Saturday, July 23, 2016 4:38:52 PM
Buy:sell, daily shorts & pps 07/22 2016 EOD
I remain longer-term bullish, but expect near-term weakness as we continue what I believe is consolidation with a bearish near-term bias. This latter scenario seems supported by the details below, especially the reducing volume as we again approach the known-strong $1.53/54 support/resistance area.
Stockconsultant.com seems to have again caught up to me as they moved from the "mild bullish" noted on 7/19 to now "Overall: neutral".
Recall that we had a positive PR yesterday and an effective zero response. Then seeing today's very low-volume push higher I can't again assume the long-term investors were just waiting a day to see if it dropped or not. I suspect my TFH's warrant holders are responsible for today's behavior as knowledgeable retail or institutional investors do not normally cause the intra-day behavior seen today.
If the warrant holders are behind today's action, and other similar occurrences recently, the rise could go on for extended periods. Further, having risen from $1.34/9 on 7/18, some of the blogs that notify of price moves might come into play and help push this by bringing in momo and day traders, which is what I think the folks executing this trading want to see. Real longer-term retail investors could be attracted by the price movement. Given the recent semi-ignorant article from Seeking Alpha I also wouldn't be surprised to see another touting how the price has begun to rocket up and saying, effectively, "I was right and you better jump aboard now or miss the boat".
As a consideration related to that, I'll have another post later today about a returning concern, which had been ameliorated for a while.
Today can be described succinctly as early no-volume, no-movement ($1.48-$1.50 range) until ~13:53 (see below) when we got volume and price pushed to $1.53 (1 cent below known strong resistance) at 14:56. we then fell back to $1.49 by 15:03, immediately stepped back up to $1.50/1 and stayed there until ~3K at 15:49 touched $1.52 again we finished the day doing $1.51/2. All of this occurred on really low volume only interrupted by sporadic 1-3 minute volume spikes but only a couple of those were even really much in the way of volume.
Courtesy of my TFH, today can also be succinctly described as "Another low-volume phony bullish manipulation by those with the desire and wherewithal". Lots of comments below that one might interpret as supporting this thesis.
<mini-rant>
Regardless, no one really cares as long as they "win" the short-term zero-sum game in which we are engaged.
So, root for the "black hats" that down the road will have relieved us (but not me if my timing is right) of some more of our hard-earned cash and DJ and crew can return to sustaining their bloated salaries via the ATM and whatever the next round of a public offering brings.
</mini-rant>
I feel better now. Maybe DJ & crew will actually deliver on something that the market sees as positive for a change.
There were no pre-market trades.
Prior to the open b/a was 4.2K:1.5K $1.39/54 and just a few seconds prior to open it went to 2.1K:11.1K $1.48/51.
09:30-10:45 opened the day with a 730 sell for $1.48 followed ... early behavior was so weak that it's not worth detailing as we'll learn absolutely nothing of use from it.
At 10:45 we had traded only 6.6K and by 11:00 we were up to 12.6K shares traded.
10:46-13:53, after two no-trades minutes, began very low/no-volume $1.49/50. I'll note only that b/a was biased to the buy side at 13:00 7.7K:1.4K $1.49/50. 12:19-:20's ~19.1K $1.50 interrupted the volume pattern. The high through this period was actually $1.5040 and volume was ~78.5K. 13:41 b/a was 6.2K:2.9K $1.49/50. 13:53's 100 $1.50 ended the period.
13:54-:58 did ~27.2K $1.50->$1.49->$1.50->$1.4999->$1.50->$1.4990.
13:59-14:11 did very low/no-volume $1.4995/$1.50.
14:12-14:53, after seven no-trades minutes, stepped up on 14:20-:21's ~7.5K $1.50->$1.51 and went very low/no-volume there until it ended the period on 14:53's 100 $1.51.
