NASDAQ futures are priced to gap down into Thursday—the third gap down on the week. The overnight session featured elevated range and volume. It started out balanced then sellers pushed in and worked price down to a new low of the week. At 8:30am Initial/Continuing Jobless claims data came out worst than expected. The initial reaction is selling.

After a rough week for oil we will hear the crude/distillate report today—a day later than usual due to Veterans Day. We also have a Monthly Budget Statement at 2pm.

Yesterday we printed a neutral extreme down. I examined it closely yesterday evening.

Heading into today my primary expectation is for sellers to work a gap-and-go down. Look for a liquidation run down to test the 4600 century mark then look for responsive buyers. Buyers attempt to work price back up into value above but struggle to regain 4624.75 which sets up a roll and continued move lower. Extended target is 4580.

Hypo 2 buyers work into the overnight inventory and work up through 4624.75. Trade is sustained above 4620.75 setting up a gap fill up to 4631.75. From there look for a rotation back up to the high volume point of control at 4638.50 before two way trade ensues.

Hypo 3 strong buyers close the gap up to 4631.75 early and work up to the top end of value around 4650. They set their sights on overnight high 4653.25 for a test above before two way trade ensues.

Levels:

Comments »

Death and taxes are certain, and most professions require some form of higher education.  You want to be a professional, right?  Then plan to buy overpriced books from John Wiley & Sons Inc.

Dollars earmarked for buying stupid-expensive books are dolled out quarterly via the student loan program.  Even if some college students are smart enough to find work-around tactics for floating through class sans book, they are in the stark minority.  The stock is consolidating down into a nice support level and looks easy to manage here:

College is designed to suck as many dollars out of these loan programs as is possible.  Yes, it is also a place where people learn and prepare to be a professional.  But these days everything you need to know is online.  We are democratizing information and I am a huge fan of this approach to learning, even if it does not carry the same credibility as a degree.  Show them your worth by generating net worth.

Since we are on the topic of learning, for less money then you would spend on course materials for Intro To  Biology, you can learn to trade for a living from our resident educator Jeff Kohler aka The Option Addict.  Click here for the details.

Comments »

After voluntarily closing 43 restaurants in Seattle and Portland due to reports of E. coli, Chipotle Mexican Grill plans to reopen all the locations in the coming days. According to their Business Wire health officials see no ongoing risk from the incident.

The company handled the poisonous gut rot (aka E. coli) well. Despite only eleven locations being linked to the reported outbreak, they closed all 43 Pacific Northwest locations and rage cleaned them. They also stayed in front with Public Relations.

They needed strong execution on the crisis-control front. Shares in the burrito and fiesta bowl maker are down at annual lows. With any luck this whole incident will fade, and the working American will return to pounding out their Mexican fare on the regular.

Comments »

Shares of Mallinckrodt have already tripped two circuit breakers after Citron tweets the following:

At these prices $MNK has signif more downside than $VRX— far worse offender of the reimb sys – more to follow. VRX can't live in a vacuum

— Citron Research (@CitronResearch) November 9, 2015

MNK is another publicly traded drug dealer, and Citron has the power to destroy the value of these stocks with one tweet.  Fun times.

Comments »

Analysts had the hopes set high for Priceline Group Inc (NASDAQ: PCLN) heading into these earnings.  And the company met these lofty expectations during the third quarter–they actually exceeded them.

However the earnings report also calls for a weak fourth quarter, which sucks, because everyone wants to see them kill it during the busy travel season.

As a result of this outlook investors are coming into the week with shares down over $100 or about -7% lower.

I will be keeping an eye on how investors respond to this gap down to aid my overall NASDAQ context.  Do PCLN investors get ‘Shat’ on all week?  Or is the gap bought up, a’la TRIP last Friday?

Comments »

In what will go down as the quarter where it all changed, Weight Watchers International is laying waste to shorts after posting a modest earnings beat. WTW has a huge short float, way up at 74.87% according to Exodus. These bastard short sellers are up against Oprah “give me a 10% stake” Winfrey, and according to this vanilla Reuters article, said bearshitters doubled down on shorts after the Oprah news.

