Technical Analysis Basics
September 20th, 2018
June 7th, 2018
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I want to cover a handful of different charts for you and discuss a little bit more about resistance.
What resistance mean? We've had a lot of bounces in the past after major sell-off. You get a nice big pop and bounce.
How do I look at resistance? What should you be thinking about as stocks get into resistance? Just the overall concept of a stock stalling out.
Why is it important to look at charts for resistance?
Resistance is a place where problems occur. There's always turmoil that happens in the marketplace; there are the Bulls and the Bears that are fighting.
It's kind of like a chess game that's always going back and forth, and sometimes a piece gets taken off-white, and other times the piece receives taken off black. There's this back-and-forth that happens.
Naturally speaking, the tendency of a human being after they're born, they grow up, age, and eventually die. That's the natural cycle and tendencies.
If we look at stocks, the natural tendency of stock does they inflate. Prices keep inflating. The gas used to be 59 cents a gallon to $1.20 to $3 a gallon.
It continues to inflate with time because the value of money remains to kind of rise up in a way that you have to pay more for things and goods. This is what inflation does. It's just the natural tendency of money because it just becomes worth kind of less and less over time.
It's a fiat currency. You can't do much with it besides burn it and make fire.
When it comes to the stock market, the natural tendency of stock prices is to go up. This is why the typical buy-and-hold approach works.
When you want a peace of mind, buy some dividend stocks. Let them sit and in a way forget them and accumulate things.
It's in the problem areas where you take some profits. This is why it's good to look at resistance. It comes down to where things are struggling, where things are stalling.
For example, you get to your college years; you start struggling a little more with your tests. Maybe you get into your elder retirement years, and you struggle a little more financially. With stocks, it's no different.
As a car gets into a particular area with its speed, it struggles to go beyond that level.
With stocks, we get the same kind of concept. They've pushed that gas pedal so fast that eventually, it runs out of gas just like any machine would.
You need people to constantly be buying things for a stock price to keep going higher.
If we take a look at Apple, notice that we've had this sell-off from mid-April.
We had a major rise up from 160 to 170, 170 to 180, 180 to 190 and then the stock stalls out.
We had resistance at 190.
Now we got the next little flood of gas. Another little push to 193, 194, 195 level. But again it's stalling out a little bit.
When you push the gas hard, eventually things will stall out. The further you push that gas pedal, the more you should be taking off profits in the strength.
Now, this is a daily chart from May to June. Within just about 11 to 12 days, we went up 17% in Apple stock. That's amazing and remarkable.
If you can do that, you should be taking some off from the strength as you get into some digestion, even if it's half. Eventually, add that half back in sometime in the future.
That's the way you think about it. As we get into resistance levels, it's a good time that takes them off because eventually, stocks will come back.
Take a look at our sideways pattern from January to May. We got into this level of resistance, we got into these higher prices, around March in Apple. When you get into this higher price level, you start creating a little bit of turmoil. This is where you take some profits.
Eventually, you got that pull back to that 165 level. This is where you could add some.
Again, we get back into it, resistance - takes them off, come back into support and you can add some for that stock to continue moving higher.
You don't know that it's always going to go ahead and reject that resistance. Sometimes it breaks through like we did here in May and it continued to move higher.
That's entirely okay then you wait for the next pullback.
You can do this on a daily timeframe. You could do it more on a weekly timetable.
It just comes down on your perspective. Your time horizon. How long you're looking to invest in.
Overall resistance is a place to take some profits because this is where stocks start rejecting and pulling back. It's a good time to cover this because there's a lot of stocks right now that are in resistance, especially today.
You could see at the 1700 level on Amazon we're hitting some resistance. This could be just minor resistance, but it's resistance.
Many of these stocks, when you take a look at them, they are at some critical points where you could get a pretty significant pullback.
You might only get a single pullback, but you have to wait to see if this accelerates to know if it's going to be a small pullback or a major pullback.
The more times it kind of hits resistance, the more chance or probabilities that it will break to the upside or reject it nastily.
Often, when it hangs and lingers at those highs or the tops for a while, chances are it'll break through.
But right now as you're noticing a few of these stocks, they're right at resistance. You can see with a handful of these stocks, they're all at a consolidation area, and they're coming into resistance.
How do you spot this resistance? How do you know it's going to happen?
Three simple ways to recognize resistance:
- Look at some sideways action and look at some high swings where they got rejected in the past. - as we approach those, you're kind of aware and prepare for that as well.
- Look at the whole numbers.
- Being stretched from an oversold situation. Here we are oversold. We counter-trend bounce. We had a major bounce, and now you're starting to reject things.
Those are three simple ways. Of course, there are many other ways, but this is a way to see where resistance is and where it is coming from.
The first one is looking at the past a swing points where it rejected. Then, looking at some whole numbers. Looking at how far and elevated that move is from there.
