Wednesday, March 08, 2017 12:55:41 PM
Buy:sell, daily shorts & pps 03/07 2017 EOD
Cautiously optimistic today for near-term improvement, primarily due to the volume and improvement in my short and buy percentages, although they are not yet into bullish, or even normal, ranges. I also factored in the "couple days" after the "Friday effect", which appears to have gotten this latest weakening going.
The absolute volume, ~277.5K, is the highest since 2/21's 481,365. A brief discussion of it's implications follows the OLHCV movements below. The short version of the intra-day activity is that it was a long, mostly extremely low/no-volume day of down.
Keep in mind this is the second day I was thinking we had to get through to find out if this is all a result of the "Friday effect" or a real start of a negative move. Tomorrow should tell. If we continue recovering the buy percentage, and hopefully VWAP along with it, then we can surmise these two days were just a continuation of a bad trend begun by the "Friday effect". If we don't start to recover tomorrow, it's not that, but the normal bad behavior we have come to know and hate so much.
Today was a really choppy day with a general long down-trend, broken up with the usual oscillations. It began with an open high and drop through 9:54 on extremely low/no-volume, a bounce back up on similar volume through ~10:05, and a down trend from ~10:05 through ~10:47 on volume that got quite high (for this stock) starting at ~10:42. Then trade narrowed to ~$0.7330/45 through 11:40ish and went extremely low/no-volume there through ~12:40, widened to $0.7330/93ish through ~13:00 and then went generally extremely low/no-volume lower until 13:58-14:10's much higher volume tanked the price down to $0.71, setting the day's low. From then on it was generally very low/medium volume $0.7100/98 with rising lows through 15:15. Range then jumped up to $0.7200/85 or so and did extremely low/no-volume there through the close at $0.72.
There were no pre-market trades.
B/a just before open was 100:100 $0.7301/$0.8099.
09:30-10:03 opened the day with a 1,317 sell for $0.75 & $0.75 x 100, x 34 and there were no more trades until 09:41. B/a just after open was 134:215 $0.75/6. Then came 9:31's b/a 10:215 $0.7318/$0.76 (bids backed by presented 100 $0.7301 & 22K $0.73), 9:39's b/a 10:215 $0.7318/$0.76 (bids backed by presented 100 $0.7301 & 28.7K $0.73), 9:41's 100 $0.7403, 9:42's b/a 100:215 $0.7330/$0.76 (unchanged 9:53), 9:54's 300 $0.7330, 9:58's b/a 100:213 $0.7330/$0.76, 9:58's 2.1K $0.76 (1.9K)/$0.7331/0, 10:00's b/a 5.2K:93 $0.74/6 (offers backed by presented 500 $0.77), 10:02's b/a 6.2K:93 $0.74/6 (offers backed by presented 500 $0.77), and the period ended on 10:03's 100 $0.77.
10:04-10:42, during the initial three no-trades minutes had b/a at 10:05 of 6.1K:393 $0.76. Trade began extremely low/no-volume $0.74/6 on 10:07's 500 $0.75. Volume was interrupted by 10:16's 21.2K $0.74 (20.9K incl 20K blk)/$0.7589/$0.76. B/a at 10:17 was 5.3K:393 $0.74/6, 10:25 5.4K:393 $0.74/6, 10:32 5.4K:293 $0.74/6. The period ended on 10:42's 11.7K $0.76 (100)/4 (incl 10K blk).
10:43-10:47, after one no-trades minute, did a high/medium-volume decline with b/a at 10:44 of 5.8K:1.2K $0.74/6. 10:44 did 13.3K $0.74, 10:45 did 5.1K $0.7395/$0.74, 10:46 did 5.4K $0.7304/05/09/05/01, and the period ended on 10:47's 2K $0.7398/01/00.
