Every week I run technical stock screens covering all NYSE and NASD stocks trading above $6 and averaging more than 1 million shares a day. This typically results in between 15 and 50 charts to review visually. I’m looking for low risk, high reward price structures, which I’m not smart enough to program into the screening process. But it’s ok. I like to look at charts.
My picks from the screens are churning along with the market. 3 picks dipped below their stops, with losses in two of the 3 resulting in a flat performance for the list overall. List performance slipped to an average of +0.2%, down from +1.0% the week before, on an average holding period of 13 days. The percentage change assumes cash trades, no margin, no options.
It’s boring as hell. All there is to do is to keep nibbling on charts that look promising. I managed to find one pick among Fridays’ screen output of 43 signals that looked good enough to add to the list this week. The idea is that when the market finally starts to move, we’ll have picks on the list that are positioned to take advantage.
The current screen from charts as of the close on June 11, had 28 buys and 15 sells. That was the first time last week that buy signals had the edge. For the past 5 trading days, there were 95 buys versus 116 sells, a spread of -21. That compares with last Friday’s -37. This is down from a peak of +218 on May 20.
However, there’s been no momentum breadth thrust to the downside either. So we wait for an impetus one way or the other. The market has simply drifted and churned, with most charts ambiguous, and few showing clear impetus either way. We’re looking at about 1300 stocks that meet minimum price and volume criteria, and only 43 generated signals either way. Booooring.
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