These drunken degenerates are rage betting against media juggernaut Oprah, who took $49 million personal dollars and procured stock certificates in a business that targets women ages 22-40. Like really mutha fucka?  You think you have a chance?  Their blindness is not even a tragedy.

Let this be a lesson to all of you. Speculate where you specialize and the moment someone bigger than you bets the other way get out. I imagine some pencil-dicked hedge fund manager sitting atop his cloud of spreadsheets declaring the value of Weight Watchers “absurdly expensive” relative to stupid shit Nutrasystem. He has posters of Brett Favre on his office walls, wearing Wrangler jeans whilst children wrestle him to the ground.

Fuck that guy and his pervert office. Oprah is going to nail his loins to the wall.

Weight watchers goes higher.

Comments »

After reporting delicious and powerful earnings yesterday afternoon, social media master Facebook is set to open around $109/share.

With the stock at all-time high, there is literally no one net negative on their long Facebook position. These are clear skies. And with the NASDAQ just a shade below its respective high, the primary agenda today is to kill the shorts.

Watch trade early in Facebook today to see if the morning buy, afternoon sell methodology holds true even after a big gap up.

Comments »

For the love of robes and slippers, why the hell is Whole Foods losing their edge? The stock is trading 40% lower year-to-date and share price lurched down 6% more after crappy earnings.

Like all the cool companies who report disappointing earnings, they also initiated a share repurchase program. Who is the salesman going around cajoling all these corporations into doing one of these deals?

Wall Street is not reacting positively to these buybacks anymore therefore they suck and are a waste of resources.

The hip vibe behind this company is gone. You can toss them in the bin with the other grocery stores where morale is low and turnover is high. Employees are like Gouda cheese—you get a new batch about every week.

We still have dirt floor markets here in the murder mitten. And if I wake up early enough I can go downtown and compete with the Whole Food buyers for crates of papaya. I’ve got 3 markets within 5 minutes of my house and all of them carry my $8/gallon milk and free ranged chicken meats.

Maybe Whole Foods can find a way to separate themselves from the competition again, but the outlook is grim.

You think I am messing with you? Look, the market no longer bestows a premium valuation on the name. It is just another grocery store. Game over, you lose, you get nothing, good day:

 

Comments »

The good:

Facebook – untouchable greatness, ripping all time highs in proper $100 roll fashion

The bad:

Qualcomm – beats estimates, slipping anyway, but who cares?

The ugly:

Whole Foods – massive suck fest, whiffs on EPS and announces $1 billion dollar (extra Doctor Evil) share buyback.  The end of the hipster perception is here.  This is real.

Fireeye – new all time lows, businesses aren’t investing in security hardware.

Comments »

It was not an earnings beat that propelled the high tech auto maker up after hours, nor was it free cash flow–which was a horrendous negative $595 million last quarter.  The stock is rallying on nothing but the moxie of their CEO, Elon ‘indeud’ Musk.

The pop is modest.  Price is back where it traded before Consumer Reports threw shade on the Model S with their infamous Rattlegate report, which they have since rescinded.  But what gets me excited is seeing the shares trade higher on a miss.

Usually it goes the other way, at least in my life.  Your company beats analyst expectations, forward guidance is robust, but the stock trades lower.  This happened to me so many times I stopped asking why.  For once, I am the beneficiary of  upside-down logic, and I wholly attribute this twist of fate to the management team over at Tesla.

We got a headline quote from the conference call:

“Cars that are not autonomous will have negative value. It’ll be like owning a horse.” – Elon Musk, November 3rd, 2015

So while the company is a giant money pit, investors know we have that rare cocktail of technology, leadership, and opportunity which can make a big idea work.  You should have no qualms about letting these people expend resources.  The changes they bring forth will reverse several generations of destructive auto policy and infrastructure development.

As a citizen of the world it is your moral obligation to own Tesla shares.  You should also spread the word like a proper evangelist.  Tell you mom to stop giving money to that glowing-eyed sociopath Joel Osteen.  Demand she pay her penances to Tesla Motors instead.

Comments »