10:48-11:31, after two no-trades minutes having 10:49's b/a of 100:1.1K $0.7302/97 (bids backed by presented 200 $0.7301 & 29.5K $0.73), began extremely low/no-volume $0.7318/87, with quickly rising lows and slowly falling highs, after 10:50's 12.1K $0.7300/5, 10:51's 12.1K $0.7300/4 and 10:53's 10.6K $0.7387/00 (incl 10K blk). B/a at 11:05 was 3.9K:1.9K $0.7310/82 (offers rattling 01/02), 11:17 3.8K:1.9K $0.7310/68. By 11:19 range was $0.7329/32. The period ended on 11:31's 200 $0.7331/2.
11:32-12:35, after five no-trades minutes with b/a at 11:32 of 200:700 $0.7329/89 (offers rattling 89/90) and 11:35 at 300:1.2K $0.7345/84, began extremely low/no-volume $0.7345/67 (lots of 100-share minutes pecking the bid 11:40-12:11 and 12:17-12:35) on 11:37's 100 $0.7367. B/a at 11:44 was 1.3K:400 $0.7345/58 (offers falling quickly), 12:02 1.3K:552 $0.7345/6, 1.3K:752 $0.7345/6, 12:32 1.3K:452 $0.7345/6. The period ended on 12:35's 100 $0.1235.
12:36-12:58, after one no-trades minutes, began extremely low/no-volume $0.7390/3 on 12:37's 1.9K $0.7345/70 (??:??). B/a at 12:43 was 200:1.4K $0.7390/3. The period ended on 12:58's 100 $0.7390.
12:59-13:57, after one no-trades minute, began an extremely low/no-volume decline on 13:00's 1.7K $0.7390/89/45. B/a at 13:03 was 100:1.2K $0.7345/77 (the 24K $0.7300 presented is still there), 13:17 100:23 $0.7345/6. 13:18's 800 hit $0.7345/10 and extremely low/no-volume $0.7310/45, with falling highs, began. B/a at 13:22 was 3K:500 $0.7310/32 (the 24K $0.7300 presented is still there), 13:32 3K:600 $0.7310/12 (the 24K $0.7300 presented is still there), 13:49 300:600 $0.7312/6. The period ended when 13:57's 100 $0.7310.
13:58-14:10, after one no-trades minute, took out everything through the the 24K $0.73 bids and more on 13:59's 40K $0.7310/01/00 (incl 10K blk)/$0.7295/93/$0.73. That was followed by a rising volume continuation lower. B/a at 14:03 was 5.2K:1.7K $0.7210/85. The period ended when 14:10's 32.2K did $0.7210/05/00 (incl 11.6K & 10K blks)/$0.7100/1.
14:11-15:14, after one no-trades minute, began extremely low/no-volume $0.7101/$0.7235, with rapidly falling highs, on 14:12's 100 $0.7101. B/a at 14:13 was 2.1K:600 $0.7101/$0.7235. By 14:28 range was $0.7101/77. B/a at 14:32 was 300:2.3K $0.7101/99. Volume was interrupted by 14:34's 8.1K $0.7101/50. At 14:37 range began a slow rise and at 14:39 it was $0.7110/98. B/a at 14:41 was 1.7K:1.9K $0.7110/98. Volume was interrupted by 14:53's 14K $0.7154/98. B/a at 14:57 was 1.2K:2.9K $0.7110/97. By 14:57 range was $0.7130/98. B/a at 15:02 was 300:2.4K $0.7130/96. The period ended on 15:14's 2.6K $0.7134/99.
15:15-16:00 during the first three no-trades minutes had b/a at 15:15 of 1.3K:3,3K $0.7200/97. Trade began extremely low/no-volume $0.7200/75 (most 100-share $0.7200 bid pecking through 15:46) on 15:18's 100 $0.7285. B/a at 15:26 was 6.2K:2.7K $0.7200/97, 15:31 5K:2.8K $0.7200/96, 15:41 6.4K:2.8K $0.7200/96, 15:47 6.8K:2.3K $0.7200/96, 15:51 4.6K:5.4K $0.7200/1, 15:53 11.4K:5K $0.7200/1. The day and period ended on 15:59's 500 $0.72 because the only 16:00 trade was a 1-share odd-lot sell for $0.7201, making 15:59's last $0.72 x 100 as the official close.