For some of the advanced people - those that have been with me for a while - you're looking at a reduction of volume.
As volume starts to dry up, that also begins to put pressure on stocks because you're reducing gas on the gas pedal.
You can see right here why we're getting a 2% pullback in Facebook. But then, when you look at it, if you get another day that's significant down date, you could take out about a month's worth of gains in one or two days. Imagine that.
That's definitely where things get a little scarier.
You can see here Google. 1150, nice whole number. You can also draw this across our swing point, that we've talked about. You look at the steepness or that angle, how fast it moved. Now that we have rejection, you can see there what's happening and what's going on. That's really what you're looking at.
As far as identifying some resistance levels, let's take a look at Johnson & Johnson.
We got into a swing point. We got into it. We even broke above it so you could see sometimes you get a break above it. As I always like to say, does your friend always show up at 6 o'clock for dinner? Not necessarily. Sometimes it's 5:55, sometimes it's 6:03. It's not till 6 o'clock on the dot.
If some stocks break a little higher, they fake you out, and then they get that massive lower movement.
Here's our swing point. When you look at where this rejected, it was almost 150, was 148. Our other resistance was right around 145.
Whole numbers didn't apply here much, but when you look at the steepness of the angle, you could see here was our initial upward trend in 2017.
If you look at a long-term trend, that's a little more healthy. You're looking at maybe a 30/25 degree angle. That's more logical and realistic.
The more days that you see in one direction, the more likely it'll snap back in the other direction.
You'll see some of these that are hit the hardest are the ones where they're hitting key resistance levels from the past. Here we are with PayPal about 3% because we're moving here in this sideways action.
Shopify also has a vast stretch that's why in one day you'll get a 3 to 4% pullback because you were already up 20% in about 14 days. So 3/4% is pretty typical and average.
This is what you're watching for as you're looking for when the stocks will stall out
- Where are we coming into some past resistance levels?
- Are we coming into some whole numbers whether it's 60, 70, 80, 90, 100, 150, 180, 200?
- How far stretched are you?
Don't make it too complicated than we'll allow you to find where or when a stock will start probably pulling back or where it should begin to act weak.
You could be an accumulator - regularly collect stocks up until when you retire, and then you slowly sell with time.
As you start seeing these pullbacks, if you're a collector of the square, you buy a little more so you always have cash on reserve and you're just constantly accumulating.
Main concepts to look for in stocks
- Previous swing points okay that's number one number
- Round numbers
- Look how fast a stock accelerates. The faster it goes up, the more likely it's going to come back down. Then, combine that with a decrease in volume
- Helps confirm the move - when you have a growing bearish volume or a reduction in bullish volume that also proves that you'll probably get further lower prices.
November 16th, 2017
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Today, what I'd like to do is go in detail and some charts. Take a look at some of the recent pullback, some sell-offs that we had, and also today's recent bounce.
First things first, what I'd like to do is take a look at what's been going on.
If we look at the SPY here, this is the main one. A lot of traders watch a 255 level, kind of the initial key, but really what I'm watching is more around the 256 level, now we've had a couple of spikes.
We take a look at the volume of some bearish signs. Markets don't go straight up, and they don't go straight down - they wiggle, they pop, they retrace, they pull back. All these things are a bit of consolidation for you to be able to go into higher prices if those things unfold.
A couple of things that are normal to watch:
- you want light or volume, so this is what you usually would like to see on pullbacks
- when you look at that means you still have more room for the upside
What is interesting recently is we've had a little bit of a stronger pullback. So we've had some stronger volume signs on those pullbacks, and because of this, this is where the volatility spikes. The volatility will spike when you have more sell-offs because volatility spikes when you go down because that's the speed volatility is about. The speed or the fear in the marketplace, in other words, the number of puts that are being sold and bought.
When we look here, mainly the market was a little bit toppy, and we've had a few kinds of interesting dynamics here. I'll show you in a second we've had this support level that was created, and right here it broke below that.
Every time we've kind of came back, so far, we've been bouncing. That's what the markets been doing over time. It's been doing it for months, actually, for the last year. It's almost been doing the same thing. The dip mentality is it.
What you want to do is always pay close attention to how far stretched we are. Either to the upside or the downside. You want to look at it on the short-term, medium-term, and the long-term.
If you took this out and you look at let's say a Bollinger Band concept, let's say you go out to the weekly. You can see we were a little bit stretched out here according to the earnings from companies like Google, Microsoft. A little bit stretched on this upper side for more of the medium to longer term. We're in the upper end so a slight little pullback even 1% would have put us more in a normal range. If we get more into the three days, two-day, or one day, you can see before we started that sell-off, we were at that upper range. Once we got that sell-off, we came in the right around that Bollinger Band level and bounced right off of that.
