As The Fly discussed a few nights ago, The PPT is extremely beneficial in many respects, especially with how you are able to streamline the research required to be properly prepared for the upcoming trading session. You are able to create–and save–your own customized “screens.” Thus, the stocks change, but the parameters of what you are looking for do not. Hence, you are working smarter.

As an example, I created and saved a screen focused on attacking stocks with numerous shorts who may be on the verge of getting violently squeezed. In the current market, we know that the S&P 500 broke through 1300 today, and it is likely quite a few bears were pressing for a rejection from that level. Thus, it is logical to look for short squeeze plays. Instead of sifting through all types of data, I can simply go to “My Screens” in The PPT, and come up with tonight’s readings for my custom short squeeze screen. Note the parameters: Bullish volume and technical scores by The PPT algo, heavy short positions, an idea of the size of the float, and proximity to the 20 day simple moving average to avoid chasing names that have already made their move.

Let’s suppose that we have no short squeezes over the next few days, and the market takes a turn for the worse as we plunge below 1300. Even if that happens, understand that you were still exquisitely prepared for the opposite scenario. While we cannot control the day to day moves in the market, we can most certainly take a proactive approach in knowing how to efficiently adjust regardless.

When looking at the charts of some of the names on tonight’s readings, it should be obvious that, just from this feature alone, The PPT is an incredible, value-added algorithm.

Click here for more details about The PPT

Double-click on screen below to see full results.

Here is the second installment of my market recap for today, as well as a freebie for non-PPT/12631 subscribers.

In my strategy video for 12631 subscribers inside The PPT last evening, I discussed a bullish possibility for the markets playing out, called “The November Scenario,” referring to last November’s breakout from a descending triangle. Thus far today, we have a bounce going that is starting to gain momentum. Putting the rally into perspective on a daily timeframe, we can see that the bulls are still incredibly resilient in holding a series of higher lows by a thread. Indeed, the 1300 level is proving to be the true test of mettle.

While I may put on some trades as the day progresses, in order for me to get really aggressive again on the long side I am looking for this symmetrical triangle to firm up and resolve to the upside. Ideally, you’d like to see the action calm down a bit and these violent price swings abate. This should happen as price reaches the apex of the symmetrical triangle shown below, on a daily chart of the S&P 500. If we see a few “doji” days of more quiet, than violent, indecision, I am confident we will see an abundance of charts set back up underneath the surface.

However, we do not have the luxury of trading the market that we want. Instead, just like everything else in life, the main thing is trying to correctly play the cards that you are actually dealt. Accordingly, given the recent propensity of the market to punish momentum BOTH longs and shorts (instead rewarding extraordinarily nimble traders who buy the dip and sell the rip), I will let the bulls prove themselves first by following up on today’s move to the upside before signally the “All Clear” sign.

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Midday Update 03/07/11

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Inside The PPT, I created a screen that identifies high probability short setups for trades. The screen focuses on stocks that are experiencing distribution (heavy selling by institutions) and low relative strength, all of which cause The PPT algorithm to downgrade their daily “Hybrid scores,” which is a combination of technical and fundamental readings. I also sorted for names with an average daily volume of at least 500K daily shares, to avoid shorting relatively illiquid stocks.

Top Ideas from the screen:

1. ARIA
2. HPQ
3. MDR

PPT & 12631 Members Click Here to view and modify the “12631 Titanic Short Screen”

(Double-click on screen below to see larger version of The PPT readout)

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I will reserve the other stellar March seasonality picks for my 12631 subscribers, but you should know that I have used The PPT Seasonality feature to discover that McCormick & Schmick’s Seafood Restaurant has been a winner every single March since the firm had its IPO back in 2004. Beyond that, MSSR has an average return of 20.55% in March. While a data sample of six years is no guarantee of anything, the daily annotated chart below certainly supports the notion of another March full of good eating for MSSR longs. For your reference, I have also included The PPT precise Seasonality statistics below.

Disclosure: I have no position in MSSR.

UPDATE: Earnings on 03/01/11.

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