There were no AH trades.
Excluding the opening and closing trades (didn't qualify), there were 16 larger trades (>=5a, 1 4K+, 1 3.9K+) totaling 153,599, 55.36% of day's volume, with a $0.7295 VWAP. For the volume, the count seems reasonable but the percentage of day's trade volume is high. The VWAP is the same as the day's $0.7295. This is unusual but does show the impact of the combination of that high a percentage of day's volume with MM control of the market. I'm guessing that the number of "larger larger trades", 10 depending on where you make the cut-off, suggests there may have been a lot of inter/intra-broker trade volume today. If that's the case, the daily short volume would be low. OTOH, if this was MMs servicing "good customers" (maybe shorters doing covering buys?) by accumulating at low price and then selling to the shorters for their covering buys, the short percentage might be more normal. I won't know until tomorrow morning.
N.B.Yep! The short percentage came in just below the bottom of my desired range. BTW, check the short percentages since 2/27 and what happened to VWAP in the span. Looks like shorters were seeing the range at $0.73+ as attractive shorting prices or were making sure price didn't run away from them as they also did covering buys. Shorting just a little on lower-volume days would easily move price to lower prices where the MMs could accumulate covering shares for the shorters and them deliver them. This might explain those sudden volume spikes seen off and on during intra-day trading.
On the traditional TA front, movements were:
Not only is volume movement today quite large, but the absolute volume is the highest since 2/21's 481,365. That begs the question, answered tomorrow I think, of is this the end of the trend lower, often accompanied by a big volume spike, or is it indicating more strength in the move lower, suggested by rising volume that's not large enough to indicate capitulation. With the 10-day average through yesterday being about 182K, today's ~277.5K could be large enough to indicate the end of the trend, but it's a bit marginal IMO. Add in that the 2/21 volume spike was followed by a falling trend in the VWAP (see table below).
On my minimal chart we have a bit of (temporary?) good news - the rising medium-term support (rising orange line) held as we penetrated below intra-day but came back and closed right on the line. Recall this is the line about which in the recent past I had said demonstrated fairly strong support on multiple challenges and I thought it would keep us from going on to challenge $0.66. It will be important to see it hold again tomorrow. Better would be a price move up and away from it on good, and rising, volume.
Today broke the continued flat low (four days), flat high (2 days), flat close (two days), rising fast EMA (4 days), and converging Bollinger band limits (3 days?) trends. All this was within the consolidation triangle created by the descending resistance (red line) and the rising support, rising orange line.
I think this leads into tomorrows test of yesterday's { ... suggesting consolidation that should end this down leg within a few days. The nature of it's behavior at the ending is anyone's guess. It might break up, go sideways or hit a high-volume flush lower. If the latter behavior is seen I think the move would be small because that rising support has proven reliable thus far, including both very low and low-to-medium volume tests. }
I await, with 'bated breath, the outcome.
The fast EMA (yellow squiggly line) stopped rising and is further below the slow EMA (squiggly blue line).
Our trade range, which for two days almost completely filled the range of the experimental 13-period Bollinger band and then filled only the lower half yesterday, began "pushing" the lower limit today. I had noted { This range compression is typical of consolidation, bottoming, forming a base etc. It's especially common when volume is extremely low as the MMs have to tighten (and usually lower) the range just to get some trades done and make their money. } I think that last item is important. If the MMs let it go too low, volume plummets. Sans volume the MMs can't make money. Since they are generally price agnostic, just doing arbitrage, it's about time for them to be considering moving range back up, especially as today's high volume will likely be followed by lower volume tomorrow, making it easier (and cheaper as few shares will be needed to do the job).
