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Then why didn't the 50 DMA break?
Exactly, because there are buyers. Just like the higher low pattern from May-July, there is accumulation at a major support.
In addition there was over 100 million shares exchanged in mid/late July, most of it buying.
The trend is clearly up and the 3 million end of day was a bidwhack.
Bears attempting to break even on light volume
At the end of the day, the stock closed back above the 50 day moving average and above Friday's close.
This is now the 7th week since the rally to 7 cents and the bears are trying to set the tone early this week by aggressively clearing out all bids north of 4.5 cents and sitting heavy on ask.
Bears have been out of the money and eating margin costs for nearly 2 months, they are going to try keep the stock down here or do their best to back out of the trade one piece at a time.
The big problem for them is that not enough investors are dumping and too many investors keep buying. That makes shakeouts/short covering very hard.
I'm looking for more of the same kind of action the rest of the week, and possibly even next week as well since many traders will be taking off early for Labor Day weekend.
That's because she hasn't sold.
You do know what a Form 4 is right? Here is a Wikipedia link for you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Form_4
Don't know, but it's about where we finish
$MPIX bears attempt to break daily support
I am in multiple penny stocks right now and it's funny to have the time and sales open especially towards the end of the day. That is where the paint jobs are the most obvious.
$MPIX bears poured the shares on at the end of the day in an attempt to clear out all the bids in the .0039 area and get the stock as far under the .004/20 DMA support level as possible. Their hopes are to discourage other bulls from coming in with bid support, and obviously to make a down day on the closing print.
They have no other choice because the stock was threatening to rally today with a move above the 20 DMA. What I find with penny stock bears is that they love to pour on the shares at major support levels, which is something they usually accomplish via naked shorting.
The problem is that when they fail, it leads to a massive short squeeze rally as seen in the historic levels of volume in mid to late July when there were 4 days with 25 million shares traded a day!
This is a shakeout folks, plain and simple. Unfortunately for the bears, we are on to their tricks and buying all their air shares at a major support level.
Because of today's action, and outright desperation to break support, I am upgrading my initial price target from 1 cent to 1.5 cents. Short squeezes are a real byotch.
Nice. It's good to be a trader.
Yup. Price action speaks louder than words.
$MPIX hourly chart bullish that's what matters
Take a look at the hourly chart below. As you can see, the 200 hour moving average has been a spectacular area of support ever since the rally in mid July.
Look at the price trade into the 200, which also coincides with the .004 daily support and the 50 DMA. Now the price is moving back above the 50 hour moving average and setting up a move to take out .0075.
This is what trading is all about folks. It's good to be a trader.
Just got some more $MPIX as well this morning. Spread widen and ask thinning. Could be a trap for another round of shakeouts but shakeouts precede rallies.
Belize skipping Superbond interest payment
They made the announcement last week, but tomorrow is D-day. I think they actually might have another 30 days grace period in which I would expect that the bond holders will be forced to come to the table. Other than a serious scolding I really don't see what leverage the bondholders have. Sure, the 45% haircut is a lowball, but perhaps we will see them meet somewhere in the middle.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/aftermath-greek-blue-light-precedent-belize-demands-half-its-debt-or-else
Until this issue is put to bed and the dust has settled, I don't expect to see anything but heavily parsed and circumspect language regarding Treaty's production in Belize. Even afterwards, I would expect the politburo to keep Treaty on a tight leash.
$HUSA basing for move above 50 DMA
With a recent low put in, a recapture of the 20 DMA, and multiple hits of the 50 DMA it looks like HUSA could be putting in a move higher.
This stock has been beaten down all year but is currently trading at 2005 lows. Support on a pullback would be at a dollar, 20 DMA, and ultimately at 80 cents.
I agree position sizing is important, especially here in penny land. However, averaging down on a 25% move against me still presupposes that the support level will hold. The risk/reward for me, with an entry right above a penny, that the 50 DMA will hold and not move lower to .005 was not sufficient. If I had entry at .005, I would probably not care and in fact would be salivating for an opportunity to add to my position.
