Lee AdlerThere were more buys than sells in last week’s daily screens. That may be because there so many charts that had triggered sell signals in the prior three weeks, and they were still playing on the sell side. But whatever the cause, the final score for the week was 235 Buys to 147 Sells. That compared with 114 Buys to 118 Sells the week before. However, on Friday alone, there were just 44 buys and 71 sells. Most of the time, Friday tends to set the tone for the next week.
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The screen results come from a universe of approximately1200-1500 stocks daily that meet the criteria of trading above $6.00, and with average volume greater than a million shares per day. The final numbers show the number of stocks with at least one buy signal or sell signal during the week.
I start the weekly process by screening for daily buys and sells from the previous Friday through Thursday. I then rescreen that output, for additional signals in the progression on Thursday and Friday.
The final lists this week resulted in 43 chart pick candidates on the buy side and 17 on the sell side. Again, the plurality of buy signals may have merely begin that there were so few charts that had not already gone to the sell side in recent weeks.
I reviewed the charts from the final output visually. From that review, I chose 3 buys (all oil and gas related) and 4 shorts to add to the list, shown on the table below.
Last week we started with 21 picks on the list. There were no buys. 21 were short sales. That was an unprecedented tilt in number and unanimity. Five picks hit their trailing stops and were closed as of the stop price. Including those and the picks still open at the end of the week gave us average gains of 2.8% with an average holding period of 9 days.
I’d like to repeat that every week. Pretty soon we’d be talking real money. 😋
April was a challenging month. The final tally of closed picks in April had an average loss of 0.4% with an average holding period of 11 calendar days. My system does not do well when the average low to low cycle duration drops below 4 weeks. Normally that doesn’t happen too often, but we must roll with the punches when it does.
March was better. Picks closed in March had an average gain of 4% with an average holding period of 23 days. The 5 picks closed out in May so far had an average gain of 4.3% on and average holding period of 12 days.
The percentage gain is based on 100% cash positions, with no margin and no use of leverage or options.
This week we start with 23 picks including the 7 new ones. 20 of the 23 picks are short sales.
I’ve added new stops to the picks from last week, and adjusted stops on the remainder. This week’s new picks will be added without stops as usual. I like to give them breathing room at the beginning, and manage risk by having multiple picks.
The new picks, along with picks that remain open, and those closed out last week, are shown on the table below. Charts of new and open picks are below that.
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