14:54-15:03, after two no-trades minutes, did a rapid up and down on 14:56's 55.4K $1.51->$1.5199->$1.52->$1.53->$1.52->$1.51/2, 14:59's 100 $1.52, and 15:02-:03's ~18.6K $1.51->$1.50/1->$1.50.
15:04-15:34, after a no-trade minute, did extremelylow/no-volume $1.5001/$1.51 and ended the period on 15:34's 100 $1.51.
15:35-15:47, after two no-trades minutes, began extremely low/no-volume $1.50/1 on 15:37's 4.5K $1.5099->$1.50->$1.5067 and ended the period on 15:47's 2K $1.5097.
15:48-16:00, after a no-trades minute, began low-volume $1.51/2 on 15:49's ~3.3K $1.51->$1.5190 and ended the period and day on 15:59's 1.39K $1.51/$1.5150 and 16:00's 309 $1.52.
There was one AH buy of 100 for $1.52.
Excluding the opening and closing trades (didn't qualify), there were 12 larger trades (>=5K & 2 4K+) totaling 81,233, 32.56% of day's volume, with a $1.5105 VWAP. The percentage of day's volume is a bit higher than normal. We had only one "larger larger trade" though. Notice below that none of the larger trades appeared until after folks on the left coast likely began their day. Coinkydink or related to where the financiers for the most recent PO reside? We've had enough of these (initially?) low volume days that climb for little apparent reason that it might be worthwhile to check back in time and see if there's a reasonably strong correlation even if it doesn't prove causation.
It's also noteworthy that larger trades or not, there was almost zilch volume early. Not only was the volume as low as mentioned in the details above, but prior to the occurrence of the first larger trades we had only 84.8K through 13:45. So we had 165,072 shares, 66.17% of day's volume subsequent to that. If we go back to 12:15's 41.8K volume, 9:15 on the left coast, the subsequent volume was 207,672 shares, 83.24% of the day's total.
Of course that begs the question of whether the financiers are left coasties or not and/or it's just a matter of the folks that choose to move the market in this manner have to see what the action is before they can undertake their activities with little risk.
And just so we don't get locked into my TFH thinking, it could be real investors coming in and driving price. :-\
On the traditional TA front, movements were:
On my minimal chart we closed above the new medium-term descending resistance for the second consecutive day, supposedly confirming a breakout. But check both the volume, down for the third consecutive day, and the high, which could do not much better than the $1.52 high on Wednesday, 7/20, when we first tried to move above that descending line. Volume 7/19, just before that attempted move, was 1MM+ shares and today we had ~249.5K - not a sign of strength.
Price continues "pushing" the experimental 13-period Bollinger upper limit for the fourth day. Recall that I noted after three or four days we tend to stop pushing it by dropping back but didn't have a long enough history visible to have high confidence. Maybe Monday will tell the story on that. With today's volume suggesting the move up is rapidly running out of steam I wouldn't be surprised.
There's a similarity here to 6/29-7/1, which was also a Wed-Fri track. It started with a big push up on "higher" volume, ~519K, and went up two more days on volume of ~149K and 329K. The following two days were down, bring the range back to touch the rising medium-term support (rising white line), at ~$1.31 those two days. I can't say we'll repeat, but history of this symbol being what it is ...
See comments at the top of today's post for thoughts about some things that might drive it higher though.
On my one-year chart, which had the third consecutive day of the 10, 20 and 50-day SMAs rising yesterday, had the 50-day go flat, as predicted, moving from $1.4308 to $1.4306 (I'm not going to 2/100ths of a penny a drop), while the 10 and 20-day made the fourth consecutive rise. If we can hold $1.34 and then $1.38 the 10-day will rise another week. If we can hold $1.41 and then descending to above $1.25 over three days and $1.38/40 the 20-day will rise another two weeks.
I'm not expecting that though - too stable if history is any guide. OTOH, see comments above about what might push us higher.
