Whether you trade weekly, daily, tic, range, or minute charts you MUST recognize a lack of trend and behave accordingly.  To trade momentum there must be momentum.  I know V.King would enjoy that sentence.  Once you recognize conditions where momentum is gone, you must adjust to fading extremes or sideline yourself.  That’s it.

I like to use EMAs to give a trend some visual clarity.  When EMAs of different speeds (i.e. the 9 and 33 period) converge and then flatten out, that’s a strong indication the market is on pause.  Such was the case all morning.  Today it was easy for me to avoid because we were working inside a tight market profile and we had the Fed in the afternoon which I knew would give the market a pause.  More times than I would like to admit, I haven’t been so astute.  And every time I fail to recognize these conditions the alogs pick me to pieces.

I’ve been a doubter of any such trendless action most of June, but as the month drags on it’s becoming a distinct possibility that we’re entering a flat consolidation phase.  My 9 and 33 are flattening out and going sideways.  It would make sense too given that my momentum plays are all fizzling out.  Take a look:

 

I’ve spent the last few weeks churning my portfolio with small wins and medium losses.  All-in-all I’ve given back hard fought gains.  Anyone who tells you the gains came easy is wrong and unwashed.

Today I cut most of my China junket.  I sold off BIDU, YY, and MY.  I sold WETF along with the Fly and I took some profits in CREE, keeping the position about ½ size.

You may notice a much less manic tone in my writing.

I’m up over 50 percent cash now and lost around 1 percent today.  Current longs listed largest to smallest are as follows:

YGE, HMIN, IMMR, RVBD, CREE, SCTY, RGLD, TPX, and FB

I want to keep my speculative swing positions down.  I’m getting confused, tracking so many positions.  Plus liquidation becomes more taxing by my broker.

I’ll ride most of these through the trendless chop of the index.  But I swear little allegiance to any and will cut to make room for others.

I don’t love the idea of shorting up here, but both T and JBLU look like great swing shorts to my eye.

Bottom Line: It’s summer now.  We may still push higher but we’re showing signs of stalling momentum.  This is the third major pullback too, it has a much lower win rate then the first two.  HOWEVER, we’re on the proper side of the 33 EMA, my primary demarcation.

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Apropos that I would get all excited about the LED industry last night and not over the weekend putting me one day behind the move.  The kicker of it all was stalking GTAT yesterday but not pulling the trigger.  I wanted to see a capitulation move lower.  This is an example of an opportunity where getting half my position on would have worked.  And given the gaptastic nature of AIXG, I don’t want to chase it higher.  I’m shaking my fist at the entire industry.  At least I have my CREE.

All last night I thought about how much I wished I had bought BIDU and SCTY into the bell.  They both looked great on a closing basis.  So I came to market and bought them both today.  Now I don’t really want SCTY.  I can be so fickle at these choppy junctures.  No less than three times I’ve considered rolling all the SCTY funds into BIDU.

I’m getting really excited about this TPX trade, it’s working out well.  Look at that weekly chart.  Another strong weekly candle has to have you seriously considering this name for an intermediate term swing long.  Yes, I’m talking my book.

I cut RENN and HSOL, but the rest of my China basket is in place, lined up in marching formation, ready for ramming speed.  Actually HSOL looks ready for ramming speed too.

At one point I was 92 percent long.  I had to adjust that down a bit.  I cut ODP, RENN, HSOL, and DDD.  All-in-all, I have too many longs if you ask me.  I’m bombarded with great setups and my ADD has gotten the best of me.  None of these trades looks bad at this point; they just don’t look as good as my other longs.

Now I’m sitting 75 percent long, awaiting The Fed.  I’m very slightly red on the day, and my broker loves me.

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I certainly hope I’m not beating a dead horse, buying more solar longs into the close.  If I had a time machine that could give me 30 minutes back, I would have bought either GS, XONE, or CHCI.

Especially el CHCI.  Watch that one tomorrow.

But instead I bought a trashy little stock that goes by the handle of HSOL.  May it burn my enemies like ants under a magnifying glass.

Fly favorite (and quickly climbing my ranks) IMMR asserted a nice comeback today and has the look I like.

Believe me…I see the $45 level resistance on TPX.  I don’t care.  They’re selling these beds like truck stop hot cakes.

There was some straight up voodoo going down behind The PPT pay wall today that had members laser focused on higher equity prices.  It scared me a little, I’m not going to lie.  It was like walking in on a séance while the devil plays a fiddle made of gold.

RGLD caught a strong bid on Hilsenrath mouthing off.

Watch what goes down tonight as the sun settles and biblical storms impress upon the east coast.  The birth is happening.  Tomorrow is my birthday and with it comes great power for Raul.  Galactic alignments, hail storms, and ABENOMICS!