You could look at it and say hey this is just a standard little pullback, little consolidation right there and boom we had that bounce.
The question is - as we look at today, is today overstretched again?
Just like this range right here on our pullback recently since this last week, it was a little overstretched.
Now the question is - are we overstretched again to the upside?
On the longer-term, I don't think so. I think we could still have higher prices, but on the shorter-term, I think you know a little bit half of that pullback. So instead of a right now, we're up I think about 22, 23, 24 points looking at the screens. Even a pullback of 5 or 10 points would be a little more normalizing and normalized to where the market should be.
Of course, the reason it's moving so quickly is due to the VIX being much higher. Here you notice we've hit some VIX around the 12,13 level and now we're down in the 11. Where usually, we've been trading around the 9,10 level.
You want to be very careful. With a higher VIX, you'll get more whipsaw, and that includes whipsaw to the upside and whipsaw of the downside.
If we look at this and you can look at it on a short-term, this is not for the long-term - not even the medium-term, but if you take a look at this, this is your head and hen you have your shoulders right here. It's creating like a head and shoulders pattern that was built right there. We got that bounce. Again, something to think about. Something to consider is this just noise for today. I don't know I can't tell you what I'm watching is how strong this volume move is. If this volume bar for today is much stronger than these other big spikes or even higher than the moving average, then I would say we're back into buying a dip mentality. But for now, it's just one day and one day doesn't make a trend.
You want always to be a little more careful that all of a sudden changed your whole game plan. For me, looking at the overall market, I see this market here's our upper range here's our upper band, and then the way we've been moving here's kind of our lower range and lower group. We've been playing around in that area and here's a little bit an outlier.
You could see we've hit these little points right there and we're isolating between that upper range and lower range, and we're going at it at this angle.
Now, is that angle a little bit too steep? Time will tell. I mean, for now, it seems a little bit more normal and healthy. I would think it's a little bit of a slower sloped angle. Maybe a little bit healthier but right now we're going at this more accelerated angle or level. I'm always looking at the speed.
Even though today is a little bit strong, things always re-balance themselves in the marketplace. So always remember that.
If you look at some individual stocks and as we take a look at companies like Amazon, they're still holding up very well especially since the breakout from their earnings they're doing fantastic. The concern for me here is how far stretched are we on a company like Amazon.
Again, you look at the daily. What scares me a little bit about the overall market is that - you have that thousand one hundred level and once you get these pullbacks and if you get some nasty movements to the downside while this whole range is pretty big.
The reason I share with you the pullbacks are the things that scare me instead of like stocks that I'm excited about. The reason I share with you the things that I'm worried about or scared about is that that's what allowed me to be successful in this business. Looking at things and I guess worrying or looking at these things and being concerned about them is what will enable me to be aware of what could happen if it goes against me. This is a possibility. When you see those things allows you to plan for them. So, think about that in mind rather than me looking at this and saying the possibility of this stock and just telling you it could go to 1600. That's a different mentality.
Whereas, when I look at this, and they say what's the risk, I'm always looking at? The risk is if we get back into 1100, we could actually come in and get in and fill into that area into that $1,000 range. Again, those are the risks.
If you look at Microsoft, as well as this one, it's not even following through like some of the other stocks because right here you have a big open gap. Again, I could sell off for $3 lower and when you look at this Bollinger Band, I mean it was way outside that range at least on the short-term. If you look at even the medium-term on the weekly, you can see we were way outside that range. That's potentially why we had some of this digestion that the little pullback that we've had even in the overall marketplace.
Taking a look at Square, also powering higher, look at it way on the upper range on that weekly continues to move to the upside stair-step pattern. That's what the market's doing. That's what the market's demanding.
If you look at Netflix, nearly a similar kind of pattern at the 190, we're getting a little bit of a bounce. But again, you're watching the 190 because you're right there at the moving average.
All these things come together at these peaks, and you're noticing a lot of these stocks. They're coming right there at these critical levels. If they can't hold that becomes problematic because now you have all of these things either dumping or selling off all at once. Also, if they bounce, they also bounce a lot of them all at once as well. That's why you get big moves sometimes to the to the upside and the downside.
Let's take a look at a couple of other stocks here that are relatively common on my list.
You can see we have a little bit of support level and of course a little bit of a gap. Again, that's the concern - the gap. You have a little bit of overhead resistance, so we are digesting and consolidating at this price level.
Tesla was doing pretty poorly up until this point, and that was our support level. Just when you look at it due to the overall swing points of the past within this company, and now we're coming in getting a little support, and there's our little bounce. Could we get a little bounce right here up to this level and then a sell-off further? Yeah. It's possible. Absolutely nothing would be wrong with the stock if it did that is just normal healthy movements we're getting in. We're filling that gap, and a little bounce higher would create some additional changes or could create other movements to the downside if that bounce is weaker.