The oscillators I watch, which yesterday had weakening only in MFI (untrusted by me) and ADX-related, and had accumulation/distribution absolutely flat, had everything improved. Everything but accumulation/distribution is above neutral and overbought was entered by RSI, Williams %R and full stochastic.
The 13-period Bollinger limits, $1.2781 and $1.5127 ($1.2948 and $1.4545 yesterday) continue diverging with a rising mid-point, thanks to the upper limit rising faster than the lower limit drops. As mentioned, we are "pushing" the upper limit the fourth consecutive day and history suggests we should pull back from it now.
All in, the conventional TA all suggests bullishness, but for the volume. Volume is known as "The Truth Teller" and if it is indeed so it's saying the other indicators are lying! If we add in that we've recently been in this range (prior topped at $1.52 and could push no higher), the prospects are not positive, but that's supported only by volume and my above unconventional analysis of the intra-day behavior.
BTW, yesterday's { I think we are at least taking a short breather from a two-day PR-inspired (I guess) rise } is wrong so far but I'm holding, until volume and my intra-day analysis supports what the rest of the conventional TA tells us, to my near-term { ... my "not at least" scenario includes a re-trace to the low $1.40 level. }
So I remain, based on this stuff and my belief in the TFH thesis regarding warrant holders, longer-term bullish (through >= $2.25 anyway prior to EOM September) but short-term not so positive. Even with TFH thoughts in mind the folks engaged in moving the price have to make it look "real" every once in a while, so we should get "waves" up and down over the next ~2.5 months that in aggregate produce higher lows and highs on the way to "The Promised Land".
Percentages for daily short sales and buys moved in the same direction, a good thing. Buy percentage was exceptionally strong intra-day, of which I'm suspicious due to the volume, timing and activity observed, and ended at a good level. If we had volume with it, I'd be seriously considering believing it was a real indicator of sentiment. The short percentage, although up, is still well below what I believe it should be for a "normal" market (needs re-check).
I suspect the low short percentage is due to the large percentage of day's volume, ~32.6%, being intra-broker trades which don't generally generate short sales. If warrant holders are trading both sides (at different brokers or with different personnel and accounts at the same brokers) this could explain both the reduced short percentage and what my TFH sees as very abnormal trading.
The spread was very reasonable, indicative of neither strong bearish nor strong bullish sentiment. Typical of consolidation behavior, which I continue to think is what we are doing.
The VWAP's last twenty-four held steady at 9 negatives and 15 positives. Change since 06/17 is $0.1012, 7.20% and the averages of the rolling 24-day period seen in the last few days (latest first) are 0.3286%, 0.3316%, 0.195%, ~0.127%, 0.0091%, and -0.0047%.
All in, there's no strong negative indications here. If the intra-day action was not so suspicious, the short percentage not so low and the volume was better and/or increasing on this up move, I could get near-term bullish.
As it is, near-term bearish with a consolidation pattern remains my view.
As always, much is experimental and should be treated as such.
Bill
I remain longer-term bullish, but expect near-term weakness as we continue what I believe is consolidation with a bearish near-term bias. This latter scenario seems supported by the details below, especially the reducing volume as we again approach the known-strong $1.53/54 support/resistance area.
Stockconsultant.com seems to have again caught up to me as they moved from the "mild bullish" noted on 7/19 to now "Overall: neutral".
Recall that we had a positive PR yesterday and an effective zero response. Then seeing today's very low-volume push higher I can't again assume the long-term investors were just waiting a day to see if it dropped or not. I suspect my TFH's warrant holders are responsible for today's behavior as knowledgeable retail or institutional investors do not normally cause the intra-day behavior seen today.
If the warrant holders are behind today's action, and other similar occurrences recently, the rise could go on for extended periods. Further, having risen from $1.34/9 on 7/18, some of the blogs that notify of price moves might come into play and help push this by bringing in momo and day traders, which is what I think the folks executing this trading want to see. Real longer-term retail investors could be attracted by the price movement. Given the recent semi-ignorant article from Seeking Alpha I also wouldn't be surprised to see another touting how the price has begun to rocket up and saying, effectively, "I was right and you better jump aboard now or miss the boat".