On my one-year chart, yesterday I noted { the long-term descending resistance, which had closes above and on it the last two days, today had price close above it. Yesterday when price closed right on the line I was not willing to call a confirmed breakout. I said with any luck we'll get that tomorrow. Got it. Today we are no longer constrained by that long-term resistance. }
Today it looks like the long-term descending former resistance acted as support.
The 50 and 200-day SMAs continue falling. The 20-day SMA, which had stopped declining and went absolutely flat, declined today. The 10-day continued to decline and the 10-day moved from above the 20-day by 39/100ths of a cent to below by 1/100ths. I noted two days back the 10-day is a bit more likely to quickly get below the 20 if weakness appears. Today, if strength appears we should quickly get the 10-day back above the 20-day SMA. If we hold here we'll get 9 (was 3) days of declining 10-day SMA. The 20-day would have 19 (was 6 day of rise) of decline. If we hold here the 50 will decline 4 days and then rise 1 day and decline again 9 days. The 200-day would fall ~155 (was ~120) days.
Yesterday the oscillators I watch had flat RSI and Williams %R, improvement in accumulation/distribution and full stochastic and deterioration in MFI (untrusted by me), momentum, and ADX-related.
Today had weakening in every oscillator. every one is below neutral. Only Williams %R is in oversold territory.
The experimental 13-period Bollinger limits, $0.7163 and $0.8081 ($0.7253 and $0.8114 yesterday), switched from converging to diverging and the mid-point stopped marginally rising and began sinking as both limits decline.
All in, the only positive is the support on the minimal chart held on rising volume on a down day. Well, there is one more - the buy percentage began improving, as suspected it would after a couple days, and should continue the return to more normal levels.
Percentages for daily short sales and buys moved in opposite directions, not good, but the short percentage went just below the bottom of my desired range (needs re-check), which is good, and the buy percentage began struggling back toward normalcy, which is also good. Neither is enough to say everything will come up roses tomorrow though.
The spread widened again and if tomorrow is not a reversal it suggests we'll drop further. If we do reverse it suggests substantial (subjective, of course) upside is likely. It would need support from subsequent spreads remaining wide.
The VWAP's last twenty-four readings deteriorated from 13 negative and 11 positive to 14 and 10 respectively. Change since 01/31 is -$0.1154, -13.66%, and the averages of the rolling 24-day period seen in the last few days (latest first) are now -0.5663%, -0.1786%, 0.2106%, 0.3104%, 0.2341%, 0.2301%, 0.3382%, 0.4031%, 0.3941%, and 0.2967%. The trend of the rolling average of change to negative continued today.
All in, things are seen as moving in the right direction, other than the spread which is uncertain for now. The short percentage being where it's at while the buy percentage begins to recover seems positive. The VWAP behavior, especially the moving average of change percentages, is negative.
I'm going to hold a "cautiously optimistic" view ATM based on this and the volume being potentially high enough to suggest end of trend.
Bill
Cautiously optimistic today for near-term improvement, primarily due to the volume and improvement in my short and buy percentages, although they are not yet into bullish, or even normal, ranges. I also factored in the "couple days" after the "Friday effect", which appears to have gotten this latest weakening going.
The absolute volume, ~277.5K, is the highest since 2/21's 481,365. A brief discussion of it's implications follows the OLHCV movements below. The short version of the intra-day activity is that it was a long, mostly extremely low/no-volume day of down.
Keep in mind this is the second day I was thinking we had to get through to find out if this is all a result of the "Friday effect" or a real start of a negative move. Tomorrow should tell. If we continue recovering the buy percentage, and hopefully VWAP along with it, then we can surmise these two days were just a continuation of a bad trend begun by the "Friday effect". If we don't start to recover tomorrow, it's not that, but the normal bad behavior we have come to know and hate so much.
