Wednesday, May 25, 2016 11:14:13 AM
Another day of strong price rise early on, some weakening and recovery and confirming a breakout ... I think momo and/or day traders are the cause. That makes it iffy when trying to guess the short-term behavior.
I go neutral for right now.
There were no pre-market trades.
09:30-10:01 opened the day on a 2,522 buy for $1.57 and 11.5K moved traded as low as $1.53 and as high as $1.58 and immediately began a medium/high-volume rise hitting 9:31's ~27.6K $1.54/9, 9:32's 2K $1.55/8, 9:33's ~20.3K $1.57/9, 9:34's ~9.3K $1.57/9, 9:35's ~11K $1.58/9, 9:36's ~15.7K $1.59/$1.60, and 9:37's ~43.8K $1.60/2 ended the rise. A move lower began on 9:38's ~18.7K $1.60/2, 9:39's ~37.3K $1.61->$1.61->$1.59, 9:40's ~11K $1.59->$1.57, 9:41's ~12.2K $1.58->$1.57, and 9:42's 17.5K $1.57 ended the drop. Another rise occurred doing 9:43's ~23.2K $1.57-$1.60->$1.59, 9:44-:46's ~63.8K $1.58/60 sideways, 9:47-:48's ~19K $1.58->$1.61, 9:49-:53's ~34.5K $1.61->$1.60->$1.58->$1.59, and 9:54-10:01's ~198.8K $1.59/60->$1.60/1->$1.65 ended the period.
10:02-10:49 began a series of low/medium-volume, tapering to very low/no-volume, swings up and down on 10:02-:12's $1.62/3->$1.60/2, did 10:13-:27's ~59.6K $1.60->$1.60/2->$1.62/4->$1.63/4 $1.64/5, 10:28-:42's ~53.4K $1.64/5->$1.61/2, and 10:43-:49's ~13.2K $1.62->$1.63/4 ended the period.
10:50-11:49 began a mostly low-volume $1.62/4 on 10:50's 6.3K $1.63 and ended the period on 11:49's 300 $1.62.
11:50-12:05, after five no-trades minutes, began a rise on 11:55's ~5.1K $1.61/2, hit 11:59's 300 $1.65/6, and went sideways there to end on 12:05's ~1.3K $1.65/6.
12:06-12:36 began a mostly low/medium-volume, but low/no-volume 12:19 onward, $1.64/5 on 12:06's ~26.2K $1.64/5 and 12:36's 100 $1.64 ended the period. The low volume was interrupted by 12:27's ~16.6K $1.64/5.
12:37-13:03, after five no-trades minutes, began a rise on 12:42's 31.9K $1.64/5 and 12:43's 21.6K $1.64->$1.66 followed by medium->low/medium-volume $1.65/6 and 13:03's ~17.4K $1.65/6 ended the period.
13:04-13:16, after three no-trades minutes, made a quick drop on 13:07-:12's ~49.7K $1.64->$1.65->$1.62/4->$1.61/2 and did a short sideways to 13:16's 25K $1.61, which ended the period.
13:17-15:27 did a short quick move up on 13:17-:24's ~24.8K $1.62->$1.63->$1.65->$1.64, did very low/no-volume 13:25-:39's $1.62/4, dropped on 13:40-13:46's ~41.9K $1.62/3->$1.60/1, did 13:47-14:01's very low/no-volume $1.61/2, did 14:01-15:27's very low/no-volume $1.62/3 (mostly $1.62 and interrupted by 15:03-06's ~1.2K $1.64 and 15:09's ~1K $1.64->$1.62), and 15:27's 900 $1.62 ended the period.
15:28-19:55 began low/no-volume $1.61/2 on 15:28's 1.5K $1.61 ...
There were two AH trades, a 2K buy for $1.65 and a 1K unknown for $1.65 at 19:45 and 19:55 respectively.
Excluding the opening and closing trades (didn't qualify), there were 70 larger trades (>=5a & 21 4K+K) totaling 527,602, 35.59% of day's volume, with a $1.6196 VWAP. These are quite large numbers, even considering volume, and I believe are due to momo traders piling in. This, I think, is supported by the intra-day buy percentage, which was quite strong through 13:45.
