Well, I’m glad I’m going to therapy today… It’s 11, now, and while I’ve looked at the charts, I’ve mostly been on social media all morning. Immediate anger and frustration and resistance — it’s what I feel as soon as I look at a list or think about starting to do my analysis. I don’t know why. First thoughts are all negative and I have to push through…. Again, It’s probably a good thing I’m starting that process.
Looking at the S&P, price is up pretty considerably on the day, but looks like it had a slight gap-up over yesterday. Speaking of, yesterday did end up being a larger down-day than I expected, and today’s up-move feels opposite of what I expected (especially after seeing the large drop yesterday.) That said, though, price hasn’t quite broken the resistance level it created after the large drop, so I could see more weakness. Also, the VIX is down about as much as it was up yesterday, but overall still seems to be trending upward, if that’s a thing with the VIX.
I’m going to just look at charts, now, and save the ones that I like as I usually do. Once I’ve narrowed it down to a few that look good to my eye, I’ll hopefully come back and analyze them here (as I meant to do yesterday, but never got around to).
[one thing I will say in the interim here, I haven’t done nothing today, I did read more of “Trading in the Zone” and — wow, I’m not sure how long it’s been, maybe 30 minutes or more, but I didn’t even finish that thought…….. — and finished a chapter, so there’s that].
MRO – L – Marathon Oil, it’s been pushing up for quite a while now. I looked at this last week, I think, when it broke out on the daily chart, but I didn’t pull any triggers, and that day it pulled back to within the range. Over the last 4 days, though, this has been pushing back up within this range and yesterday broke out again with a lesser pullback — staying near the highs of the range. Today, price is up a bit but not a ton, but could be ready to make another push. The bands are starting to expand again, so there might be some opportunity here. I’ll run the numbers and see what I like
XOM – L – Exxon Mobile, another oil company. This hasn’t had as much strength, seemingly, as MRO, but has been pushing up all year, had a pullback at the beginning of the month, but today has broken some of the resistance areas of the pullback. Price still isn’t quite as high as the highs it made before the pullback, but This does look strong. I don’t think it’s something I want to pull the trigger on today, though, so I’ll just keep an eye on it
OPEN – S – This has been steadily pushing down since November, it bottomed out at the end of January, had a bit of a rally, and is back to those lows now — has been over the last 4 days. There appears to be a definite low-base here, so if this can break that area, it could make for a good short. On the other hand, this is pushing up a bit on the day, and is now longer near the breakout point. I have a couple of options here: I could wait until it gets closer and reevaluate, or I could enter a contingent order based on the underlying price. I think the best route is to set an alert in TradingView to let me know when price gets back to those lows, then I can revisit
CARR – S – Carrier Global, which is apparently a manufacturer of industrial machinery, has been pushing down since the beginning of the year. Late January/Early February, this based for a bit, pushed down mid Feb. and then based again just below those lows. Today, price is pushing up, but it’s still within the low base, so it looked like it could be a good short, but it’s pretty far off of the lows — so much that I don’t even feel it necessary to set an alert — so I think I’m actually just going to leave this alone for today
GM – S – This has been steadily pushing down all year, too, but today is on quite a strong up-move. I still like this to the down side, but it doesn’t seem close to my parameters, so I’ll hold off