As a consideration related to that, I'll have another post later today about a returning concern, which had been ameliorated for a while.
Today can be described succinctly as early no-volume, no-movement ($1.48-$1.50 range) until ~13:53 (see below) when we got volume and price pushed to $1.53 (1 cent below known strong resistance) at 14:56. we then fell back to $1.49 by 15:03, immediately stepped back up to $1.50/1 and stayed there until ~3K at 15:49 touched $1.52 again we finished the day doing $1.51/2. All of this occurred on really low volume only interrupted by sporadic 1-3 minute volume spikes but only a couple of those were even really much in the way of volume.
Courtesy of my TFH, today can also be succinctly described as "Another low-volume phony bullish manipulation by those with the desire and wherewithal". Lots of comments below that one might interpret as supporting this thesis.
<mini-rant>
Regardless, no one really cares as long as they "win" the short-term zero-sum game in which we are engaged.
So, root for the "black hats" that down the road will have relieved us (but not me if my timing is right) of some more of our hard-earned cash and DJ and crew can return to sustaining their bloated salaries via the ATM and whatever the next round of a public offering brings.
</mini-rant>
I feel better now. Maybe DJ & crew will actually deliver on something that the market sees as positive for a change.
There were no pre-market trades.
Prior to the open b/a was 4.2K:1.5K $1.39/54 and just a few seconds prior to open it went to 2.1K:11.1K $1.48/51.
09:30-10:45 opened the day with a 730 sell for $1.48 followed ... early behavior was so weak that it's not worth detailing as we'll learn absolutely nothing of use from it.
At 10:45 we had traded only 6.6K and by 11:00 we were up to 12.6K shares traded.
10:46-13:53, after two no-trades minutes, began very low/no-volume $1.49/50. I'll note only that b/a was biased to the buy side at 13:00 7.7K:1.4K $1.49/50. 12:19-:20's ~19.1K $1.50 interrupted the volume pattern. The high through this period was actually $1.5040 and volume was ~78.5K. 13:41 b/a was 6.2K:2.9K $1.49/50. 13:53's 100 $1.50 ended the period.
13:54-:58 did ~27.2K $1.50->$1.49->$1.50->$1.4999->$1.50->$1.4990.
13:59-14:11 did very low/no-volume $1.4995/$1.50.
14:12-14:53, after seven no-trades minutes, stepped up on 14:20-:21's ~7.5K $1.50->$1.51 and went very low/no-volume there until it ended the period on 14:53's 100 $1.51.
14:54-15:03, after two no-trades minutes, did a rapid up and down on 14:56's 55.4K $1.51->$1.5199->$1.52->$1.53->$1.52->$1.51/2, 14:59's 100 $1.52, and 15:02-:03's ~18.6K $1.51->$1.50/1->$1.50.
15:04-15:34, after a no-trade minute, did extremelylow/no-volume $1.5001/$1.51 and ended the period on 15:34's 100 $1.51.
15:35-15:47, after two no-trades minutes, began extremely low/no-volume $1.50/1 on 15:37's 4.5K $1.5099->$1.50->$1.5067 and ended the period on 15:47's 2K $1.5097.
15:48-16:00, after a no-trades minute, began low-volume $1.51/2 on 15:49's ~3.3K $1.51->$1.5190 and ended the period and day on 15:59's 1.39K $1.51/$1.5150 and 16:00's 309 $1.52.
There was one AH buy of 100 for $1.52.
Excluding the opening and closing trades (didn't qualify), there were 12 larger trades (>=5K & 2 4K+) totaling 81,233, 32.56% of day's volume, with a $1.5105 VWAP. The percentage of day's volume is a bit higher than normal. We had only one "larger larger trade" though. Notice below that none of the larger trades appeared until after folks on the left coast likely began their day. Coinkydink or related to where the financiers for the most recent PO reside? We've had enough of these (initially?) low volume days that climb for little apparent reason that it might be worthwhile to check back in time and see if there's a reasonably strong correlation even if it doesn't prove causation.