On the traditional TA front, movements were:Ending Period Period Period __Per. Trade_ Period_ % Day_ Per. End
Period Volume Low High _Dollar Val._ VWAP___ Volume Buy ~%
10:01 582005 $1.5300 $1.6500 $931,288.98 $1.6001 39.26% 55.90% Incl 09:30 $1.5306 5,000 09:31 $1.5478 5,000
09:31 $1.5499 4,700 09:32 $1.5498 4,700
09:33 $1.5897 5,000 $1.5725 5,000 $1.5722
09:33 $1.5722 5,000
09:37 $1.6200 4,350 $1.6004 4,600
09:39 $1.6199 6,200 $1.6000 5,000
09:39 $1.6100 4,300 09:42 $1.5680 4,573
09:42 $1.5700 4,573 $1.5699 4,000
09:44 $1.6000 4,300 $1.5970 4,402
09:47 $1.5999 4,700 09:52 $1.6001 5,000
09:53 $1.5800 7,624 09:54 $1.5988 4,000
09:55 $1.6100 9,000 20,069 09:58 12,300
10:00 $1.6000 4,500 10:01 $1.6200 13,130
10:01 $1.6399 6,600 38,800
10:49 205726 $1.6000 $1.6527 $335,625.34 $1.6314 13.88% 54.59% Incl 10:08 $1.6260 6,000 10:09 $1.6400 10,000
10:12 $1.6000 7,600 10:14 $1.6128 7,000
10:41 $1.6200 10,000
11:49 100001 $1.6200 $1.6400 $163,370.97 $1.6337 6.75% 52.72% Incl 10:50 $1.6350 6,300 10:51 $1.6364 5,000
11:02 $1.6301 5,000 11:43 $1.6300 8,540
12:05 44643 $1.6100 $1.6600 $73,366.96 $1.6434 3.01% 52.02% Incl 11:58 $1.6530 5,000
12:36 101159 $1.6400 $1.6500 $166,635.16 $1.6473 6.82% 53.31% Incl 12:06 $1.6500 6,156 13,069 12:11
12:06 $1.6499 8,000 12:29 $1.6499 5,000
13:03 152832 $1.6450 $1.6600 $252,646.64 $1.6531 10.31% 53.65% Incl 12:42 $1.6500 18,986 12:43 $1.6600 4,000
12:54 $1.6501 6,900 13:02 $1.6600 5,000
13:02 $1.6500 5,000 15,200
13:03 $1.6568 7,100 $1.6501 5,000
13:16 76221 $1.6100 $1.6500 $123,589.20 $1.6215 5.14% 51.23% Incl 13:11 $1.6400 13,431 13:12 $1.6100 4,000
13:12 $1.6101 4,000 $1.6102 6,400
13:16 $1.6100 25,000
15:27 176414 $1.6000 $1.6500 $285,650.10 $1.6192 11.90% 47.94% Incl 13:19 $1.6200 5,000 13:24 $1.6500 8,810
13:42 $1.6210 5,000 13:45 $1.6000 10,988
13:46 $1.6001 12,000 13:48 $1.6100 5,000
14:49 $1.6200 8,000 14:56 $1.6200 9,200
15:20 $1.6200 4,700 $1.6201 4,700
15:24 $1.6200 4,200 $1.6200 4,500
19:55 38227 $1.6100 $1.6500 $61,787.15 $1.6163 2.58% 47.42% Incl 15:49 $1.6137 4,400 15:53 $1.6169 5,000
15:55 $1.6116 7,001
On my minimal chart the breakout above the $1.53 resistance was confirmed by a close above. The low was right on $1.53. This occurred on the second day of very strong rising volume, suggesting more room to run higher. The next resistance is $1.69/$1.70.__Open_ ___Low_ __High_ _Close_ Volume_
Today 5.37% 4.44% 7.10% 4.52% 161.43%
Prior -0.70% 1.46% 4.90% 2.11% 70.31%
My concern is we've seen this play before. A rising volume and price for a few days on no discernible catalyst, followed before by a severe re-trace. At those times my best judgement was we had momo and day traders piling in. These last two days look the same to me. This seems supported by a strongly uni-directional rise intra-day and unusually strong buy percentages for most of the day but ending in our "normal" range below 50%.
On my one-year chart I'll ignore the SMAs for now as if I'm correct about momo and day traders they are now meaningless for long-term investing decisions.
We continue trading above the long-term support/resistance.
The oscillators I watch all improved substantially today. All are now above neutral, except accumulation/distribution, and MFI (untrusted by me), full stochastic and Williams %R are overbought.
The 13-period Bollinger limits, $1.3227 and $1.5896 ($1.3492 and $1.5385 yesterday) continue diverging, indicating greater volatility, and moving the mid-point up a bit. With price range well above mid-point the trend over time should be for range to move down to it, if history is any indication. With momo and day traders likely present for now, it shouldn't move to far for a day or two anyway.
All in, I again have concerns about the size of the volume rise. Is it indicating end of a move up or indicating growing strength? If my take on momo and day traders is correct it could easily still be suggesting more strength. If they all decide to quickly exit with profits, I'll be flat-out wrong on that. Add in the possibility of an active ATM and/or the financiers dumping and things look less rosy.
I'll go neutral here.
Other than that, confirming a breakout with all the oscillators in agreement would suggest near-term strength remains likely. We know there's another resistance up at $1.69/$1.70 and there seems little reason for the traders to not shoot for it right now.
Percentages for daily short sales and buys moved in the same direction, good, but short percentage is marginally above the top of my desired range (needs re-check) and buy percentage is still below what's needed for sustained appreciation. However, if my thoughts about momo and day traders are correct the short percentage would be expected to be higher. Further, the buy percentage was strong through 13:45. The degradation of that from then on would be normal if momo and/or day traders were taking profits and wouldn't be as strong a negative indicator as it would be during days of normal volume with a much smaller cohort of momo and/or day traders.
The spread widened again and was again produced by a strong rise throughout the day through 11:59 and held up near that level through 13:00 before re-tracing about halfway down through 13:45. So again I don't read the spread as a major negative today.
VWAP movement added another positive to our trend, giving us now eleven negative moves in the last seventeen readings and six positives.
All in, the size of the volume increase is my major concern as I think it suggests momo and/or day traders were in. We know they will exit quickly when the moment and/or price weakens too much. We also have to consider whether the ATM is active and/or the financiers are dumping on us.
Setting that aside, the short and buy percentages being in agreement with a spread produced by positive movements makes me think we might have another day of some strengthening. My reality, awareness that short-term traders likely produced this run, reduces my optimism though. So I think I'll go neutral or slightly negative here.
As always, much is experimental and should be treated as such.
Bill
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