What is the Arc of Opportunity, you might ask?  It’s reflective of the smooth, even transition that’s occurred recently in the Dow Jones Index.   You could name it whatever you like, actually, such as the “Arc of Shame,” “Arc of Buying and Selling,” “Arc of Transition” or whatever seems catchy to you.  Let’s look at […]

Valmont Industries (VMI) has been a steadily rising stock until recently, when bad news destroyed the tranquility of the recent rise.  Let’s look at the charts for some clues and educational lessons.

First, the stock broke above its downtrending moving averages in late March (double arrows), signaling strength in the stock.  The breakout from consolidation led […]

What have your favorite sectors returned so far?  Let’s take a look at Sector SPDR performance both for the month of June so far and the year 2008 so far.
For the month of June:

The Financial sector returned the worst performance for June, dropping almost 13% so far.  The only sector to post a positive return […]

What do you do when you have a rough day trading the markets? What does a rough day look like?
Today was a rough day for me, as my style of ’scalping’ momentum trading, which relies heavily on impulse and moving averages, totally fell flat today in the DIA - the market I trade most […]

Today’s price action was in some ways similar to a trend day, but the price action wasn’t as clean as expected.  Let’s look at some of the key trades we could have taken in today’s market price structure.
5-minute chart:  DIA

First, the market began with an overnight gap of less than 100 points in the DIA.  […]

Today brings more selling into the marketplace, which represents a continuation of the interesting, clean arc price has recently formed. Let’s look at it.
The Dow Jones has fared the poorest of the four major US Indexes:

You can see the clear arc from early March until present that price has formed, as momentum has cleanly […]

Agriculture darling stocks Potash (POT) and Monsanto (MON) surged to record highs today, on the shoulders of yet another surge in agriculture prices.  Let’s look at these high-flyers.

While not making a new momentum high, Potash (POT) indeed made a new price high shy of $240 a share, blasting past its prior swing high of $220.
Fertilizer […]