Thursday, March 15, 2012

Evening Thread

Yikes!!!!   Apple is down!!!!!!!
Yes it's true.  AAPL printed a red candle today.  That's the 3rd one since Feb 22nd.  The market did just fine anyway.  Sooooooooo get a grip girlfriend. 

Thursday Afternoon thread

A couple weeks ago I posted a chart of FLEX - breakout of a generational downtrend.

Last weeks action produced a retest and nice springy bounce and this weeks action is producing some nice follow through.

Morning Thread

Gator's Chart of the Day: ACE
This is a chart that popped up on one of the scans I stole learned at the Worden seminar.  It's called "constructive consolidation."  We generally call it a volatility squeeze but it is designed to catch patterns that are just about to break out to the upside.  (At least the probability is high.)  You can see there is a well defined support line and while some would say (me too) it is an ascending triangle that could be a bit long in the tooth I think it's worth a look.  Earnings are on April 24th.

The stock trades with a 9.66 forward P/E and has no debt.  Fitch affirmed the company's ratings of A+ on Mar 9th and changed the outlook from stable to positive.  While it has only a 2.5% yield that's better than treasuries and it has a much better balance sheet than Uncle Sam.  The biggest negative is that it was recently upgraded by GS.

"ACE Limited, through its subsidiaries, provides a range of insurance and reinsurance products to insureds worldwide. The company's InsuranceNorth American segment offers various property and casualty (P&C), accident and health, and risk management products and services; property, general and excess liability, workers' compensation, commercial marine, automobile liability, professional lines, errors and omissions, medical liability, and aerospace insurance coverage; claims and risk management products and services; accident and other supplemental insurance programs; credit card enhancement programs; disaster recovery programs; medical managed care, integrated disability, and pre-loss control services; and salvage and subrogation, and health care recovery services, as well as peril crop and crop/hail insurance. Its InsuranceOverseas General segment writes various insurance products, including P&C, professional lines, marine, energy, aviation, political risk, specialty consumer-oriented products, and accident and supplemental health products. The company's Global Reinsurance segment provides property catastrophe reinsurance to commercial and personal property insurers; proportional property and per risk excess of loss treaty reinsurance; traditional and specialty property reinsurance, including casualty, marine, and aviation reinsurance; and medical malpractice reinsurance. Its Life segment underwrites protection and savings products comprising whole life, endowment plans, individual term life, group term life, group medical, personal accident, universal life, and unit linked contracts. The company was founded in 1985 and is headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland." --- Finviz