It's also noteworthy that larger trades or not, there was almost zilch volume early. Not only was the volume as low as mentioned in the details above, but prior to the occurrence of the first larger trades we had only 84.8K through 13:45. So we had 165,072 shares, 66.17% of day's volume subsequent to that. If we go back to 12:15's 41.8K volume, 9:15 on the left coast, the subsequent volume was 207,672 shares, 83.24% of the day's total.
Of course that begs the question of whether the financiers are left coasties or not and/or it's just a matter of the folks that choose to move the market in this manner have to see what the action is before they can undertake their activities with little risk.
And just so we don't get locked into my TFH thinking, it could be real investors coming in and driving price. :-\
If the early action wasn't so in conflict with the later action I would be really enthusiastic about those buy percentages and VWAP's. But notice that as the VWAP's rose the buy percentages fell. But that's sort of normal too, so we can't draw any confident conclusions from that.Ending Period Period Period __Per. Trade_ Period_ % Day_ Per. End
Period Volume Low High _Dollar Val._ VWAP___ Volume Buy ~%
10:45 6430 $1.4800 $1.5000 $9,579.22 $1.4898 2.58% 68.42%
13:53 76483 $1.4900 $1.5040 $114,633.63 $1.4988 30.66% 67.26% Incl 12:20 $1.5000 4,556 13:27 $1.4999 6,100
13:58 27115 $1.4900 $1.5001 $40,647.10 $1.4991 10.87% 66.49% Incl 13:56 $1.4999 5,000 13:58 $1.4990 4,700
14:11 4500 $1.4940 $1.5000 $6,747.63 $1.4995 1.80% 67.53%
14:53 24533 $1.4999 $1.5100 $36,906.77 $1.5044 9.83% 62.69% Incl 14:45 $1.5001 5,400
15:03 74077 $1.4910 $1.5300 $112,146.66 $1.5139 29.69% 55.26% Incl 14:56 $1.5100 9,300 $1.5199 5,000
14:56 $1.5200 20,000 $1.5103 5,000
15:34 6700 $1.5001 $1.5100 $10,065.05 $1.5022 2.69% 54.99% Incl 15:06 $1.5001 5,000
15:47 6800 $1.5000 $1.5100 $10,232.22 $1.5047 2.73% 54.10%
16:00 20039 $1.5000 $1.5200 $30,391.25 $1.5166 8.03% 55.28% Incl 15:52 $1.5190 6,177 15:53 $1.5199 5,000
17:37 100 $1.5200 $1.5200 $152.00 $1.5200 0.04% 55.30%
On the traditional TA front, movements were:
The only negative here is the continued reducing volume. It puts the lie to the apparent gains on the other metrics, including the buy percentages above.__Open_ ___Low_ __High_ _Close_ Volume_
Today 0.68% 1.37% 2.00% 2.70% -36.47%
Prior -0.68% 0.00% -1.32% 1.37% -34.95%
On my minimal chart we closed above the new medium-term descending resistance for the second consecutive day, supposedly confirming a breakout. But check both the volume, down for the third consecutive day, and the high, which could do not much better than the $1.52 high on Wednesday, 7/20, when we first tried to move above that descending line. Volume 7/19, just before that attempted move, was 1MM+ shares and today we had ~249.5K - not a sign of strength.
Price continues "pushing" the experimental 13-period Bollinger upper limit for the fourth day. Recall that I noted after three or four days we tend to stop pushing it by dropping back but didn't have a long enough history visible to have high confidence. Maybe Monday will tell the story on that. With today's volume suggesting the move up is rapidly running out of steam I wouldn't be surprised.