However, my initial trade thesis was for a breakout. I modified that thesis once already, giving leeway for the stock to springboard off of both the 50 DMA and the trendline, which it still may do, but it is better to play it safe given my entry.
Weekly chart bull flag still consolidating
I agree that there is a weekly chart bull flag. But playing off of a weekly chart leaves room for significant downside volatility intraweek. It's fine to play a weekly chart bull flag if you entered at the lows or upon at least a 50% retrace but my entry was right over a penny off of a daily chart bull flag. If there is intraweek volatility to the downside I could easily be down over 50% on my position and forced to exit.
If good news comes out, that is fine, I can play the breakout pattern that I was originally looking for with a daily close above 1.3 cents. The 8.15 PR says that they should complete the initial rounds of tests this week, then there is the clean up, and then look forward to significant production September/October. I am guessing that the market would like to see what the tests reveal, hopefully it's good.
Remember, the stock just put in a low in mid July and there is often a lot of whippiness after pivot lows and I'd rather use it as an opportunity to buy cheaper than take a big loss.
If I was faked out then I would have sold on Monday and never posted the trendline work. I held all week and there was no material bounce. I cut my losses and will watch for a pullback or a breakout. Some people like to average down, that's not how I roll.
Exited $WGAS watching for pullback or breakout
Well folks, I exited my $WGAS position today for about a 25% loss. I really wanted to see a close back above the 20 DMA or at least above the trendline, but it became obvious that was not going to happen. The price threatened the 50 DMA multiple times today and was only saved by 700 shares of ask slapping going into the close.
The chart is now neutral but if it continues to trade down here just above the 50 DMA it will start to turn bearish. Since my position entry was at 1.1 cents, I can not risk a gap down which would put me at risk of a large 50% loss.
I will watch for either a pull back to .006, or a breakout signal with a close back above the highs. Good luck with your trade everyone, and I'll be back in most likely soon one way or another.
$TECO Weekly bullish pattern continues to hold
I guess that some folks have already forgotten that management has given us 13 press releases since July 2nd, gave us the 10K and 1st quarter Q when they finally figured out the release time, gave us weekly updates through Facebook with videos of the wells, have given us 2 updates this week on SJ #1, posted the receipt of the recent oil sales from Shelby, gave us the latest Q right on schedule, gave us a Q&A session , and have Mr. Mulshine available throughout the week.
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/h?s=TECO&t=2012-08-15T06:00:00-04:00
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Treaty-Energy-Corporation/138620389562521
I monitor a half dozen penny stock E&P plays, one of which I just stopped out of today, and a dozen small/midcap E&P plays. None of the other penny E&P companies give this much detail, and hardly any of the other penny stock E&P companies are even producing!
If you think that the NYSE/NASDAQ E&P small caps (under 300 mm market cap) are knocking the cover off the ball right now, think again.
Here’s a link to a quick filter, I highly suggest to anyone who hasn’t already, to start studying other E&P plays to get a perspective on things. All but one of those stocks has a negative year to date return, all but one of those stocks has a negative return since June, and all but one of them is trading below their 200 day moving average.
http://finviz.com/screener.ashx?v=141&f=cap_microunder,ind_oilgasdrillingexploration&o=-high52w
So, before making the comment about the company being behind, the stock under performing, or whatever emotionally driven gripe, it would be best to compare TECO to other penny stock and small cap E&P's.
In the weekly chart below you can see that $TECO is still trading in the upper half of the July rally, and closed right between the 50 week and 20 week moving average. We know from earlier today that there was a bidwhack down to .041 cents on light volume at the open, so the tail on the candle can be ignored. Volume was absolutely laughable. I thought we would see at least 1.5 million shares today, it was less than 500k. The entire week’s volume was 6.2 million shares!!! This means that there is no conviction behind the selling and more to the point, it means that the bears have been unable to cover.
The trend is your friend, and with Shelby, Belize, Woodridge, and whatever is going on behind the scenes, the bears can only delay and pray.
$MPIX bounces off of 50 DMA/.004 support
As mentioned repeatedly, technical analysis is what matters, not spiteful remarks from non traders.