You're watching the bounce here, and it could reject.
If it bounces and holds, in that case, you want more volume and again then the next level to watch is this upper double top range which would put you at 390 on the stock.
CMG has not had some positive news lately. I talked about this stock probably getting to about 240 before it may get a nice solid bounce or some positivity. You can see we are creating this an ABCD pattern in the stock. That's why I projected 240. We had a longer-term ABCD pattern to the upside in this stock. You can see how that played out over multiple years. But now to the downside, we have the same thing happen 235, 240 could be that range.
Baidu also attempted to break out-out of this range. You can see from the weekly chart but rejected it, and it rejected at 250 too far, too fast potentially. When you go to the monthly, you can see didn't make it. Now we're back into this range about 215 is your support on that one. If you're looking for the shorter term, about 230 which is kind of where it's bouncing right now, but I will still be a little more careful on this one.
Your other key support levels right around that 200 level.
This one continues to move higher in an excellent accelerated fashion so continues to do well you can see just the overall steepness of the curve continues to move
If we look at Apple, a move was a bit stretched. We get a little bit of a pullback, and now you got that bounce. If you look at this pullback, I believe it is about 38%, yet we're at 38.2% pullback which is right around the standard Fibonacci sequence. You got this little counter-trend bounce, and then we'll see what happens here at that level to see if it digests at 173 or so and go from there.
When I know it's been just continuing to do very well since that 2016 level, we had that digestion I talked about in critical charts. The digestion stock continues to do well. I won't be surprised around this level if we start getting a slight pullback sometime soon. Just a little one, not a huge one. Just because that stock is coming into a swing point right here at this level. That could be any time right now. It could be a little more at the highs of that peak at 160, 161. That's another possibility.
Our resistance broke this coming back to reach that. We're going to see if it can cut back into that this range or this level. If it cannot, it may reject it and roll over.
ExxonMobil also was a little bit stretched. So when you draw this out a little bit further, you can see and come into this resistance. We've got some selling over here, some heavy selling coming right in and it's tanking pretty seriously. Again, just due to technical resistance levels.
You can see our resistance broke out, came back retest support, had a little trouble getting above that. Came back into this level, little support right there. Held it there again, that's your key level. Unfortunately, the volume here is a little bit weak which I don't usually like. You can see it dying out a little bit on the break. So I would be a bit more careful on this one.
Bank of America
Some of these banks again coming into these key levels of support as well. When I watch these things, so many of these stocks are some key levels it's a fascinating moment because that's when you get those movements. That's when you get the movements to the upside real quick and the downside.
If you're trading this market and you're new to the marketplace, you want to be very careful with a little bit of a higher VIX because it'll whip you around a little bit more than maybe you're used to. If you just started trading and you were trading around this level or with a lower VIX mostly, and you were able to dodge a few bullets, that's fantastic and great more power to you. But on the other hand, you also want to learn how to trade in higher VIX environments or higher volatility environments because they can whip you. You need to be a little more patient because they move so much quicker. You either have to be quicker on the trigger or be a lot slower on the trigger because you'll want to buy things or you'll want to sell items faster.
Just be a little more careful here as we wrap up the week.
With higher volatility, you'll want to go ahead and make sure you take some off the table. Whether that's a 1/2, 1/4, 1/3, whatever it is 10 shares, 50 shares, however many, you're trading take a little bit off because then it reduces your position - reduces your risk and allows you to have more capital when new opportunities present themselves in faster markets because we are more in a quicker VIX market.
Are we getting a VIX move that's going to move like this to this channel, so we're getting now this little pullback but are we going to get a little bit even higher bounce into the 16 next?
That's my next little bit of concern. Are we going to get that move which would then sell off the markets even faster and harder sometime over the next month or a couple of weeks? So be very careful open to ideas of what could happen. That's how you stay alive in this business. That's how you be more consistent and profitable in this business.
August 24th, 2017
June 15th, 2017
March 30th, 2017
March 23rd, 2017
March 16th, 2017
September 15th, 2016
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Hey this is Sasha Evdakov and thanks for joining me for another episode of let’s talk stocks. Episode number 102.
In this episode I wanted to share with you some more insight about the charts, of what’s going on, what’s happening in the current market conditions, because it’s more volatile right now. If I dissect a few more charts for you, seeing the health of those charts, maybe it’ll give you some insight behind the trading environment and what it is that I am looking at, at the different types of stocks.
September 8th, 2016
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Hey this is Sasha Evdakov and welcome to another episode of let’s talk stocks, episode number 101, chasing stocks that moved and trading missed opportunities.
In this episode what I’d like to focus on is stocks that have already moved already further either to the upside or the downside, and sometimes when they move a little too far too fast, you’re a little uncomfortable at getting in at those price levels.
