The article below is from last week’s Weekly Strategy Session. We also caught a nice chunk of this move in Google live in the 12631 trading room:

Let’s revisit the 4 pillars of technology and add in some of the supporting cast members.

To recap, during the 01/19/15 Strategy Session we began looking at shares of Amazon as a “tell” to the durability of momentum stocks. It had a bearish technical setup to start the year and many short-term traders were leaning short. The stock started to “work” for shorts only to sharply reverse back into its consolidation pattern and then gap-and-go higher on earnings.

Then on 02/02 we looked at the potential “failed auction” in shares of Apple. In essence, this technical setup is the opposite of what was occurring in Amazon. On the surface, Apple was making new highs in an uptrend. But, it briefly took out the prior high and then had a fast move lower. Therefore, we hypothesized it may do the opposite of Amazon and punish short-term traders who took the obvious long. It did not. Instead it turned out a strong week for the bulls.

Last week our attention was on Facebook. It was up to bat for the bulls and managed to hit a proverbial double, gaining over 5% on the week.

Following this logic, Google is the next pillar to have on watch. If you recall, the four pillars of technology is a naming convention Google Chairman Eric Schmidt used during a 2012 Bloomberg interview.

From a year-to-date performance standpoint, Google is still slightly outperforming Facebook. But from a rotational point of view, Google is quite a bit behind some of the other marquee names. Check out the year to date performances of these hot money stocks:

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When you build a launch pad, delicately attending to every detail, and then it doesn’t make you any moneys – you want to take a bulldozer and smash it to bits.

Like when your do-it-yourself plumbing job goes surprisingly well until the end when you over torque a pipe and break everything.  Your inner monkey emerges and chucking the channel locks through the mirror seems the only logical reaction.

It’s better to tidy up your work, retool everything, and have another go at it.

GOOG and MSFT both disappointed after hours and are down.  QQQ and SPY are both pressing up against your favorite overbought indicator, and leaders are lagged all day.

We may see a down day or two…

The Philli Fed pumped up the market with vigor, only for us to spend the remainder of the day giving it back.  I suppose I state all of this because I’m near fully vested and only holding FXY as a pseudo-hedge.

My swing portfolio is red on the day, championed by TPX getting poleaxed.  Everything else did nothing fun.

I get a long on in the futures at a decent bargain and then the momentum vanishes and I sit around, not eating, waiting for like $100 more in profit.  Then I finally settle for my pittance and go eat a taco.

I’m still trading within the confines of my plan and I’m mildly profitable 4 out of 4 days as a result.  Somebody has to hold me accountable and that somebody is me.  Hell, I’m used to talking to myself what with the twitter and the blog, so self-enforced discipline feels normal.

I bulked up on ENPH and closed out DDD and Z.  I’m convinced the best way to play DDD is to buy some every quarter and never sell, but that doesn’t fit my fringe lifestyle.

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A couple of my positions came very close to stopping out today, but the late-day strength managed to buoy the share prices of SNE and ACHN above where I wanted them. This can either be seen as good or bad, considering my nubile derriere is now exposed to the ghoulish villains from cell block six overnight. So I’m either deferring a loss or avoiding unnecessarily being stopped out. Either way, we stick to the plan, yes yes?

I was reminded by my good friend @elizamae via twitter of this old post concerning a very significant price zone. A price zone we tested today. How quickly my mind forgets old thoughts, I blame the ADD. Nevertheless, it’s worth a reread as we swim in these waters.

A humble tip of the hat to you, good sir.

The only other action today was buying some GOOG weekly calls near the LOD. I scaled one off and the other is nicely green and held close to my chest overnight. It’s mine! You can’t have it. I bought Google because it’s a support play, much like we’re looking for these prices in the big indices to behave as support. Therefore, I can extrapolate the index behavior out to the stock and allow the large tides to assist in dictating my decision process when drilled down to Google stock. Cool right?

My swing portfolio was down 1.2 percent today and cash levels are near 40 percent.

Good Monday. Let’s string together a strong week.

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