Staying on Top of This Trade

Equities are a fine, choppy and sluggish mess this afternoon, with momentum names fading and the general energy of the tape is lacking.

Thus, I am staying on top of the metals and miners to see if they see a resumption of their early morning strength.

On the 30-minute gold ETF chart, you can see the yellow metal has been basing nicely all day.

And end-of-day push would be ideal for bulls. Similar comments apply to silver and the miners as a whole.

What are your top final hour ideas?

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If there is going to be a huge battleground in the market, it may as well be exactly where the Nasdaq ETF currently sits.

On the updated hourly chart, below, note the topping pattern we have been observing dating back to February is still intact despite the S&P printing fresh all-time highs throughout this week.

Price is currently sitting below the “right shoulder” (right purple line) of the pattern, as well as the $89.25 level. This is a critical juncture for bulls and bears to assert their will on the market.

Besides TSLA, I am seeing some more lethargic price action in the large, liquid marquee issues such as AMZN GOOG NFLX PCLN YELP, and the biotechs.

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Courtesy of The PPT algorithm, here are the most current top five readings from my “12631 RELATIVE STRENGTH” custom-made screen, identifying which stocks are exuding some of the best performances to the market at-large at any given moment.

I look for stocks whose Daily PPT Hybrid Score surges, while the Weekly Hybrid has been negative over the past week. This can often yield stocks which are emerging from consolidations.

Members can click here to view and save the screen.

Sorted for at least 500,000 shares of daily average volume to ensure liquidity.

Please click on image to enlarge.

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Let’s take an inter-market look into the late morning.

The first daily chart is the ETF for gold, which shows a strong bounce above the key $122.50 prior breakout level (from the inverse head and shoulders bottom highlighted). Any longs should likely place a stop-loss at that area, or not far below it, in order to mitigate risk. There is still much work to do for the complex, namely silver getting its act together. But they are off to  good start this morning.

And bonds remain back on my short radar with the latest breakout from well-defined resistance, on the TLT daily chart, second below, failing and in danger of proving to be a bull trap. Bond bulls do not want to see a close under $105.

What are you trading this morning?

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The major averages are mixed/flat as I write this, with leading issues like AMZN FB GOOG NFLX TSLA, among others, either up a bit less than 1% or in the red mildly.

A few long ideas I am monitoring this morning: JWN M SKUL.

And two short ideas are presented below on their daily charts: COST SBUX, both of which remain quite weak on a relative and standalone basis.

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Here is a list of top April performers, courtesy of The PPT seasonality feature.

Note these stocks have been up 100% in the month of April with double-digit returns, including at least six data points.

Which stocks are at the top of your watchlists this morning?

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