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system
Technical Analysis Basics
September 20th, 2018
June 7th, 2018
Listen to the Podcast
Subscribe to the podcastiTunes Stitcher
I want to cover a handful of different charts for you and discuss a little bit more about resistance.
What resistance mean? We've had a lot of bounces in the past after major sell-off. You get a nice big pop and bounce.
How do I look at resistance? What should you be thinking about as stocks get into resistance? Just the overall concept of a stock stalling out.
Why is it important to look at charts for resistance?
Resistance is a place where problems occur. There's always turmoil that happens in the marketplace; there are the Bulls and the Bears that are fighting.
It's kind of like a chess game that's always going back and forth, and sometimes a piece gets taken off-white, and other times the piece receives taken off black. There's this back-and-forth that happens.
Naturally speaking, the tendency of a human being after they're born, they grow up, age, and eventually die. That's the natural cycle and tendencies.
If we look at stocks, the natural tendency of stock does they inflate. Prices keep inflating. The gas used to be 59 cents a gallon to $1.20 to $3 a gallon.
It continues to inflate with time because the value of money remains to kind of rise up in a way that you have to pay more for things and goods. This is what inflation does. It's just the natural tendency of money because it just becomes worth kind of less and less over time.
It's a fiat currency. You can't do much with it besides burn it and make fire.
When it comes to the stock market, the natural tendency of stock prices is to go up. This is why the typical buy-and-hold approach works.
When you want a peace of mind, buy some dividend stocks. Let them sit and in a way forget them and accumulate things.
It's in the problem areas where you take some profits. This is why it's good to look at resistance. It comes down to where things are struggling, where things are stalling.
For example, you get to your college years; you start struggling a little more with your tests. Maybe you get into your elder retirement years, and you struggle a little more financially. With stocks, it's no different.
As a car gets into a particular area with its speed, it struggles to go beyond that level.
With stocks, we get the same kind of concept. They've pushed that gas pedal so fast that eventually, it runs out of gas just like any machine would.
You need people to constantly be buying things for a stock price to keep going higher.
If we take a look at Apple, notice that we've had this sell-off from mid-April.
We had a major rise up from 160 to 170, 170 to 180, 180 to 190 and then the stock stalls out.
We had resistance at 190.
Now we got the next little flood of gas. Another little push to 193, 194, 195 level. But again it's stalling out a little bit.
When you push the gas hard, eventually things will stall out. The further you push that gas pedal, the more you should be taking off profits in the strength.
Now, this is a daily chart from May to June. Within just about 11 to 12 days, we went up 17% in Apple stock. That's amazing and remarkable.
If you can do that, you should be taking some off from the strength as you get into some digestion, even if it's half. Eventually, add that half back in sometime in the future.
That's the way you think about it. As we get into resistance levels, it's a good time that takes them off because eventually, stocks will come back.
Take a look at our sideways pattern from January to May. We got into this level of resistance, we got into these higher prices, around March in Apple. When you get into this higher price level, you start creating a little bit of turmoil. This is where you take some profits.
Eventually, you got that pull back to that 165 level. This is where you could add some.
Again, we get back into it, resistance - takes them off, come back into support and you can add some for that stock to continue moving higher.
You don't know that it's always going to go ahead and reject that resistance. Sometimes it breaks through like we did here in May and it continued to move higher.
That's entirely okay then you wait for the next pullback.
You can do this on a daily timeframe. You could do it more on a weekly timetable.
It just comes down on your perspective. Your time horizon. How long you're looking to invest in.
Overall resistance is a place to take some profits because this is where stocks start rejecting and pulling back. It's a good time to cover this because there's a lot of stocks right now that are in resistance, especially today.
You could see at the 1700 level on Amazon we're hitting some resistance. This could be just minor resistance, but it's resistance.
Many of these stocks, when you take a look at them, they are at some critical points where you could get a pretty significant pullback.
You might only get a single pullback, but you have to wait to see if this accelerates to know if it's going to be a small pullback or a major pullback.
The more times it kind of hits resistance, the more chance or probabilities that it will break to the upside or reject it nastily.
Often, when it hangs and lingers at those highs or the tops for a while, chances are it'll break through.
But right now as you're noticing a few of these stocks, they're right at resistance. You can see with a handful of these stocks, they're all at a consolidation area, and they're coming into resistance.
How do you spot this resistance? How do you know it's going to happen?
Three simple ways to recognize resistance:
- Look at some sideways action and look at some high swings where they got rejected in the past. - as we approach those, you're kind of aware and prepare for that as well.
- Look at the whole numbers.
- Being stretched from an oversold situation. Here we are oversold. We counter-trend bounce. We had a major bounce, and now you're starting to reject things.
Those are three simple ways. Of course, there are many other ways, but this is a way to see where resistance is and where it is coming from.