Today was a really choppy day with a general long down-trend, broken up with the usual oscillations. It began with an open high and drop through 9:54 on extremely low/no-volume, a bounce back up on similar volume through ~10:05, and a down trend from ~10:05 through ~10:47 on volume that got quite high (for this stock) starting at ~10:42. Then trade narrowed to ~$0.7330/45 through 11:40ish and went extremely low/no-volume there through ~12:40, widened to $0.7330/93ish through ~13:00 and then went generally extremely low/no-volume lower until 13:58-14:10's much higher volume tanked the price down to $0.71, setting the day's low. From then on it was generally very low/medium volume $0.7100/98 with rising lows through 15:15. Range then jumped up to $0.7200/85 or so and did extremely low/no-volume there through the close at $0.72.
There were no pre-market trades.
B/a just before open was 100:100 $0.7301/$0.8099.
09:30-10:03 opened the day with a 1,317 sell for $0.75 & $0.75 x 100, x 34 and there were no more trades until 09:41. B/a just after open was 134:215 $0.75/6. Then came 9:31's b/a 10:215 $0.7318/$0.76 (bids backed by presented 100 $0.7301 & 22K $0.73), 9:39's b/a 10:215 $0.7318/$0.76 (bids backed by presented 100 $0.7301 & 28.7K $0.73), 9:41's 100 $0.7403, 9:42's b/a 100:215 $0.7330/$0.76 (unchanged 9:53), 9:54's 300 $0.7330, 9:58's b/a 100:213 $0.7330/$0.76, 9:58's 2.1K $0.76 (1.9K)/$0.7331/0, 10:00's b/a 5.2K:93 $0.74/6 (offers backed by presented 500 $0.77), 10:02's b/a 6.2K:93 $0.74/6 (offers backed by presented 500 $0.77), and the period ended on 10:03's 100 $0.77.
10:04-10:42, during the initial three no-trades minutes had b/a at 10:05 of 6.1K:393 $0.76. Trade began extremely low/no-volume $0.74/6 on 10:07's 500 $0.75. Volume was interrupted by 10:16's 21.2K $0.74 (20.9K incl 20K blk)/$0.7589/$0.76. B/a at 10:17 was 5.3K:393 $0.74/6, 10:25 5.4K:393 $0.74/6, 10:32 5.4K:293 $0.74/6. The period ended on 10:42's 11.7K $0.76 (100)/4 (incl 10K blk).
10:43-10:47, after one no-trades minute, did a high/medium-volume decline with b/a at 10:44 of 5.8K:1.2K $0.74/6. 10:44 did 13.3K $0.74, 10:45 did 5.1K $0.7395/$0.74, 10:46 did 5.4K $0.7304/05/09/05/01, and the period ended on 10:47's 2K $0.7398/01/00.
10:48-11:31, after two no-trades minutes having 10:49's b/a of 100:1.1K $0.7302/97 (bids backed by presented 200 $0.7301 & 29.5K $0.73), began extremely low/no-volume $0.7318/87, with quickly rising lows and slowly falling highs, after 10:50's 12.1K $0.7300/5, 10:51's 12.1K $0.7300/4 and 10:53's 10.6K $0.7387/00 (incl 10K blk). B/a at 11:05 was 3.9K:1.9K $0.7310/82 (offers rattling 01/02), 11:17 3.8K:1.9K $0.7310/68. By 11:19 range was $0.7329/32. The period ended on 11:31's 200 $0.7331/2.
11:32-12:35, after five no-trades minutes with b/a at 11:32 of 200:700 $0.7329/89 (offers rattling 89/90) and 11:35 at 300:1.2K $0.7345/84, began extremely low/no-volume $0.7345/67 (lots of 100-share minutes pecking the bid 11:40-12:11 and 12:17-12:35) on 11:37's 100 $0.7367. B/a at 11:44 was 1.3K:400 $0.7345/58 (offers falling quickly), 12:02 1.3K:552 $0.7345/6, 1.3K:752 $0.7345/6, 12:32 1.3K:452 $0.7345/6. The period ended on 12:35's 100 $0.1235.
12:36-12:58, after one no-trades minutes, began extremely low/no-volume $0.7390/3 on 12:37's 1.9K $0.7345/70 (??:??). B/a at 12:43 was 200:1.4K $0.7390/3. The period ended on 12:58's 100 $0.7390.
