Disqus - Latest Comments for toptick

Re: 07/01/2011 Trading Signals

toptick — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 17:16:56 -0000

Hi Cobra: I forgot to mention yesterday, looks like a Zweig Breadth Thrust.

Re: Well, here’s what I’m worried!

toptick — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 08:18:58 -0000

Hi Cobra, Have you checked for a Zweig Breadth Thrust? My data is sometimes different than yours, but I have 10-day MA of adv/(adv+dec) rising from 40 on 3/17 to 63 on 3/30 (9 days).

Re: 01/10/2011 Market Recap: Two More Bad Signs

toptick — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 09:23:53 -0000

Hi, Cobra: The Traders Almanac numbers seemed suspicious to me -- the drop after a down Friday/down Monday didn't look much different than what one might expect after any random day. Indeed that is the case. Doing their test from 1995 to October 2010, I find that the average drop after a down Friday/Monday is -7.1% (close enough to TA's number), but the average drop after any day is -6.64% -- not significantly different. Using SPX, the drop after down Friday/Monday is -5.4%, but the drop after any day is -5.53%.

I will not be trading on this pattern.

Re: Too Big to Succeed – Stocks to Avoid (MON, JNJ, PG, MCD, XOM, JPM, GE, MSFT, EXC)

toptick — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 16:15:04 -0000

Is this a small cap effect?

I puzzled over how a firm become the biggest, and stay the biggest for years, with this effect operating. One way, see XOM and JPM, is a merger. Merger/takeovers are well known for growth destruction (if not outright value destruction). But I don't recall major accretions at MSFT, PG, and others. They've underperformed in recent years, but must have well outperformed for some time before that even as the largest firms.

Re: 08/09/2010 After Bell Quick Summary

toptick — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 18:21:03 -0000

Hi Cobra, $NYAD cumulative has been making new highs for the past several days. Indicates hidden strength.

Re: 07/26/2010 After Bell Quick Summary

toptick — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 09:06:07 -0000

Zweig said that a rise in the ZBT from under 40 to over 61.5 (hmmm, sounds overoptimized) in 10 days or less portends a bull market. Do your data show this happened this month?

These signals are rare. This signal definitely worked in March '09, but not so well in early December '08.

Thx!

Re: 07/26/2010 After Bell Quick Summary

toptick — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 18:36:38 -0000

Also, Cobra, what data do you have for Zweig Breadth Thrust? TradeStation data looks like there may have been a signal on the rise from July 6 to July 20.

Thx!

Re: 07/26/2010 After Bell Quick Summary

toptick — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 18:32:25 -0000

I second marchrooster: when NYAD is this strong off a potential bottom, the trend tends to persist over the intermediate/longer terms (true before March '07 and after March '09). NYAD was weak off bottoms from April '07 to December '08, and those rallies tended to fail quickly.

Re: 06/11/2010 Market Recap: 66% Winning Rate If Buy at the Friday’s Close

toptick — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 16:05:40 -0000

a) many services quote 3-month bill yields 10x the actual, so this was a drop from 0.16% to 0.07% (big percentage but not big absolutely)

b) bill yields were more volatile back in December (not to mention the Crash).

I think EvilTrader has it: like the rise in Libor rates, it is a safety issue.

Re: 06/11/2010 After Bell Quick Summary

toptick — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 17:57:16 -0000

Don't forget: next week is Expiration Week. (in '09 and '10, expiration Monday is up 67% of the time, but averages down -0.24% because of some big reds - FWIW).

Re: 06/09/2010 Market Recap: A Few Institutional Charts

toptick — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 08:55:55 -0000

Hi Cobra, a couple of ideas:

On the NYMO, I would say there is a positive divergence -- there was a lower SPX close 6/07, but NYMO is much higher on that date. Using volume-based McClellan Oscillators, the MO has been rising since flash crash day ( http://etfinvestmentoutlook.com/etf.php?s=IVV&c... for example). Also, MO on other indexes (RUT, S&P 1500, etc.) also are rising since flash crash, thus showing positive divergence.

I offer another interpretation of the volume bottom pattern chart -- when you get a V bottom with a spike in volume (capitulation), it means that bottom will be retested, and the real bottom is when the volume decreases with lower prices (March 09, February 07, July 06).

Re: The Reign and Romance of Risk

toptick — Wed, 19 May 2010 18:16:02 -0000

As Gladwell wrote in the New Yorker (http://www.newyorker.com/re..., many entrepreneurs succeed not by taking great risk, but by structuring deals where the risk is born by others.