The first one is looking at the past a swing points where it rejected. Then, looking at some whole numbers. Looking at how far and elevated that move is from there.
For some of the advanced people - those that have been with me for a while - you're looking at a reduction of volume.
As volume starts to dry up, that also begins to put pressure on stocks because you're reducing gas on the gas pedal.
You can see right here why we're getting a 2% pullback in Facebook. But then, when you look at it, if you get another day that's significant down date, you could take out about a month's worth of gains in one or two days. Imagine that.
That's definitely where things get a little scarier.
You can see here Google. 1150, nice whole number. You can also draw this across our swing point, that we've talked about. You look at the steepness or that angle, how fast it moved. Now that we have rejection, you can see there what's happening and what's going on. That's really what you're looking at.
As far as identifying some resistance levels, let's take a look at Johnson & Johnson.
We got into a swing point. We got into it. We even broke above it so you could see sometimes you get a break above it. As I always like to say, does your friend always show up at 6 o'clock for dinner? Not necessarily. Sometimes it's 5:55, sometimes it's 6:03. It's not till 6 o'clock on the dot.
If some stocks break a little higher, they fake you out, and then they get that massive lower movement.
Here's our swing point. When you look at where this rejected, it was almost 150, was 148. Our other resistance was right around 145.
Whole numbers didn't apply here much, but when you look at the steepness of the angle, you could see here was our initial upward trend in 2017.
If you look at a long-term trend, that's a little more healthy. You're looking at maybe a 30/25 degree angle. That's more logical and realistic.
The more days that you see in one direction, the more likely it'll snap back in the other direction.
You'll see some of these that are hit the hardest are the ones where they're hitting key resistance levels from the past. Here we are with PayPal about 3% because we're moving here in this sideways action.
Shopify also has a vast stretch that's why in one day you'll get a 3 to 4% pullback because you were already up 20% in about 14 days. So 3/4% is pretty typical and average.
This is what you're watching for as you're looking for when the stocks will stall out
- Where are we coming into some past resistance levels?
- Are we coming into some whole numbers whether it's 60, 70, 80, 90, 100, 150, 180, 200?
- How far stretched are you?
Don't make it too complicated than we'll allow you to find where or when a stock will start probably pulling back or where it should begin to act weak.
You could be an accumulator - regularly collect stocks up until when you retire, and then you slowly sell with time.
As you start seeing these pullbacks, if you're a collector of the square, you buy a little more so you always have cash on reserve and you're just constantly accumulating.
Main concepts to look for in stocks
- Previous swing points okay that's number one number
- Round numbers
- Look how fast a stock accelerates. The faster it goes up, the more likely it's going to come back down. Then, combine that with a decrease in volume
- Helps confirm the move - when you have a growing bearish volume or a reduction in bullish volume that also proves that you'll probably get further lower prices.
November 16th, 2017
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Today, what I'd like to do is go in detail and some charts. Take a look at some of the recent pullback, some sell-offs that we had, and also today's recent bounce.
First things first, what I'd like to do is take a look at what's been going on.
If we look at the SPY here, this is the main one. A lot of traders watch a 255 level, kind of the initial key, but really what I'm watching is more around the 256 level, now we've had a couple of spikes.
We take a look at the volume of some bearish signs. Markets don't go straight up, and they don't go straight down - they wiggle, they pop, they retrace, they pull back. All these things are a bit of consolidation for you to be able to go into higher prices if those things unfold.
A couple of things that are normal to watch:
- you want light or volume, so this is what you usually would like to see on pullbacks
- when you look at that means you still have more room for the upside
What is interesting recently is we've had a little bit of a stronger pullback. So we've had some stronger volume signs on those pullbacks, and because of this, this is where the volatility spikes. The volatility will spike when you have more sell-offs because volatility spikes when you go down because that's the speed volatility is about. The speed or the fear in the marketplace, in other words, the number of puts that are being sold and bought.
When we look here, mainly the market was a little bit toppy, and we've had a few kinds of interesting dynamics here. I'll show you in a second we've had this support level that was created, and right here it broke below that.
Every time we've kind of came back, so far, we've been bouncing. That's what the markets been doing over time. It's been doing it for months, actually, for the last year. It's almost been doing the same thing. The dip mentality is it.
What you want to do is always pay close attention to how far stretched we are. Either to the upside or the downside. You want to look at it on the short-term, medium-term, and the long-term.
If you took this out and you look at let's say a Bollinger Band concept, let's say you go out to the weekly. You can see we were a little bit stretched out here according to the earnings from companies like Google, Microsoft. A little bit stretched on this upper side for more of the medium to longer term. We're in the upper end so a slight little pullback even 1% would have put us more in a normal range. If we get more into the three days, two-day, or one day, you can see before we started that sell-off, we were at that upper range. Once we got that sell-off, we came in the right around that Bollinger Band level and bounced right off of that.