I must be off, for many preparations must be made before sunrise.

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I’m feeling a little in the zone today so you must pardon my absence.  I’ve been crushing this S&P tape since 11pm last night.  Shorting, longing, more longing, and now I’m finally flat and in awe.

I made good monies today.

As I turn a more focused eye to these stocks the first thing striking me as odd is the lack of tenacious demand for solars.  It’s like the god damned secondary over at FSLR put a wet blanket on the whole industry.  Everyone’s still tending to their sunburns with coconut and aloe.  But I must let you know, Raul never burns, I only get darker.  And when I get really dark, things get weird.  By that I mean YGE needs to get moving NOW!

HMIN will cut dicks once it finally crushes this stupid 30 level.

DDD is still blowing minds around the world, building shit out of polymers and what have you.  Believe it or not, this company is still special even if Japan unwinds their monetary policy.

China isn’t getting awesome yet.  They will be.  Never sleep on the Chinese.

TPX is behaving excellent.  I think you have to keep the weekly chart in mind if we see follow through tomorrow.  That would carry some major implications.  Watch me crush this trade.

YY is going red to green but will always have a red soul and desire to kill shorts.

IMMR yes they have the haptics.

I bought more ODP because something about office supply stores gets me excited.

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Per the modus operandi, I started the day as I always do: panic when the alarm rings and direct my fuzzy eyes to the undersized iPhone for quotes on the futures.  “Oh they’re up wonderfully!” my internal dialogue rattled off.

I had my new breakfast, water with no ice.  It’s very American to ice your water, especially in the morning.  Next the morning commute was divine, showing signs of diminishing congestion. The blessing come summer of less women driving their bastard children to school. 

Upon arriving at my terminal, my minion greeted me with coffee.  I like my coffee just like my women: hot, black, and strong.  I immediately scalp two handles of upside out of the $ES_F.  Then I spot the trend change and capture 4 handles down during the gap fill.  Oh how lovely a morning it was.

Then the bozos kept selling the futures down.  Bozos really, for they’re fighting a losing battle with a structured system much more powerful then they fathom.  So I bought more YGE.  My foray into trading solar stocks isn’t dead, yet.

As we’re all held victim to the caprices of the Yen and its stupid ETF, FXY, I said forget this and had a walk and enjoyed some fancy tacos.  This is nonsensical noise.  Eventually this mess will all be sorted, lines will be snorted, and ladies will be courted.

Moving on to more pressing matters:

The very important matter of my birth is just around the corner, and I refuse to let a stupid little currency and the jackass carry traders sully my good time.  I’m eating many cakes.  I’m eating many cakes with both hands and getting frosting all over my mouse and keyboard.  I don’t care.

Do you see how much I’m not caring right now?

Until the market starts bleeding me out via my swing longs, I’m looking at a very green day of future trading pared with some resilient longs, names like CREE, TPX, and IMMR.  Hat tip on the haptics good Fly sir.

We know how it ends, but can you stomach the intermediate roller coaster?  Find a way how.

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I get a certain type of perturbed when I miss a good opportunity.  It’s 2013, shit’s cray.  I’m calling a generational transformation right here, right now.  There are things we don’t even know we want yet, that will be indispensable in three years’ time.  In such a phase, if you don’t keep tight and on point, ideas simply drift by, like fat salmon drifting up stream.  With such a flow of fish it’s only natural that a few slip by.  Just know someone else is eating those delicious missed fish, living in the lap of luxury.

Things are going well, don’t get me wrong, but I missed two jumbos this month.  I’d say it’s a good problem to have, too many ideas flowing.  Being the opposite, following a template lifestyle of sorts, is certainly a drag.  So I’m venting two big trades I missed.

BBY all month and TPX this week

BBY was a certain type of fail, where I just continued to fail.  It was my Super Bowl pick.  I do things, like my Super Bowl pick, or March Madness pick, mostly by looking at the charts.  However, when I can incorporate an external, although often subject to extreme subjectivity, it makes the trade all the better.  I overheard (read) that BBY had a funny commercial game day.  I like funny; it’s the safe play for big time commercials.  I bought January 31^st, a decent entry, of the higher octane variety.  I stopped out, and looking back that made sense.  However, I let it linger on my watch list, and it gave two more entries, and I missed them.  It’s been ripping.

TPX I have gotten so much of.  I’ve been on that trade all.year.long.  That is until missing today’s pump.  I sold it a few days back citing a very flimsy formation of a notorious double hammer position.  Truth is, I didn’t have much reason to sell, I found one, as Chess likes to say.

That’s all, just getting that off my chest.  Onward and upward.

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