute traders and investors lots of money while everyone else is "waiting for the bottom of the market." Bottom of the market? We've made 50% and more in just the last 9 days on some of these explosive trade setups.

In fact, I'm going to show you one right now. That is, if you're one of my premium Baffle / RSVP / ARM Play Members. This stock looks utterly huge. And will bring home lots of "bacon."

Oh well, the market deserved a rest today...

Not much action overall in the market today, as it digested yesterday's big gains.

That's not all that surprising really. In fact, I would have been amazed if the stock market kept on going today. I expect a "resting day" or two after a one-day pop like we had yesterday. And we got it today.

Tomorrow may be a very different story though. The reason? GOOG reported great earnings after hours tonight, and the stock is up a tidy 76 points in after hours trading. That action even helped BIDU (GOOG's China rival) - which is up a nice 22 points after hours.

On the other hand, ISRG is down 30 points after hours on a disappointing report. But I expect Tech stocks to pop big time tomorrow. Let's just see if they can hold their gains for the entire day, and let's see how they affect the overall market.

Certain small Biotech stocks are popping like crazy lately as well. I'm about to name one below whose chart is showing one gorgeous ARM setup.

You gotta love those "throw a dart" days - like today...

The stock market exploded today on news that maybe this round of earnings reports won't be so bad after all.

Intel (Nasdaq:INTC) got things started, with a "not so great" earnings report but a rosy forecast of things to come. And IBM reported after hours tonight, and - since the stock is trading up almost 3 bucks in after hours trading - things look pretty good there too. IBM had a gorgeous chart at the end of the day, so I think lots of people had a good idea of what the report's results would look like.

And it was indeed one of those days we haven't seen in quite some time - where you could vitrually "throw a dart" and hit a stock with a great chart - and one that sported a 5%+ gain for the day. Truth be told, I haven't seen this many great charts (not just "good" charts) in many weeks. It was really tough to pick out my "favorites" this evening.

As investors and traders in the market each and every day - we live for days like today! Let's see if we can have lots more as this bull market revs back up again.

Get ready for the huge bull market to continue in this sector...

There is a sector in the stock market right now that's reminding me of the Internet stock boom of the late 1990's.

One of the reasons is that there are lots of stocks in the sector with earnings and sales figures going through the roof, exploding in the triple digit percentage gain and higher quarter after quarter.

Of course, I'm talking about the Solar stocks.

The Star of the Sector right now would probably be First Solar (Nasdaq: FSLR). After all, it's already almost a 10-bagger since its IPO in late 2006! But with a P/E ratio of 141.54, it's priced pretty richly right now.

But I know of a recent IPO in the sector with even stronger fundamentals than First Solar. And this newbie Solar stock is trading at a mere 17.4 P/E ratio.

Will it be the next 10-bagger in the "red-hot" Solar sector? Only time will tell, but it does have "home run" written all over it.

I'm about to name the stock for my Premium TYWTW Baffle/RSVP/ARM Members below.

Earnings season nervousness trumped good news on the retail front today...

The stock market was all over the place today, but all the major indexes ended up in the red.

Blue chips led for awhile, with both the Dow and the S&P 500 in the green, with the Nasdaq and smaller cap stocks lagging a bit. Good news on the retail front buoyed the market for part of the day, but in the end, investor skittishness over upcoming earnings announcements - which will "obviously" be bad comparisons since we're in an economic slowdown (if not an outright recession) - took over.

The Ag Chemical and Solar stocks were fairly strong today, however. And there are still some extremely nice-looking charts in the Energy sector.

And down we go, in this treacherous "trading market"...

Just when you think things may be "good to go" on the upside in the stock market, we have a day like today.

Evidently it doesn't take much to panic investors and traders in this market. All it took today was a weak earnings report from General Electric (NYSE: GE) to cause the DJIA to plummet over 256 points and the Nasdaq over 61. In short, not a good day.

But that's all part of what earnings season is all about. Lousy reports from major companies one day can cause the market to crater, like it did today. But good reports can have the opposite effect. The trick is to find those stocks bucking the market weakness and to latch onto them. A couple of "bucking the system" examples today were ASIA and CPST.

Have a great weekend!

For a while, it looked like another "market melt-up" day...

The stock market popped, flopped and popped today - and that was just in the first hour of trading!

After that though, it was off to the races, and for awhile it looked like we were on track for another market melt-up, to the tune of 200-400 points on the DJIA. But the most points the Dow could muster was only around 100, and then it flopped a little once again. Still, it was up a respectable 54.72 points for the day, or 0.44%.

The Nas did much better percentage-wise, with a 29.58 point gain, or 1.27%. Helping the market today were good reports from Wal-Mart (NYSE:WMT), which is acting like a peppy momentum play, and Intel (NASDAQ: INTC), with semiconductor stocks looking pretty good across the board. Tech stocks could indeed be the next sector that gains strength and takes leadership in the next leg up of the bull market. MCRL is an exceptional chart in that semi sector.

Record high crude oil hurt lots of stocks today, except for energy, of course...

After a surprise announcement of a decline in U.S. crude inventories, supply concerns gripped the market and black gold prices scampered to a new record close. May-dated crude oil rallied to an intraday high of $112.21 per barrel, but pulled back slightly from this lofty level as the afternoon wore on. By the close, crude for May delivery gained $2.37 to finish at $110.87 per barrel.

Gold was also strong, and the dollar weakened again, causing a rush back into commodities. So obviously energy and the golds were some of today's best performers.

Earnings season is off to a bad start, but there are still a lot of great charts out there...

With Alcoa (AA) kicking off earnings season with a moribund report (a first quarter profit drop of 50%), investors were in a sour mood today. The DJIA swooned 36 points and the Nasdaq 16.

But there are lots of great charts out there, and I'm seeing the right hand sides of cup bases being built in many cases. A great example is FSLR - First Solar. And there are scads of other charts showing sharp runs off on bottoming reversal patterns.

Therefore, I remain bullish for now.

It looked great today for awhile...

The stock market got off to a good start today, with the DJIA up triple digits on news that WaMu (WM - Washington Mutual Inc.) might get a $5 billion cash injection to keep the company afloat.

But that "high" ended around 12:30 pm EST, when the market turned on a dime and headed southward the rest of the day.

Earnings season is about to begin again, so expect some possible market turbulence because of that as well. Alcoa (AA) kicks it off today, reporting after the close.

Wow! The best first day of the second quarter for the stock market in 70 years! I knew I was right to remain bullish...

As I've said many times in the past, we live in interesting times.

We just rid ourselves of the worst quarter for the stock market since the first half of 2002, and today we set a new record of sorts - the best first day of the second quarter in the last 70 years! All indexes went ballistic to the upside today, with the DJIA up an astounding 391 points, and the NASDAQ doing even better percentage-wise with almost an 84 point gain.

Houston, we have a market bottom.

We've now had three big up days for the Dow since what appears to be the bottom made on March 10. They were the amazing 417 point reversal on 3/11, the 420+ gain on 3/18, and now today's 391 point launch.

So are the bears going back into hibernation? Well, only time will tell. But to tell the truth, April has been the best month to be in the market throughout history. I would not want to bet against those odds.

Therefore, it may be BUTT time again! (Back Up The Truck and buy). I'm seeing tons of likely candidates too. Here are a few "freebies" I'll give you: BIDU, CPST, HE, LMNX, WLT, MFB, ILMN, X, GILD, BJS, IDIX, EL, SIAL, SNA, CGNX, AKS, FINL, KEX, TUP, CSX, SCL, RES, HCBK, NEU, PCLN, R, URBN, NFLX, ESRX, SMS.