What Not to Look For
Perspectives for the week ending August 26, 2014
In this week’s issue:
- Weekly Commentary
- Strategy of the Week
- Stocks That Meet The Featured Strategy
In This Week’s Issue:
– Live Trading Daily Webcast
– September Webinar – The Tools of Stockscores.com
– Stockscores’ Market Minutes Video – Buy the Dips, Sell the Rips
– Stockscores Trader Training – What Not to Look For
– Stock Features of the Week – The Turnaround
Live Trading Webcast
The Stockscores Live Trading webcast series will start up again in September. Watch Tyler’s trading screen with his current open positions and receive live trade alerts when he makes a day or swing trade. Send an email to tylerb@stockscores.com with Live Trading in the subject line to be put on the list to receive information, pricing and registration details (email details will be sent out later this week. This service is limited to 40 participants).
September’s Free Webinar – The Tools of Stockscores.com
During this webinar, Stockscores.com founder Tyler Bollhorn will show you the tools of Stockscores and how your portfolio can benefit from their use. Even veteran users of the site are likely to discover things that they never knew about what you can do with Stockscores.com. This is a free webinar. Register at:
https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/327138055163086593
Stockscores Market Minutes Video
Don’t chase stocks when they rip higher, wait for the pullback dip to buy. Learn more in this week’s video:
What Not To Look For
As investors, our natural inclination is to seek out stocks that have good qualities. We look for reasons to buy the stocks we are considering and often forget to look for the negatives. Since there are thousands of stocks to consider and almost all of them can have some reason for buying them, it may be better to reverse how we approach the analysis of stocks. Looking for reasons not to buy a stock will emphasize a higher standard for the stocks you do buy and will help to improve your overall market performance.
Here is a list of common reasons I use to throw a stock out of consideration:
Too Much Volatility
Volatility is uncertainty. Virtually every good chart pattern that I use to find winners demonstrates a break out from low volatility. The narrower the range before the breakout, the more important the breakout becomes. If the stock’s price is moving all over the place before it makes a break through resistance then there is a much greater chance that the breakout is false and will likely fall back. Ignore stocks that have a lot of price volatility before the break out.
Not Enough Reward for the Risk
A stock can go two ways, up or down, after you buy it. If the upside potential is not enough to justify the downside risk, then you should ignore the opportunity. I like stocks to have at least double the upside potential for the downside risk. That way, you don’t have to be right even half of the time to make money, provided you are disciplined of course.
Lack of Optimism
Fundamentals do not matter. It is the perception of Fundamentals that matter. If investors are not showing some optimism about a company’s prospects then it is likely that they are not paying any attention to the company’s fundamentals. Look for rising bottoms on the chart as an indication that investors are optimistic, if there aren’t any, leave the stock alone.
No Abnormal Behavior
The stock market is efficient most of the time. That means that you can not expect to consistently beat the stock market because all available information is priced in to the stock and your success at predicting new information can only be random. To beat the market, we have to look for break downs in market efficiency. I find that the best way to do this is look for abnormal behavior in the trading of a stock because it implies that there is significant new information playing a role in the stock’s performance. I don’t consider any stock that lacks abnormal behavior in its recent trading.
Too Far Up
The higher a stock goes, the riskier it becomes. I don’t like to chase stocks higher. If I look at a 6 month chart of a stock and it has made more than two steps up, I don’t consider it. A one day run of substantial gains is not a concern; I want to ignore stocks that have been in upward trends for some time. Look for stocks that are breaking from periods of sideways trading, not up trends.
Lack of Liquidity
The more often a stock trades, the easier it is to get in and out of it. Stocks that are not actively traded tend to have wider spreads between their bids and asks and it can be difficult to move in and out of the stock. Don’t consider stocks that don’t trade every day and they should trade at least 50 times a day but more is better.
Mixed Messages
I always try to look at a stock’s chart on more than one time frame. If the message is not the same on both charts, I leave them alone. When day trading, look at the daily and intraday charts. When position trading, look at the daily and weekly charts.
Any time you think a stock has great potential, give this list a look and see if any of these factors show up. If so, it may be a good idea to move on and look for something else.
JCP is a very liquid stock that has had a good deal of controversy over the past couple of years because of activist investor Bill Ackman’s attempts to change the company. It looks like the company may now be on the road to recovery, details below.
1. JCP
JCP has broken its downward trend line and is now moving up from a rising bottom consolidation, a chart pattern set up that I call Bottom Fishing. Good chance it continues higher in the months ahead.
References
- Get the Stockscore on any of over 20,000 North American stocks.
- Background on the theories used by Stockscores.
- Strategies that can help you find new opportunities.
- Scan the market using extensive filter criteria.
- Build a portfolio of stocks and view a slide show of their charts.
- See which sectors are leading the market, and their components.
Disclaimer
This is not an investment advisory, and should not be used to make investment decisions. Information in Stockscores Perspectives is often opinionated and should be considered for information purposes only. No stock exchange anywhere has approved or disapproved of the information contained herein. There is no express or implied solicitation to buy or sell securities. The writers and editors of Perspectives may have positions in the stocks discussed above and may trade in the stocks mentioned. Don’t consider buying or selling any stock without conducting your own due diligence.