You could look at it and say hey this is just a standard little pullback, little consolidation right there and boom we had that bounce.
The question is - as we look at today, is today overstretched again?
Just like this range right here on our pullback recently since this last week, it was a little overstretched.
Now the question is - are we overstretched again to the upside?
On the longer-term, I don't think so. I think we could still have higher prices, but on the shorter-term, I think you know a little bit half of that pullback. So instead of a right now, we're up I think about 22, 23, 24 points looking at the screens. Even a pullback of 5 or 10 points would be a little more normalizing and normalized to where the market should be.
Of course, the reason it's moving so quickly is due to the VIX being much higher. Here you notice we've hit some VIX around the 12,13 level and now we're down in the 11. Where usually, we've been trading around the 9,10 level.
You want to be very careful. With a higher VIX, you'll get more whipsaw, and that includes whipsaw to the upside and whipsaw of the downside.
If we look at this and you can look at it on a short-term, this is not for the long-term - not even the medium-term, but if you take a look at this, this is your head and hen you have your shoulders right here. It's creating like a head and shoulders pattern that was built right there. We got that bounce. Again, something to think about. Something to consider is this just noise for today. I don't know I can't tell you what I'm watching is how strong this volume move is. If this volume bar for today is much stronger than these other big spikes or even higher than the moving average, then I would say we're back into buying a dip mentality. But for now, it's just one day and one day doesn't make a trend.
You want always to be a little more careful that all of a sudden changed your whole game plan. For me, looking at the overall market, I see this market here's our upper range here's our upper band, and then the way we've been moving here's kind of our lower range and lower group. We've been playing around in that area and here's a little bit an outlier.
You could see we've hit these little points right there and we're isolating between that upper range and lower range, and we're going at it at this angle.
Now, is that angle a little bit too steep? Time will tell. I mean, for now, it seems a little bit more normal and healthy. I would think it's a little bit of a slower sloped angle. Maybe a little bit healthier but right now we're going at this more accelerated angle or level. I'm always looking at the speed.
Even though today is a little bit strong, things always re-balance themselves in the marketplace. So always remember that.
If you look at some individual stocks and as we take a look at companies like Amazon, they're still holding up very well especially since the breakout from their earnings they're doing fantastic. The concern for me here is how far stretched are we on a company like Amazon.
Again, you look at the daily. What scares me a little bit about the overall market is that - you have that thousand one hundred level and once you get these pullbacks and if you get some nasty movements to the downside while this whole range is pretty big.
The reason I share with you the pullbacks are the things that scare me instead of like stocks that I'm excited about. The reason I share with you the things that I'm worried about or scared about is that that's what allowed me to be successful in this business. Looking at things and I guess worrying or looking at these things and being concerned about them is what will enable me to be aware of what could happen if it goes against me. This is a possibility. When you see those things allows you to plan for them. So, think about that in mind rather than me looking at this and saying the possibility of this stock and just telling you it could go to 1600. That's a different mentality.
Whereas, when I look at this, and they say what's the risk, I'm always looking at? The risk is if we get back into 1100, we could actually come in and get in and fill into that area into that $1,000 range. Again, those are the risks.
If you look at Microsoft, as well as this one, it's not even following through like some of the other stocks because right here you have a big open gap. Again, I could sell off for $3 lower and when you look at this Bollinger Band, I mean it was way outside that range at least on the short-term. If you look at even the medium-term on the weekly, you can see we were way outside that range. That's potentially why we had some of this digestion that the little pullback that we've had even in the overall marketplace.
Taking a look at Square, also powering higher, look at it way on the upper range on that weekly continues to move to the upside stair-step pattern. That's what the market's doing. That's what the market's demanding.
If you look at Netflix, nearly a similar kind of pattern at the 190, we're getting a little bit of a bounce. But again, you're watching the 190 because you're right there at the moving average.
All these things come together at these peaks, and you're noticing a lot of these stocks. They're coming right there at these critical levels. If they can't hold that becomes problematic because now you have all of these things either dumping or selling off all at once. Also, if they bounce, they also bounce a lot of them all at once as well. That's why you get big moves sometimes to the to the upside and the downside.
Let's take a look at a couple of other stocks here that are relatively common on my list.
You can see we have a little bit of support level and of course a little bit of a gap. Again, that's the concern - the gap. You have a little bit of overhead resistance, so we are digesting and consolidating at this price level.
Tesla was doing pretty poorly up until this point, and that was our support level. Just when you look at it due to the overall swing points of the past within this company, and now we're coming in getting a little support, and there's our little bounce. Could we get a little bounce right here up to this level and then a sell-off further? Yeah. It's possible. Absolutely nothing would be wrong with the stock if it did that is just normal healthy movements we're getting in. We're filling that gap, and a little bounce higher would create some additional changes or could create other movements to the downside if that bounce is weaker.