12:59-13:57, after one no-trades minute, began an extremely low/no-volume decline on 13:00's 1.7K $0.7390/89/45. B/a at 13:03 was 100:1.2K $0.7345/77 (the 24K $0.7300 presented is still there), 13:17 100:23 $0.7345/6. 13:18's 800 hit $0.7345/10 and extremely low/no-volume $0.7310/45, with falling highs, began. B/a at 13:22 was 3K:500 $0.7310/32 (the 24K $0.7300 presented is still there), 13:32 3K:600 $0.7310/12 (the 24K $0.7300 presented is still there), 13:49 300:600 $0.7312/6. The period ended when 13:57's 100 $0.7310.
13:58-14:10, after one no-trades minute, took out everything through the the 24K $0.73 bids and more on 13:59's 40K $0.7310/01/00 (incl 10K blk)/$0.7295/93/$0.73. That was followed by a rising volume continuation lower. B/a at 14:03 was 5.2K:1.7K $0.7210/85. The period ended when 14:10's 32.2K did $0.7210/05/00 (incl 11.6K & 10K blks)/$0.7100/1.
14:11-15:14, after one no-trades minute, began extremely low/no-volume $0.7101/$0.7235, with rapidly falling highs, on 14:12's 100 $0.7101. B/a at 14:13 was 2.1K:600 $0.7101/$0.7235. By 14:28 range was $0.7101/77. B/a at 14:32 was 300:2.3K $0.7101/99. Volume was interrupted by 14:34's 8.1K $0.7101/50. At 14:37 range began a slow rise and at 14:39 it was $0.7110/98. B/a at 14:41 was 1.7K:1.9K $0.7110/98. Volume was interrupted by 14:53's 14K $0.7154/98. B/a at 14:57 was 1.2K:2.9K $0.7110/97. By 14:57 range was $0.7130/98. B/a at 15:02 was 300:2.4K $0.7130/96. The period ended on 15:14's 2.6K $0.7134/99.
15:15-16:00 during the first three no-trades minutes had b/a at 15:15 of 1.3K:3,3K $0.7200/97. Trade began extremely low/no-volume $0.7200/75 (most 100-share $0.7200 bid pecking through 15:46) on 15:18's 100 $0.7285. B/a at 15:26 was 6.2K:2.7K $0.7200/97, 15:31 5K:2.8K $0.7200/96, 15:41 6.4K:2.8K $0.7200/96, 15:47 6.8K:2.3K $0.7200/96, 15:51 4.6K:5.4K $0.7200/1, 15:53 11.4K:5K $0.7200/1. The day and period ended on 15:59's 500 $0.72 because the only 16:00 trade was a 1-share odd-lot sell for $0.7201, making 15:59's last $0.72 x 100 as the official close.
There were no AH trades.
Excluding the opening and closing trades (didn't qualify), there were 16 larger trades (>=5a, 1 4K+, 1 3.9K+) totaling 153,599, 55.36% of day's volume, with a $0.7295 VWAP. For the volume, the count seems reasonable but the percentage of day's trade volume is high. The VWAP is the same as the day's $0.7295. This is unusual but does show the impact of the combination of that high a percentage of day's volume with MM control of the market. I'm guessing that the number of "larger larger trades", 10 depending on where you make the cut-off, suggests there may have been a lot of inter/intra-broker trade volume today. If that's the case, the daily short volume would be low. OTOH, if this was MMs servicing "good customers" (maybe shorters doing covering buys?) by accumulating at low price and then selling to the shorters for their covering buys, the short percentage might be more normal. I won't know until tomorrow morning.
N.B.Yep! The short percentage came in just below the bottom of my desired range. BTW, check the short percentages since 2/27 and what happened to VWAP in the span. Looks like shorters were seeing the range at $0.73+ as attractive shorting prices or were making sure price didn't run away from them as they also did covering buys. Shorting just a little on lower-volume days would easily move price to lower prices where the MMs could accumulate covering shares for the shorters and them deliver them. This might explain those sudden volume spikes seen off and on during intra-day trading.
