Thursday evening

Drag racing

Thursday afternoon - Out of control

That explains a lot.

The market seems to lack leadership today.  Maybe it's all Warren's fault for starting the day out with the HNZ deal or maybe it's the lousy numbers out of Italy or the disappointing prospects for German exports.  Whatever.  Maybe if we find the CRTL key ...

Thursday morning

Gator's Chart of the Day: NDAQ

This one surfaced on one of the scans I ran after the close on Wednesday.  I was surprised I've never looked at it before.  The view above looks like a move from a volatility squeeze but it's been in progress for over a month and yet volume has been quite high all week.  Wednesday was almost a bullish engulfing candle  and the 3 minute chart showed heavy buying into the close.  If you look at the daily chart for 9 months it gets  scary parabolic and with the SP-500 within 30 points of my target this might seem to be too much risk to enter a trade now.  I don't think so. The forward P/E is only 10 and this company can make money even with the general market tanking.

The Trade 
While an entry around 29.50 - 30 might be more comfortable I doubt it comes back down.  I think it may grind sideways but I would welcome a pullback and bounce for a better entry.  I plan to start small and add if the stock continues higher.  The initial stop would be a little under Tuesday's low of 29.93.  Once in the trade I plan to hold as long as it continues higher so I'll likely use the preceding day's low dictate my stop.