Evening Thread

VIX Weekly Chart

The Vix was lower today, but is near its lowest point in nearly a year. Profit protection mode may be in order. Some stocks moved up today while others moved down.

Wednesday Afternoon Thread

T Daily Chart

There's been a lot of talk about AAPL and other smart phones.  Also buzz about the price of data plans and how some networks are throttling customers on unlimited plans.  These data hogs are good for the carrier's bottom lines.  T has only danced with the 50 day simple moving average once this year.  That was a successful test in late January.  It has been overbought for more than a month now and still looks strong.  It has a 5.6% dividend for support and is in no danger of failing to pay it.  If you want a boring stock that pays you with dividend and capital appreciation this is a good one.

Wednesday Morning Thread

Gator's Chart of the Day: FCX

News Flash: China is slowing ... copper is in a bubble ... gold is weak ... yada, yada, yada.  All of that may be true but it sure looks like FCX has found support.  It's not because it's near one of the popular moving averages (they are all much higher) but buyers have shown up here and volume has been above the 50 day average for nearly 3 weeks.  The last 4 bars are green and the stochastic just flashed a buy signal. (You may have to trust me on that one because it's hard to see but the fast stochastic crossed up through the slow one yesterday and it poked up through 20 today.)

This looks like a good place to enter with a small (say 1/4 of normal) position and if it starts to move up with good volume then a quick add would seem appropriate.  A tight stop on the original buy, just under Tuesday's intraday low (37.90) makes this a low risk trade.