Trade Ideas for 03/03/09

Nice day to be short the market. It's getting to the point where a lot of pressure has built up, as the market starts sliding beyond what people considered within the realm of imagination. A sharp reversal typically follows this type of disintegration, and by the look of the chart I think reversal day could be tomorrow. Four red candles down, each real body greater than the one before. The reason this is not sustainable is that undisciplined greed always gets punished. Disciplined shorts book profits and tighten stops as markets near bottoms.

By my count, the initial selling phase of the bear market is nearly done. Here's a look at my Elliott Wave count of the correction since its inception last October. I've had to revise my assessment several times during the course of this bear, and my current assessment is that Primary A will come to an end after a countertrend 4 and then a final 5 drop, both waves being of sub-Minor degree.

Andy at PTV Investing has the next cycle turn date at 16 May, which is really farther off than I would think given my count. On the off chance that my Primary A should end on his calculated turn date, one model that might prove useful is the end of Intermediate A from early last year. From a similar point in the wave cycle, albeit one degree greater than where we are now (i.e., when completing Minor 3, 4, & 5 of Intermediate A, vs. sub-Minor 3, 4, & 5 of Minor 5), it took around 60 days to complete those final 2+ waves. If there ends up being a similar relationship between the final weeks of Intermediate A and Intermediate C, then we can use the earlier period as a guide. But this is, admittedly, quite a leap.

We'll see; these are likely to just end up being stories I tell myself. On to the trading. We bought the shorts and got stopped out of VMI. Given how extended the shorts are, I recommend booking at least half the short positions sometime tomorrow, either at open, or for those of you whose brokers allow it, a 1.0-1.5% trailing stop applied to the opening price. To illustrate how tenuous current prices are, within fifteen minutes of the close, SPY rallied from 70.60 to 71, or 0.5%. I won't say that we've hit the bottom of this Wave 3, but it feels close.

Current Holdings
Ticker	Basis	Closing Price	Perf.	Sell-Stop	Additional Exit Guideline	Chart
DUG	30.01	34.50	+15.0%	31.26	Consider booking at least half the position tomorrow	Chart
RWM	80.01	84.96	+6.2%	81.99	Consider booking at least half the position tomorrow	Chart
CYBS	12.48	11.72	-6.1%	11.45	N/A	Chart
SRS	83.51	92.00	+10.2%	83.17	Consider booking at least half the position tomorrow	Chart
SMN	51.16	56.83	+11.1%	50.89	Consider booking at least half the position tomorrow	Chart

In case tomorrow is reversal day, these ideas will trigger. (TLT may trigger either way.) If not, then we ride what's left of our short positions into the great abyss.

New Trade Ideas

Ticker	Entry	Exit A	Exit C	Chart
SWKS (Skyworks Solutions)	6.61	6.14	5.94	Chart
ATVI (Activision Blizzard)	10.27	9.72	9.29	Chart
TLT (20+ Year Bond Fund)	103.31	101.20	N/A	Chart
GVA (Granite Construction)	36.63	34.35	33.58	Chart

Please refer to "How To Trade The Ideas" (right-hand side) to read this table.