There's a similarity here to 6/29-7/1, which was also a Wed-Fri track. It started with a big push up on "higher" volume, ~519K, and went up two more days on volume of ~149K and 329K. The following two days were down, bring the range back to touch the rising medium-term support (rising white line), at ~$1.31 those two days. I can't say we'll repeat, but history of this symbol being what it is ...
See comments at the top of today's post for thoughts about some things that might drive it higher though.
On my one-year chart, which had the third consecutive day of the 10, 20 and 50-day SMAs rising yesterday, had the 50-day go flat, as predicted, moving from $1.4308 to $1.4306 (I'm not going to 2/100ths of a penny a drop), while the 10 and 20-day made the fourth consecutive rise. If we can hold $1.34 and then $1.38 the 10-day will rise another week. If we can hold $1.41 and then descending to above $1.25 over three days and $1.38/40 the 20-day will rise another two weeks.
I'm not expecting that though - too stable if history is any guide. OTOH, see comments above about what might push us higher.
The oscillators I watch, which yesterday had weakening only in MFI (untrusted by me) and ADX-related, and had accumulation/distribution absolutely flat, had everything improved. Everything but accumulation/distribution is above neutral and overbought was entered by RSI, Williams %R and full stochastic.
The 13-period Bollinger limits, $1.2781 and $1.5127 ($1.2948 and $1.4545 yesterday) continue diverging with a rising mid-point, thanks to the upper limit rising faster than the lower limit drops. As mentioned, we are "pushing" the upper limit the fourth consecutive day and history suggests we should pull back from it now.
All in, the conventional TA all suggests bullishness, but for the volume. Volume is known as "The Truth Teller" and if it is indeed so it's saying the other indicators are lying! If we add in that we've recently been in this range (prior topped at $1.52 and could push no higher), the prospects are not positive, but that's supported only by volume and my above unconventional analysis of the intra-day behavior.
BTW, yesterday's { I think we are at least taking a short breather from a two-day PR-inspired (I guess) rise } is wrong so far but I'm holding, until volume and my intra-day analysis supports what the rest of the conventional TA tells us, to my near-term { ... my "not at least" scenario includes a re-trace to the low $1.40 level. }
So I remain, based on this stuff and my belief in the TFH thesis regarding warrant holders, longer-term bullish (through >= $2.25 anyway prior to EOM September) but short-term not so positive. Even with TFH thoughts in mind the folks engaged in moving the price have to make it look "real" every once in a while, so we should get "waves" up and down over the next ~2.5 months that in aggregate produce higher lows and highs on the way to "The Promised Land".
Percentages for daily short sales and buys moved in the same direction, a good thing. Buy percentage was exceptionally strong intra-day, of which I'm suspicious due to the volume, timing and activity observed, and ended at a good level. If we had volume with it, I'd be seriously considering believing it was a real indicator of sentiment. The short percentage, although up, is still well below what I believe it should be for a "normal" market (needs re-check).
I suspect the low short percentage is due to the large percentage of day's volume, ~32.6%, being intra-broker trades which don't generally generate short sales. If warrant holders are trading both sides (at different brokers or with different personnel and accounts at the same brokers) this could explain both the reduced short percentage and what my TFH sees as very abnormal trading.
The spread was very reasonable, indicative of neither strong bearish nor strong bullish sentiment. Typical of consolidation behavior, which I continue to think is what we are doing.
The VWAP's last twenty-four held steady at 9 negatives and 15 positives. Change since 06/17 is $0.1012, 7.20% and the averages of the rolling 24-day period seen in the last few days (latest first) are 0.3286%, 0.3316%, 0.195%, ~0.127%, 0.0091%, and -0.0047%.
All in, there's no strong negative indications here. If the intra-day action was not so suspicious, the short percentage not so low and the volume was better and/or increasing on this up move, I could get near-term bullish.
As it is, near-term bearish with a consolidation pattern remains my view.
As always, much is experimental and should be treated as such.
Bill
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