As I kept saying, 50 DMA and .004 is a very good level of support and the volume that occurred to the downside post the July and early August rally has been minuscule. Did you see any high volume selling today? No.
The stock is setting up for a move that should take it to the high at .0076, a penny, 1.5 cents, then ultimately to 2 cents.
The trend is up, and as the saying goes, the trend is your friend. It's good to be a trader.
Light volume price manipulation again jockeying for 4.5 cents
Once again the bears flagrantly manipulate price with a small sell order that somehow snuck below the numerous bids in the mid 4's. This is yet another sign of desperation of the bears. Their objective as mentioned yesterday is to get the price down as close to .045 as possible so that they do not go into the end of the week out of the money on their shorts accumulated between April and May. This would mark the 6th week that they close out of the money on those shorts averaged around 4.5 cents, and there is no doubt in my mind that they are getting chewed out by the margin desks threatening to close their positions.
They are showing their hand right now with VNDM sitting on .047, the lowest ask, that they want to stuff price low down here and maybe get a chance to cover and a slight loss with some weak hands letting go. With all the griping I am seeing on the board, it looks like the strategy is working to some extent, but it is highly unlikely they get sufficient selling volume to allow them to back out for break even, let alone any material profit that would cover the margin costs incurred in the last month and a half.
My base case expectation for today is that the bears try stuff price where it is, and that there should be the usual end of day bidwhacking for good measure.
With barely a quarter million in volume by lunch time, I would expect that we close the day with maybe 1.5 million traded.
Yup. They are probably going to bidwhack down to .0026 now that I called them out to try trigger some stops.
Exactly, when was the last time you saw VNDM on MPIX?
It just got real VNDM on ask .0041
As mentioned in yesterday's post, there are some pros working this stock up and down like a yo yo. They just worked it down a bit in order to scare retail that bought the highs into dumping into their hands at the lows.
This is further supported with today's appearance of VNDM on ask at .0041. I have played against these guys so many times here in penny land that I know that when they show up to sit the ask, they are here to collect shares from weak hands ahead of a move.
Whomever executes through them uses VNDM to stuff the ask and then uses other accounts to sit on bid and I am guess ing that they are down at NITE concealing shares at .004 and ATDF in hopes that they can touch off a sell off.
What is most likely to happen is they will collect all they can at .004 ahead of whatever catalyst that they know about that I sure as hell don't know about, then uncork the lid for the next run.
Bottom line, when VNDM shows up it is short term bad but long term good.
stopped out again, next stop 4 bucks!
Nice try. A close below trendline without confirmation, in other words a series of lows below the low of the piercing candle, does not negate trend. If you remember the lesson from earlier this year when the .002 level was pierced on the weekly chart, we never saw a series of lower closes. That is when I loaded back up and we rallied.
With respect to the derivative technicals, I don't believe in them until there is material divergence between price and let's say Accumulation. Otherwise, they don't help me.
Once again the recent volume does not even measure up to half the July buying volume for the initial rally, so there's no mustard on this selling sandwich.
$WGAS Trendline continues to hold
Price traded below the trendline and 50 DMA intraday, and even up to 1 penny at one point, but finished marginally down and virtually unchanged. This is almost a doji candle which when appearing in proximity to a trendline can signal a reversal.
The Doji candle from 7/26 preceded the move from .006 to the double top high at 1.3 cents.
Lower support/50 DMA tagged on light volume
The first half of the day really had no action. The bears took this as a sign to cause mischief and proceeded to get aggressive in the 2nd half of the day with a little more bid whacking ending the day with 1.6 million shares exchanged.
Their objective is to get the stock down as close as possible to break even at 4.5 cents by Friday in order to avoid getting the nasty call from the margin desk because they are about to be 6 weeks out of the money on shorts accumulated between April and June of this year.
With light bid volume, except where they are sitting at 4.5 cents, they cleared out the bids and whacked into 4.5 cents to cause a lower print. Essentially the bears are trading shares back and forth amongst each other at that price to scare retail. That is why if you were on bid today at 4.5 cents that you are not getting filled. It’s a game of keep away from the retail investor and unless you trade through or work for VNDM, NITE, CSTI, MAXM, etc, you are retail!
