In order to make this easy to read, I will include only one chart for each stock. But, to be fully informed, it's nice to have several charts for each stock. I plan to create a "complete" post for each stock, and link to those posts from here. But, it could be a chore. It will also make parts of the blog a mess, as I mentioned in the previous post. Note that the charts in this post are all "updating", meaning they will update with the latest price every time you load the post. This is true of long term chart, and not just short term ones: the last bar of a weekly chart will update, and change, as the week goes by, as will the last bar of a monthly chart. I might post the longest term chart of a stock that still shows useful information, and we'll be able to see what it's doing as a week or a month goes by (or a day, for that matter).
A lot of duds in K.'s portfolio, but let's start with a success.
It's my understanding K. bought this at $10. (That's a little confusing to me. I need to get the details.) 11:11! I remember the trade. The ten year chart suggests YRCW is headed to some astronomical price, maybe very soon. It's a shipping giant out, where was it, Denmark. Even the elevated current price seems to qualify as ridiculously low. But this blog is not about a buy and hold or hold forever strategy. On the ten year chart, you can't see any of the recent action, and it's making big percent swings in the shorter term. To my mind, there's little question this is going to 37 and then back down to less than 10. I've already discussed, in the two previous posts, what to do as stocks approach a target. If I can keep up, I'll blog about these open trades as things develop.
This is VASO. It's one of my favorites, in a way, though it hasn't worked out in ideal fashion. Finviz doesn't list every stock, or every interesting stock, either, so this chart is from Scottrade. Scottrade (if you have an account) pretty much lists every stock. This is an updating chart, so it serves our purpose just fine.
K. has owned it for a long time, which is my fault, and sort of silly. I'm certain she bought it before 2010, and then it went up a lot, but, through mismanagement, we failed to sell it. (See why I want this tool?) She still has a profit on paper, but it's down, and we just have to wait. (Writing this in July, 2014, OK?) We're not selling it here, are we? The target price is .7, and there's the beginnings of a bottom forming, so we might not have to wait too long. This chart sure has some interesting patterns in it, but maybe I should discuss them in a separate post.
K. bought Facebook on her own initiative. It wasn't my idea. I think Facebook is a great company, that will do well for a long time to come, but I wasn't prepared to chance it. K., though, was determined. She's a genius. Her picks have been consistently better than mine. Anyway, she's wondering about maybe selling it. I think FB will eventually come back down to 20 (then go up again), but I don't see a sell signal here. Yes, a top could be forming, and we might end up stuck in FB as it goes back down to 20, but that won't last long, unless there's some disaster, which I don't expect. It would just be one of them there fluctuations. Maybe what's most likely is, yeah, a dip to under 60, but then another big rally. If a big rally does develop, and I mean a really big rally, at some point it will be time to sell. Conclusion: this is sort of a long term position, that doesn't require action today (July 1014).
TRIB is a funny story for us. Years and years ago I subscribed to a penny stock newsletter, The Bowser Report. I first saw it at the library. This was one of the Bowser picks. We have owned it for something like 20 years. We have ridden it, haplessly, through several big ups and downs. I remember thinking TRIB (Trinity Biotech) was a lovely company. I remember very pretty pictures of their little factory in the Irish countryside. They clearly make a very good product. It's not a product I'm in the slightest interested in, but a lot of people kind of rely on it, and Trinity seems to care. Very high tech, all about precision and reliability, very impressive, from an engineering perspective.
On a twenty year chart, which I can't show you - but you can probably get one at finance.yahoo.com - you can see a fantastic complex of three pointy tops in the 90s and Oughts. That pattern, and the recent very strong rally, speak volumes about long term strength, but we are at those highs, and almost at the highest of them. Yes, TRIB could go right through those highs, but I don't think it's going to. I think it's going to go to 30, on the nose, and then down, sharply, all the way to, well, 5. It's tough, being a stock. At 5 again it will be a long term buy, and rally quickly back to to 30.
I really want to sell TRIB at 30, now. (July, 2014.) Maybe we should wait for a hint of a sell signal when it reaches 30, but just a hint. We'll discuss it.
K. gave me a hand written list of her positions. It's divided into "positive territory" and "negative territory". It's kind of fun because the positive list is longer. Anyway, I'm working my way down the positive list.
Don't know when we bought this. Early 2013? That would be nice. Anyway, in a word, the message (July 2014) is, sell at 10. It could break out above 10, and go to 30, taking about a year to do it. The pattern is sort of right for that. But real buying patterns are narrow, so I say no. And the dip to 7 in 2014 fits qualifies (according to the rules) as a sell signal.
