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The screening method is geared to swings of 3-4 weeks. Rangebound markets with increased frequency and shorter wave duration are very tough. We must grit our teeth and get through the rangebound meat grinders to get to the next sustained market move.
The screen output had a mildly bearish tilt this week, but ideal low risk, high potential reward entry setups were few and far between. The list had a rough week last week. The giveback of the big gains of early November continued.
During the week ended Friday, November 28, out of 1899 stocks meeting institutional price and volume criteria, the screens produced the following results :
Cumulative lists of Longer-term Setups:
232 resting big gainers up from 222 last week, and
314 sleeping dogs, up from 309.
134 breakout charts last 7 months- up from 133
110 breakdown charts last 7 months – no change
Weekly screens of cycle positions.
43 met strict major or intermediate trend buy setup criteria. Six triggered
91 met strict major or intermediate trend sell setup criteria. 15 triggered.
Tactics
For actionable trades, I visually review charts that triggered short term signals from the prescreened structural candidates. I chose just one buy and one short to add to the list this week. The rest were rangebound and too ambiguous to be strong low risk, high reward candidates.
I also review the existing issues on the list for whether to close, hold, or add or adjust stops. Here are the results of my final review for this week.
Trade Selections and Adjustments
- 2 new picks.
- 8 existing picks hit stops or were previously designated to be covered or sold last week (See table)
- 2 prior buy picks will be considered sold at today’s open. 2 will remain open, without stops, of which 1 is short and is a buy
Performance Recap – Late November picks suffered a tidal wave of whipsaws and one pick had a huge gap down. This wiped out most of November’s early gains. Last week’s closed picks had an average gain of 1.3% and an average holding period of 17 calendar days. Closed picks in November had an average gain of 2.7% with an average holding period of 17 calendar days. Remaining open picks average a loss of 0.8% on an average holding period of 21 calendar days. Two of those will be closed this morning, including the one that gapped down last week.