These are all the tactics that the bears have left as there are multiple guns pointed at their head in the form of Shelby, Woodridge, Belize, and whatever management has up their sleeve.
What people need to remember is that this is all a game of odds and not guarantees. If you study the odds by looking at what other successful small/midcap oil companies had to go through before eventually succeeding, you will understand that the odds for success are now stacked in our favor.
50 DMA/.004 support holds
There are some serious pros gaming this stock right now and I commend them in their efforts. Once again on light volume the pro traders kept the stock suppressed and got the weak hands to let go into the 3's and 4's, but ultimately left 50 DMA and .004 support level in tact at the end of the day. If you are watching the L2's you know that bid volume has been extremely thick in the mid 3's and higher.
This shakeout tactic is Trading 101 and it usually precedes a big move to the upside. Most of you here know that all I talk about are technicals, but I do pay attention somewhat to the PR stuff as it can be a major catalyst at times.
If you look at the pattern in PR releases by MPIX, you will notice that they tend to occur in the second half of the month, and usually on the 18th. Today is the 16th, tomorrow is the 17th, so if they are going to hit us with some news it would make sense if it comes out tomorrow, early next week, but definitely by month's end.
I'm not a news release trader, but I do watch pattern and this is one pattern I have noticed on this stock.
Once again, technicals prevail. It's good to be a trader!!!
10,000 bucks in volume through lunch time
I have more at risk on a big board swing trade at this very moment than what has traded today on $TECO so far today. It's no surprise that we are seeing some light volume bidwhacks. Time to hit the gym and go for a long lunch.
It means if you bought the 7's that you're likely going to let go in the 3's or 4's while more experienced traders will be buying the 3's and 4's for the ride back up.
If GRPN can hold 5 bucks I think we see some short covering similar to the May fall to 10 bucks. It took a few days for it to play out but there was a 2 day short squeeze all the way to 15 bucks when it happened. If I get in the money by a decent amount today/tomorrow I'll probably take half off and let the rest run with a trailing stop.
It's 11:00 and only 1.4 million traded. Like I said yesterday, expect more shake outs. The volume is very light so it's easier to shake the tree.
Back in GRPN at 5.05 with tight stop at 4.95
Yes .004 support which is also 50 DMA
$WGAS Trendline support continues to hold like a champ
In yesterday's report I openly talked about my exit strategy just in case the trendline failed. Although there was quite a bit of ask sitting and bid whacking to print the price down today the support line continues to hold.
Today's close was not only above the trendline, but back above the 50 DMA. This is a good sign and what we are looking for next is move back above the 20 DMA and more importantly a penny.
What I notice time and time and again is that such manipulative shakeout behavior in a stock generally precedes a good move. Once again I wish I saw this trendline last Thursday before jumping in as I could have bought many more shares at a cheaper level.
Nonetheless, the trend remains up and as the saying goes the trend is your friend.
50 DMA and trendline support hold despite shakeout
Upon the open I saw a print at .076 cents which surprised me because of the fact that there were multiple orders on ask in the 5's. It lingered there for 90 minutes but was eventually negated by an ask slap in the mid 5's.
Why did a 30,000 share order get filled at .076, above multiple sell orders in the 5's? The simple answer is that it's just another shakeout tactic. The tactic of the bears is to create as much price volatility as possible in order to whip out weak hands.
Anyone who trades options is aware that during option expiration week, the middle of the week is notoriously volatile in order to screw the average retail investor and make their options expire worthless.
If you take a look at the intraday trading, which had medium levels of volume today at 4.9 million shares, as compared to yesterday which had barely 1 million, you will see that the bids were cleared out all the way to .004.
When price got down to .004 they triggered the stops of the people who bought the .007 area as those folks were down nearly 50% on their position. Think about it, the average retail investor who doesn't understand technical analysis sees $MPIX trading at .0076 cents until about lunch time, after being down on a .007 entry for about a week. Then in the afternoon they are back down nearly 50% again.