Well, it was a real struggle but it looks like buy percentage is starting to move towards more normal ranges. Another day or two ought to get it there. Note that regardless of improvement in buy percentage - spotty of course - the VWAP trended predominantly lower all day, suggesting there was heavy selling even when buy percentage looked like it was trying to move up. That likely heavy selling stopped the VWAP and buy percentage from making any real progress.Ending Period Period Period __Per. Trade_ Period_ % Day_ Per. End
Period Volume Low High _Dollar Val._ VWAP___ Volume Buy ~%
10:03 4017 $0.7330 $0.7700 $3,024.29 $0.7529 1.45% 51.43%
10:42 38745 $0.7400 $0.7600 $28,691.43 $0.7405 13.96% 7.15% Incl 10:16 $0.7400 20,000 10:42 10,000
10:47 25574 $0.7300 $0.7400 $18,865.56 $0.7377 9.22% 5.92% Incl 10:44 $0.7400 10,000 10:45 4,000
11:31 52186 $0.7300 $0.7387 $38,182.54 $0.7317 18.81% 15.00% Incl 10:50 $0.7300 10,000 10:51 8,900
10:53 $0.7300 10,000 11:02 $0.7384 5,000
12:35 5281 $0.7345 $0.7367 $3,879.24 $0.7346 1.90% 15.43%
12:58 2624 $0.7345 $0.7393 $1,931.54 $0.7361 0.95% 16.68%
13:57 10775 $0.7310 $0.7390 $7,910.71 $0.7342 3.88% 17.23%
14:10 88512 $0.7100 $0.7310 $64,162.37 $0.7249 31.90% 22.21% Incl 13:59 $0.7300 3,970 10,000 9,335
14:06 $0.7210 10,000 14:10 $0.7200 11,619
14:10 $0.7200 10,000
15:14 35705 $0.7101 $0.7235 $25,620.05 $0.7175 12.87% 27.86% Incl 14:34 $0.7150 7,000 14:53 $0.7198 13,775
16:00 12716 $0.7200 $0.7285 $9,160.57 $0.7204 4.58% 27.77%
On the traditional TA front, movements were:
Yesterday I said { Believe it or not, there's a positive buried in here! The continuing decline of the volume as the VWAP falls and these metrics weakens tells us there's no strength (yet?) in the move lower. } Today's movements may be indicating the end of trend ... or not.__Open_ ___Low_ __High_ _Close_ Volume_
Today -1.32% -2.74% 0.00% -5.26% 215.09%
Prior -5.00% -0.01% -3.51% 0.00% -42.85%
Not only is volume movement today quite large, but the absolute volume is the highest since 2/21's 481,365. That begs the question, answered tomorrow I think, of is this the end of the trend lower, often accompanied by a big volume spike, or is it indicating more strength in the move lower, suggested by rising volume that's not large enough to indicate capitulation. With the 10-day average through yesterday being about 182K, today's ~277.5K could be large enough to indicate the end of the trend, but it's a bit marginal IMO. Add in that the 2/21 volume spike was followed by a falling trend in the VWAP (see table below).
On my minimal chart we have a bit of (temporary?) good news - the rising medium-term support (rising orange line) held as we penetrated below intra-day but came back and closed right on the line. Recall this is the line about which in the recent past I had said demonstrated fairly strong support on multiple challenges and I thought it would keep us from going on to challenge $0.66. It will be important to see it hold again tomorrow. Better would be a price move up and away from it on good, and rising, volume.
Today broke the continued flat low (four days), flat high (2 days), flat close (two days), rising fast EMA (4 days), and converging Bollinger band limits (3 days?) trends. All this was within the consolidation triangle created by the descending resistance (red line) and the rising support, rising orange line.
