PPT Stock Portfolio

There are two stocks ranked in The PPT‘s Top 10 as of Friday’s close that I will be buying tomorrow. Also, both stocks broke a double top on the PnF charts on Friday and are on buy signals now.

I’m setting aside $100,000 to trade the top ranked stocks from The Fly’s PPT ranking system. I will post the trading rules, trades and portfolio performance here and eventually on The PPT when it is launched.

Stay tuned for the update during Monday’s trading session.

Developing…..

If you like to trade bullish triangle patterns, here are some names to check out:

[[CASY]]

Intrepid Potash, Inc. [[IPI]] ……this one looks interesting, as it has come off a bottom, and has pulled back after breaking out of a bullish triangle pattern

Kellogg Company [[K]]

[[MCD]]

UST Inc. [[UST]]

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. [[WMT]]

Sorry, but for some reason, I can’t post any charts. It’s late, and probably operator error on my part.

Good night.

We’ve now had 10 straight months of job losses, bringing the total to about 1.2 million. While this sounds like a big number, the annualized rate on that number is right at 1%.

In past recessions, jobs typically contracted at about a 1.7% annualized rate.

We’ve probably got more layoffs to go, in the order of at least another 1 million souls, to catch up to the historical rate during a recession.

It will be interesting to see if the contraction in employment begins to accelerate to historical norms, or if in fact, it decelerates by 2H of 2009, as some are thinking.

Keeping a vigilant eye on this will give us clues as to the severity of this recession.

Started buying a few shares of National-Oilwell Varco, Inc. [[NOV]] here.

Lots of questions about the future in energy services as E&P capex is getting cut. The market is pricing in a 50% drop in oil service earnings. I think that’s an overshot. Global oil demand would have to go back to the malaise of 1974-75 or 1980-83 for the numbers to be as bad as analysts are expecting.

I expect that there will be a rally in service stocks going into Q1, as earnings surprise, before profit taking takes hold.

This market continues to test our patience. With headliners like unemployment at 6.5%, Ford burning through $7.7 billion in 3 months and GM and Chrysler begging on the street corner for loose government change, it is easy to lose heart and get frustrated.

However, even with the past two days meltdown, the NYSE Bullish Percent still sits at 42%. It would need to drop to 40% to reverse the recent bullish trend. Although we could see that happen today, I am waiting until the final hour to draw any conclusions for a “freaky Friday”.

One encouraging point for the bulls: the NYSE Hi-Low index actually increased with yesterday’s action by about 2%. Though only 8% of stocks are making new highs, it may be signaling that the recent sell-off may have run it’s course. With so much news and market volatility, I’ve stopped looking at the ticks and have just focused on what the day, as a whole is telling me.

The final hour will tell.

So, here’s the deal:

I decided to take a couple of days off from the market to immerse myself in all things related to construction and home improvement. Why I left it until November to put an addition onto the addition on the west wing of the cave is a mystery. Just know that being the DIY’er that I am, I’ve had rocko amounts of fun with with power tools and nail guns. My hired help has stood in amazement at my construction skills, as I’ve handily and effortlessly, chopped up 2×4’s and 2×6’s like a madman at a Canuck sawmill .

Speaking of chopping stuff, I see that Mr. Market has been chopping off bull balls lately. I’ve backed off from my long positions (again).

So, have I been taking losses upon losses like the degenerate offspring of Bill Miller, you might ask? Not really, as unbeknownest to you, I put on some [[SDS]] yesterday, in between a coffee break and lunch. My equity position is now 5% net short (again).

Now that we are a year into this credit crisis, the potential for further writedowns and the continuing deterioration of economic numbers has elevated risk to another new level. In this environment, the impact of monetary policy is weak. Confidence in the system has to be restored, credit needs to flow freely and housing needs to stabilize before we see any kind of sustained recovery in the market.

Our economy will continue to be a loser until at least the 2H of 2009. Euroland and Nipponville will face an even deeper trough than ours. Globally, more rate cuts ahead, as the credit crunch and the recession dominate Fed and fiscal policy.

There is nowhere for investors to run and hide. People should even be cautious about bonds out farther than one year, for as the credit crunch eventually clears, and growth begins to emerge, bond yields should move considerably higher, as investors move back into the market.

That said, for those taking a longer term view, there are attractive valuations in stocks right now. I think one strategy to play this would be to simply divide up your capital into numerous pots and trickle money into the market at various levels and intervals into the megacap, dividend payers.

Back to work.