Another canard of capitalism is "personal responsibility and accountability". Yet one of the great innovations of western civilization that enabled capitalism is the limited liability corporation. I've read several article recently about what an advantage the U.S. has internationally because of our relatively liberal and non-punitive bankruptcy laws.

Re: Mutual Fund Fees

toptick — Tue, 11 May 2010 15:53:04 -0000

http://www.sec.gov/news/stu... see section III.F -- doesn't name names but describes funds with asset-based fee breakpoints, sometimes combined with performance fees.

Re: Inflation

toptick — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 12:35:10 -0000

Eyeballing it, the change from 1913 (20+) to today (248) is substantially less than CPI (at CPI this series would have gone from 20 to 438). BCA Research had a graph a year or two ago showing that the 'commodities bubble' was actually a return to trend -- a long term secular deflation in real commodities prices. Over time, we've become vastly more efficient at producing ags and softs, more efficient at extracting industrial metals, and more efficient at using commodities (the last a trend not so much reducing per-capita demand as increasing the real value represented by a unit of consumption).

Re: Some Favorite ETF Sites

toptick — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 11:16:05 -0000

http://www.cefconnect.com/ is also very good for closed-end funds.

Re: Investing Based on the Yield Curve – REITs Like it Steep

toptick — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 12:12:59 -0000

It would be interesting to have a breakdown of equity vs. mortgage REITs. Mortgage REITs are a carry trade, so the correlation of curve to performance makes perfect sense. But how much do operating/equity REITs benefit from the curve?

Re: I Spent My Weekend

toptick — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 19:29:49 -0000

Hey! Maybe they have figured out how to profit from social networking, and the VCs got in cheap. Or, and I consider this more likely, the VCs opened a magnum of Chateau Bulle 1999 before writing their checks . . .

Re: I Spent My Weekend

toptick — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 13:54:27 -0000

Keeps them comfortable for four years, during which time they estimate a 50% probability that _somebody_ will figure out how to monetize social networks . . .

Re: Two Heine & Price Disciples

toptick — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 13:29:21 -0000

A. Gary Shilling apparently is still arguing for deflation (and investment in long treasuries).

Re: Sunspotting (by Fayssoux)

toptick — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 11:14:01 -0000

BTW, 7/8/2009 to 2/17/2010 is 155 trading days, or 224 calendar days. The solar cycles are measured in calendar days, so would be about 111 trading days.

Re: Read the fine print, investors: Some mutual fund fees higher than thought

toptick — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 15:37:01 -0000

The tax issue is manageable -- you can look up the unrealized/undistributed gains before buying a fund and decide if that works against you, or for you. For most funds you can check the planned distributions in the fall and exit a fund if the distribution will be adverse to you. (Granted, these actions are hardly the 'set and forget' convenience that funds sell, but I do these.) This is really an issue of timing -- should extra taxes count as a fee if I get the money back next year when I sell the fund? kaChing's case is overextended on this point.

The other fees are disclosed, except soft dollar commissions. These bug me because there is a real fiducial problem -- "I'll spend your money to benefit me, without disclosure." Do soft dollars really displace manager expenses that would have to be paid for explicitly? If it is spent to cover costs of the manager, it is a fee and should be disclosed, not buried in the capital gains/losses. Are the soft dollar prices competitively set? Somebody elses dollars are always cheaper and easier to spend than my own ...

Re: Japan, the US, and the Lost Decades

toptick — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 11:04:43 -0000

The other Faber also likes Japan -- as a contrarian play. http://www.anirudhsethirepo...

Re: Investment Newsletter Directory

toptick — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 15:38:32 -0000

If they don't publish a price list, you know it's expensive. I haven't checked in years, but the various BCA services seemed to priced at integral multiples of 2500$US. If you like BCA but can't afford it, check http://www.boeckhinvestment... . Tony Boeckh was the head of BCA before Martin Barnes. His site is like a BCA-lite.

Re: 12/09/2009 After Bell Quick Summary

toptick — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 08:57:43 -0000

Aha! Now I get it. Thanks!

Re: 12/09/2009 After Bell Quick Summary

toptick — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 17:31:56 -0000

Hi Cobra,
On the ISEE numbers, isn't '76% chance of red close next day or next next day' indistinguishable from random? I.e., if each day has a 50% chance of red, don't two days have a 75% of a red?