I think this leads into tomorrows test of yesterday's { ... suggesting consolidation that should end this down leg within a few days. The nature of it's behavior at the ending is anyone's guess. It might break up, go sideways or hit a high-volume flush lower. If the latter behavior is seen I think the move would be small because that rising support has proven reliable thus far, including both very low and low-to-medium volume tests. }
I await, with 'bated breath, the outcome.
The fast EMA (yellow squiggly line) stopped rising and is further below the slow EMA (squiggly blue line).
Our trade range, which for two days almost completely filled the range of the experimental 13-period Bollinger band and then filled only the lower half yesterday, began "pushing" the lower limit today. I had noted { This range compression is typical of consolidation, bottoming, forming a base etc. It's especially common when volume is extremely low as the MMs have to tighten (and usually lower) the range just to get some trades done and make their money. } I think that last item is important. If the MMs let it go too low, volume plummets. Sans volume the MMs can't make money. Since they are generally price agnostic, just doing arbitrage, it's about time for them to be considering moving range back up, especially as today's high volume will likely be followed by lower volume tomorrow, making it easier (and cheaper as few shares will be needed to do the job).
On my one-year chart, yesterday I noted { the long-term descending resistance, which had closes above and on it the last two days, today had price close above it. Yesterday when price closed right on the line I was not willing to call a confirmed breakout. I said with any luck we'll get that tomorrow. Got it. Today we are no longer constrained by that long-term resistance. }
Today it looks like the long-term descending former resistance acted as support.
The 50 and 200-day SMAs continue falling. The 20-day SMA, which had stopped declining and went absolutely flat, declined today. The 10-day continued to decline and the 10-day moved from above the 20-day by 39/100ths of a cent to below by 1/100ths. I noted two days back the 10-day is a bit more likely to quickly get below the 20 if weakness appears. Today, if strength appears we should quickly get the 10-day back above the 20-day SMA. If we hold here we'll get 9 (was 3) days of declining 10-day SMA. The 20-day would have 19 (was 6 day of rise) of decline. If we hold here the 50 will decline 4 days and then rise 1 day and decline again 9 days. The 200-day would fall ~155 (was ~120) days.
Yesterday the oscillators I watch had flat RSI and Williams %R, improvement in accumulation/distribution and full stochastic and deterioration in MFI (untrusted by me), momentum, and ADX-related.
Today had weakening in every oscillator. every one is below neutral. Only Williams %R is in oversold territory.
The experimental 13-period Bollinger limits, $0.7163 and $0.8081 ($0.7253 and $0.8114 yesterday), switched from converging to diverging and the mid-point stopped marginally rising and began sinking as both limits decline.
All in, the only positive is the support on the minimal chart held on rising volume on a down day. Well, there is one more - the buy percentage began improving, as suspected it would after a couple days, and should continue the return to more normal levels.
Percentages for daily short sales and buys moved in opposite directions, not good, but the short percentage went just below the bottom of my desired range (needs re-check), which is good, and the buy percentage began struggling back toward normalcy, which is also good. Neither is enough to say everything will come up roses tomorrow though.
The spread widened again and if tomorrow is not a reversal it suggests we'll drop further. If we do reverse it suggests substantial (subjective, of course) upside is likely. It would need support from subsequent spreads remaining wide.
The VWAP's last twenty-four readings deteriorated from 13 negative and 11 positive to 14 and 10 respectively. Change since 01/31 is -$0.1154, -13.66%, and the averages of the rolling 24-day period seen in the last few days (latest first) are now -0.5663%, -0.1786%, 0.2106%, 0.3104%, 0.2341%, 0.2301%, 0.3382%, 0.4031%, 0.3941%, and 0.2967%. The trend of the rolling average of change to negative continued today.
All in, things are seen as moving in the right direction, other than the spread which is uncertain for now. The short percentage being where it's at while the buy percentage begins to recover seems positive. The VWAP behavior, especially the moving average of change percentages, is negative.
I'm going to hold a "cautiously optimistic" view ATM based on this and the volume being potentially high enough to suggest end of trend.
Bill
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