I think we bought this at 10. It was probably back in 2012 I said "this is a breakout" and "it's going up 100 times". I said "it's this really cool up an coming South American oil company". If we bought at 10, I feel lucky, because I don't remember how I picked the exact price. I remember I felt like I had to take a chance and buy it right away. It's a breakout and return to the pattern you can see part of - the breakout begins in 2010 - but if you bought at the breakout level - the standard rule - you would now be disappointed. The standard rule, though, is buy on breakout returns to narrow patterns. the pattern that ended in 2010, though it's sideways and a head and shoulders, is definitely not narrow. So the way the rule applies to long term patterns is, a breakout and return tells you to start looking for shorter term buying patterns. See the earlier posts for more about buying patterns. (I need to improve those posts, but if you read them carefully, and, particularly, the third one, if I remember right, you can get an idea of what I'm describing.) Well, since we bought it, real buying patterns have emerged. In 2012-2013, a double bottom formed, with a distinct right shoulder, and then a clear breakout. Since then you could have bought at the standard price, the high of the right shoulder, in three different months, and now there's a big, complete flag extending from mid 2013 to the present (July 2014). Flags off of bottoms are pretty close to sure things, and this flag is very well developed, so we should see a move up soon. Probably the most likely thing by far is a not too dramatic move, and then another flag. At any rate, the long term prediction is arguably still very much on track. Hmm. I've just realized that there will probably be sideways months when 90 is achieved. Sideways action is down action, as I like to say, so we'll probably want to sell it.
I got bit by a little bit of the gold bug, seeing Anglo Gold, AU, approach the 2009 low. It was partly just being contrary, since everybody says it's foolish to buy gold stocks. Also, prices do often bounce off of earlier bottoms, but, and I discussed this in an earlier post, too, it may happen often, but it's not actually reliable. I knew that, but I suggested this to K. anyway, and she bought some, at the 2009 low price. This was in 2013, that she bought it, of course.
Hmm. One reason not to buy at earlier lows is, it gets confusing. But, this looks still in OK shape. There's no actual sell signal, since the 2013 December bottom ... well, I take that back. The dip to 15 in 2014 first half is a sell signal, except that it's very near a bottom complex. Here's what I'm gonna say: a sharp rally to 30, say, would be nice, and is what one might expect. Then it would be time to sell, though not an emergency. It would be time to start thinking about selling, and time to start watching the stock closely for more precise signs it would be time to sell. So, we'll be watching.
The May-June bottom this year made a kind of buying pattern on the daily chart - not something you could have used to buy, but it could be used as a stop, now. If prices drop through that level, they's probably go further down. The message in this chart isn't so easy. Hopefully, it'll go to 30, and we won't have to make up our minds about falling prices. The question about bottom returns (see earlier post) remains open.
Well, this is kind of fun. I guess we bought it in 2013. I'm not sure how I made the decision (I kind of did), but I like thin sideways patterns ... and now it's bubbling up nicely. K. was, like, Alcoa?! That's a big company. Let's buy it. I've been watching Brewing TV. This is a bit like brewing!
As I've mentioned again and again, earlier tops mark selling targets. We're basically there. Yes, again, AA could go straight through 17.5, which would mean straight to 30, and all we can do is watch it closely now. The up trend is accelerating - mid June 2014 - which is, in a way, a sell signal, but we still want to think it over. Here's a daily chart, updating, so we can see clearly what's happening on a day to day basis:
No short term sell signal as of July 20 (Friday, July 18).
The ten year chart is really coool. There's a prominent sell signal at 200, and the ultimate target is 1500. Yes, that's what I said. The reason I'm not showing you the 10 year chart is, it's too good. It's my chart, and I don't want to show it to you. (But you can easily look it up.) Anyway, you can't see the price action in any detail on the ten year chart. Not that price action is very important. The weekly chart is consistent with the prediction of higher prices. It's not, I guess, a fast moving stock, and it will take months, or years, still, to reach 200, but there's no reason beyond that slow pace to sell it. I don't know when we bought it. I'm guessing we paid 14, but maybe we bought it earlier, under 10. That would be nice. Anyway, if we wanted to place stops at 12, or 13, it would make sense. There were clear buying patterns in there - very complete patterns. I don't think we'll even have to think about those stops though. Am I suggesting there are times you don't need to use a stop? I'm not suggesting that as a practice, really, but it's interesting to think there might be visible differences between one situation and another, and that there might be such a thing as true high probability investments, even just in charts.
We used to buy stuff from the Gaiam catalog, and that - and the kind of cool story, where the CEO was in the office supply business, and, seemingly by dint of sheer efficiency, made the switch to lifestyle products, yoga mats and the like, and made it work - were the reasons we bought it. More K.'s pick than mine. I don't know when we bought it - I'm pretty sure it was a long time ago = or what we paid. Anyway, we've been looking at several strong steady rallies, like this, and those seem, in my experience, to precede sharp advances. On the other hand, we're approaching an earlier top price, and there is something of a short term sell signal. We might see prices dip after they reach 9. I guess that's my prediction. Even the top last month at
No comments:
Post a Comment