You're watching the bounce here, and it could reject.
If it bounces and holds, in that case, you want more volume and again then the next level to watch is this upper double top range which would put you at 390 on the stock.
CMG has not had some positive news lately. I talked about this stock probably getting to about 240 before it may get a nice solid bounce or some positivity. You can see we are creating this an ABCD pattern in the stock. That's why I projected 240. We had a longer-term ABCD pattern to the upside in this stock. You can see how that played out over multiple years. But now to the downside, we have the same thing happen 235, 240 could be that range.
Baidu also attempted to break out-out of this range. You can see from the weekly chart but rejected it, and it rejected at 250 too far, too fast potentially. When you go to the monthly, you can see didn't make it. Now we're back into this range about 215 is your support on that one. If you're looking for the shorter term, about 230 which is kind of where it's bouncing right now, but I will still be a little more careful on this one.
Your other key support levels right around that 200 level.
This one continues to move higher in an excellent accelerated fashion so continues to do well you can see just the overall steepness of the curve continues to move
If we look at Apple, a move was a bit stretched. We get a little bit of a pullback, and now you got that bounce. If you look at this pullback, I believe it is about 38%, yet we're at 38.2% pullback which is right around the standard Fibonacci sequence. You got this little counter-trend bounce, and then we'll see what happens here at that level to see if it digests at 173 or so and go from there.
When I know it's been just continuing to do very well since that 2016 level, we had that digestion I talked about in critical charts. The digestion stock continues to do well. I won't be surprised around this level if we start getting a slight pullback sometime soon. Just a little one, not a huge one. Just because that stock is coming into a swing point right here at this level. That could be any time right now. It could be a little more at the highs of that peak at 160, 161. That's another possibility.
Our resistance broke this coming back to reach that. We're going to see if it can cut back into that this range or this level. If it cannot, it may reject it and roll over.
ExxonMobil also was a little bit stretched. So when you draw this out a little bit further, you can see and come into this resistance. We've got some selling over here, some heavy selling coming right in and it's tanking pretty seriously. Again, just due to technical resistance levels.
You can see our resistance broke out, came back retest support, had a little trouble getting above that. Came back into this level, little support right there. Held it there again, that's your key level. Unfortunately, the volume here is a little bit weak which I don't usually like. You can see it dying out a little bit on the break. So I would be a bit more careful on this one.
Bank of America
Some of these banks again coming into these key levels of support as well. When I watch these things, so many of these stocks are some key levels it's a fascinating moment because that's when you get those movements. That's when you get the movements to the upside real quick and the downside.
If you're trading this market and you're new to the marketplace, you want to be very careful with a little bit of a higher VIX because it'll whip you around a little bit more than maybe you're used to. If you just started trading and you were trading around this level or with a lower VIX mostly, and you were able to dodge a few bullets, that's fantastic and great more power to you. But on the other hand, you also want to learn how to trade in higher VIX environments or higher volatility environments because they can whip you. You need to be a little more patient because they move so much quicker. You either have to be quicker on the trigger or be a lot slower on the trigger because you'll want to buy things or you'll want to sell items faster.
Just be a little more careful here as we wrap up the week.
With higher volatility, you'll want to go ahead and make sure you take some off the table. Whether that's a 1/2, 1/4, 1/3, whatever it is 10 shares, 50 shares, however many, you're trading take a little bit off because then it reduces your position - reduces your risk and allows you to have more capital when new opportunities present themselves in faster markets because we are more in a quicker VIX market.
Are we getting a VIX move that's going to move like this to this channel, so we're getting now this little pullback but are we going to get a little bit even higher bounce into the 16 next?
That's my next little bit of concern. Are we going to get that move which would then sell off the markets even faster and harder sometime over the next month or a couple of weeks? So be very careful open to ideas of what could happen. That's how you stay alive in this business. That's how you be more consistent and profitable in this business.
August 24th, 2017
June 15th, 2017
March 30th, 2017
March 23rd, 2017
March 16th, 2017
September 15th, 2016
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Hey this is Sasha Evdakov and thanks for joining me for another episode of let’s talk stocks. Episode number 102.
In this episode I wanted to share with you some more insight about the charts, of what’s going on, what’s happening in the current market conditions, because it’s more volatile right now. If I dissect a few more charts for you, seeing the health of those charts, maybe it’ll give you some insight behind the trading environment and what it is that I am looking at, at the different types of stocks.
September 8th, 2016
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Hey this is Sasha Evdakov and welcome to another episode of let’s talk stocks, episode number 101, chasing stocks that moved and trading missed opportunities.
In this episode what I’d like to focus on is stocks that have already moved already further either to the upside or the downside, and sometimes when they move a little too far too fast, you’re a little uncomfortable at getting in at those price levels.
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