The Tasgall Group

Gee golly gosh, 9 hours away from a possible rate hike by the BoJ and the stock market takes a bigger dive than an Italian soccer team at a water park.? “But oil hit a new all time high!”? Sure.? “But Israel!”? Ok, I’ll give you that.? But I just can’t get it out of the back my mind that maybe, just maybe, some Yen-tottin’ equity-holdin’ types decided to squeeze every last second out of that free money?that they could and then cashed out.? Sure, the rate hike has been broadcast in the media but why would you not wait until you had to sell?? Though I’m sure the perfect storm today wasn’t the ideal gauntlet to run on the way out.? But I have to wonder what’s the big deal about 0.25% anyway (though I wouldn’t be surprised if we see 2.00% in a year or so)?? It’s still the cheapest money around.? Oh wait, this is the same world that will drop a stock like Materazzi if it?”just”?meets?earning expectations.? Fear, thy name is…well, it’s?Fear but you get the point.

Here’s the new batch of PowerRatings setups for Thursday, 7/13 plus an analysis of how the stocks with PRs from Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday are stacking up thus far… (more…)

Check out the latest CD rates at ING Direct… I copied a few of the rates here:

• 6 mo – 5%
• 12 mo – 5.25%
• 24 mo – 5.30%
• 26 mo – 5.25%
• 60 mo – 5.25%

So, if you’re shopping for CDs, ING will pay you more to hold your money for 24 months than to hold it for an even longer term. In economic parlance, that’s an inverted yield curve. (You can see a similar inverted curve at VirtualBank where the big winner is the 6 month CD at a 5.55% APY.)

Nevermind that the real bond market is also inverted right now. We can discuss the implications of that in a different post…

There can be (or should be) a distinction between “setup” for a trade, and the “entry” signal for a trade. For example, with our PowerRatings, having a high rating might not be the only criteria for entry… instead, you may want to consider a high rating a “setup”, and then wait for a entry signal (e.g., the price moving in your favor) before plunging into a position.

This could be accomplished several ways, and should be tested before using (after all, maybe this extra step causes you to lose money). One way would be to watch the shares at open, and only go long if they’ve already started an upside move. Another way would be to place a stop buy order just above the close of the prior day — if the price goes down, your stop buy never gets filled;if it goes up, you get filled, though you may face more slippage with a stop order. (more…)

This post discloses the next batch of PowerRatings for the 7/12 and comments on the results of yesterday’s PRs: (more…)

Has anyone else noticed the difference lately in the Nasdaq Composite ($IXIC or $COMPQ depending on the source) and the Nasdaq 100 ($NDX – tracked by the ETF QQQQ)?

The composite is making higher lows since mid-June, but the Nasdaq 100 is testing its lows for the year today. The news (CNN, NPR, CNBC, etc.) all seem to quote the composite index instead of the NDX, even though the NDX index is more heavily traded (via NDX options and QQQQ). (more…)

I just ran across a horribly wrong search result, only to find a stock symbol with the most amusing company name I’ve seen in a while. The stock symbol WYDY is for “Who’s Your Daddy Inc“, purveyor of energy drinks by the same name.

Don’t bother considering it though, it’s market cap is an amazingly small $9.5 million dollars (yes million with an “M”). With revenue of $250k and a current cash position of $1,000 (wait… I have more cash than that in my bank account!) it’s amazing that they even went public at all.

You’ll find the shares trading over the counter as they can’t even stay above $1/share to stay listed on the Nasdaq.

Here’s stocks with a PR of 9 today: NTG, ILE, IDCC (down 21% yesterday!), FSII, ENZ, DXPE, COGO, ASPV

Here’s stocks with a PR of 1 today: AD, GGXY, LSCP, SBIT

Note that COGO (down 5.72% yesterday) and ASPV (down 5.00% yesterday) were rated 9’s yesterday, so these are worth watching since they’ve been 9’s for 2 subsequent days.

FMD had a PR of 9 on 7/7, 7/10 and currently has a PR of 8 today 7/11. Just check out it’s 5 day chart to see just how bland it’s been…although it could be argued that it’s just a coiled spring. Quicksilver, do you see a chart pattern in FMD?

Thought I’d point you guys to a rather harrowing chart:

USG, the producer of wallboard materials and much more, has practically been in a free-fall the last few months. It was practically a rocket on the way up as it fought past a ton of negative asbestos litigation and is about to emerge from bankruptcy.

I typically wouldn’t care, but I recently sold USG because it hit my trailing stop (when it was at 95!). If you ever needed an argument for keeping trailing stops on individual stocks, just look back at this chart.

(USG is now so oversold it might be worth watching for a turnaround…)

On the subject of hedge funds, I started reading Inside the House of Money a couple of weeks ago… it’s a series of interviews with some of the top Macro Strategy hedge fund managers out there today. It is sort of a modern day Market Wizards (Inside was published in April 2006), though the author only chose to interview Macro Strategy types of hedge funds. His definition of Macro Strategy is basically: discretionary, big picture investors.

The book focuses on strategies, personalities, and general economic outlook. The few chapters I have read are entertaining as well as informative…

Oh, and sorry, this one isn’t available to borrow yet… not while I’m still reading it. 😉