Frustrated by the volatility and no doubt the discouraging words of some posters, they dump into the eager hands waiting on bid at .004. Gee, where did I keep telling everyone good support for this stock was?
Gentlemen, this is trading. I see this on numerous stocks over and over again. The markets play on fear and greed. They bought the highs at .007ish, then sold the lows at .004. Expect to see more shakeouts before we head higher, it's the nature of the game and I love this game. It's good to be a trader.
Sub million share snooze fest, end of day bid whacking
I had one day trade today on the big boards for a nice gainer but that was it for me. Even after a hitting the gym over my lunch period I still ended up dozing off a few times in the last hour of trading today. Today’s volume on $TECO was just lackluster less than 550,000 shares traded the whole day, as compared to yesterday's 1.9 million share uptick. Never one to miss an opportunity, the bears stepped up for the late afternoon bidwhack and one thing I haven’t seen recently was VNDM taking the role of lead ask sitter.
Some time in the last half hour of trading they moved from their perch at 6.2 cents ask down to .0485 to control the action, which is where they stayed through the end of the day. For those not familiar, VNDM, also known as Vandham Securities, is a market maker that serves hedge funds and institutional traders, and they love to short TECO.
Let’s put things in perspective: The Q’s came out right on time and were pretty much in line with expectations, Shelby is pumping oil with another group of wells to come online in the near future, SJ well #2 is good to go as we wait for the official GOB blessing, SJ well #1 was spud in this week, and lots of work going on behind the scene. This stacks the odds heavily in favor of getting to 1,000 bpd well before the end of the year.
In the mean time the bears are struggling to move the stock to break even on the shorts they accumulated in the 4.5 cent area between April and June of this year, and it is no coincidence that there has been an uptick this week in leading questions and misinformation from the peanut gallery.
The 200 day moving average has been rock solid since the rally through in in July. Look at that tight range in the chart below, don’t think for a moment that this is a fact lost on the bears. They know what a bullish consolidation pattern looks like. They know what a major support level looks like. They know that margin costs have been eating away at their capital account for the past 6 weeks. Most of all, they know that among the current projects in Belize, Shelby, Woodridge, and perhaps another surprise project that could be announced, all it takes is one more producer with a couple of hundred barrels and the bears are toast.
This is like having 3 guns pointed at their head with a possible 4th gun that they don’t know about it, and it only takes 1 bullet to put the bears down.
yup, shake it out before the big move. Volume is light again, too.
Bears stacking nickel ask in fear of breakouts
With less than 200,000 shares traded before 11:30 this is looking to be yet another light volume day. We got a nice summary of the Q and recent operational developments this morning which have the bears very worried.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/treaty-energy-corporation-reports-results-100000290.html
Today they are just stacking the ask all the way up to a nickel to discourage any kind of movement. I doubt that they want to get very aggressive on the bid whacking side because all we will do is slap it right back up and that will just give them more shares to be negative on. A more productive strategy for the bears at this point is just to look very menacing on ask and discourage any upward momentum, which could threaten a breakout, and spark off a rally. It is a valid strategy in this light volume time.
But let's call the bear strategy out for what it is: Delay and pray.
All they can hope for is that by holding price stagnant that weak handed bulls get impatient and let go, or that some great tragedy should befall TECO.
Those are terrible odds. Shelby has material levels of oil flowing at this very moment with more wells on the way. Belize has 1 well completed with another started this week. I am sure that behind the scenes things are going on in West Texas.
The bears are now out of the money from their 4.5 cent shorts now for 6 consecutive weeks. The margin costs have to be draining their capital account with each passing day but all they can do is delay and pray.
Well if I thought there would be a pullback I would have just waited for it, but my call was for a breakout.
Trend is still holding. My only regret is not being more patient for the pullback.
Half penny would be the next good support area. Since I bought the penny area I would not want to be one of the guys who is sitting on a 50% loss looking to average down, then possibly having to wait weeks if not months for a rally to kick back into gear if it does occur. I would rather move out, let the dust settle, and move back in. We're not at that point right now and the pattern is still showing bullish formation but rule number one for trading is don't lose money.