Tuesday, August 16, 2016 9:18:06 AM
Buy:sell, daily shorts & pps 08/15 2016 EOD
Conventional TA has mixed indications with only the oscillators I watch suggesting (again!) there's some near-term bullish movement likely. The rest of it, including volume, trend lines, movements of trading ranges, ... suggest nothing more than consolidation.
My unconventional stuff is worse - continued conflicts between what buy percentage has been saying and what actually happens along with conflicts with what short percentage would suggest means I can't draw any forecasts from that stuff. Only thing I think is still useful is the spread (but only because my TFH says the AH $1.55 trade means something will happen). If I believe my TFH, we move up today above $1.52 and challenge and exceed the $1.54 resistance.
Are you (we?) willing to believe that thesis? I do.
Today was flattish after the open at $1.50 when it immediately went $1.51/2 and stayed there through the close on predominantly very low/no-volume. Unusual recently, we had one AH buy of 500 for $1.55, suggesting tomorrow will push up and my expected re-trace will not appear yet.
I think I should mention that these days of high buy percentages have had a consistent high b/a imbalance with bids somewhat statically outweighing asks by large multiples. I think these bids, which don't get hit often for very long periods of time - lots of fractional trades go around the mid-point though - are "stalking horse bids that are put there to force any buyers to "pay up". This seems somewhat supported in that aperiodically we'll then see a large minute, usually with one or more larger blocks included, go off. This makes me think the MMs are managing price to satisfy a "good customer" at a specific price. This would be opposite to the possibility of MMs being out of position. I don't know if either scenario is correct or both.
Today the b/a spent the vast majority of the day along the lines of 10K-15K bid $1.51 with <1K offered at $1.52. I mean they just sat there for the most part and the trade that mostly hit $1.52 never exhausted the offers. Look at the VWAP below and note just how close to $1.52 it is.
Alternatively, I yesterday wondered of the MMs had gotten on the wrong side of the market. Sitting on the offer and letting folks hit the offer garners them fees from the exchanges for "providing liquidity" and if they were long also get additional profits of the shares they wanted to dump. This would be the opposite "wrong side of the market" I had wondered about yesterday wherein they were to short and had to move price lower or aggressively short to stay near market-neutral. Today's ~11% short combined with the b/a and trade behavior suggests they were long rather than short.
Speculation by me because I can't otherwise figure why I see what I see intra-day and in my unconventional stuff.
Before I forget, a component of our buy percentage could be shorters doing covering buys. If you look at the short interest report I post every two weeks you'll note that nine of the last thirteen reports have had reducing short interest, so they are seriously covering.
I also want to keep in mind my TFH thesis that the warrant holders will be pushing price up. The shorters may believe the same and the covering buys may be "cleaning out the closet" in preparation for shorting again when we get up around the $2.55+ area. Last time we charged up, about 4/8-4/18 and then fell, 4/19-5/9, we saw short interest increases:
There were no pre-market trades.
09:30-11:49 opened the day with a 1,244 sell and two sells of 35 and 37 respectively, all for $1.50, and then did 9:36's 500 $1.51->$1.52, 9:37's 400 $1.5156, 9:39's 400 $1.5137, 9:41's 2K $1.5118, 9:42's 300 $1.5121, and 9:44's b/a of 2.4K:6.6K $1.51/2. B/a at 9:49 was 1.8K:7K $1.51/2. Then came 9:49's 100 $1.52, and trade went very low/no-volume $1.51xx/$1.52. 9:59's b/a was 1.9K:6.4K $1.51/2, 10:19's 2.2K $1.5101/$1.5158 interrupted the volume, b/a at 10:20 was 2.3K:6.7K $1.51/2, and 10:25's was 3.7K:1.1K $1.51/2. 10:25-:26's 14.1K $1.5101->$1.5150->$1.52 interrupted the volume. B/a at 10:33 was 3.1K:700 $1.51/2, 10:58 3.9K:300 $1.51/2, 11:06 2.9K:1.1K $1.51/2, 11:30 4.4K:300 $1.51/2. 11:49's 3.3K $1.5135/$1.52 ended the period.
11:50-12:15 had b/a at 11:51 of 4.3K:800 $1.51/2. After three no-trades minutes, it did a short small drop and 11:54 did 25.4K (incl 18.6K $1.51 blk) $1.52->$1.51, 11:54's 100 $1.5150, 11:59's 4.1K $1.51/$1.5133->$1.51, B/a at 12:00 was 2.4K:2.2K $1.51/2. 12:15's 300 $1.5150 ended the period.
12:16-16:00, after nine no-trades minutes, moved back to very low/no-volume $1.51/2 on 12:25's 435 $1.5150/$1.52. Volume was interrupted by 12:37-:41's 16.6K $1.5150/2. B/a at 12:48 was 12K:300 $1.51/2, 13:09 15.3K:400 $1.51/2, 13:21-:22 interrupted volume with ~32K (incl 25K $1.52 blk) and b/a went 14.5K:800 $1.51/2. B/a at 13:43 was 15K:300 $1.51/2, 14:09 14.1K:200 $1.51/2, 14:43 15K:700 $1.51/2, 15:40 12.6K:200 $1.51/2. The period and day ended on 15:59's ~2.42K $1.51 (202)/$1.52 and 16:00's 257 $1.52.
There was one AH buy of 500 for $1.55.
Excluding the opening and closing trades (didn't qualify), there were 4 larger trades (>=5K & 1 4K+) totaling 54,400, 28.55% of day's volume, with a $1.5165 VWAP. The count of larger trades and percentage of day's volume seem normal for the reduced volume. Half the larger trades count and 80.15% of larger trades volume were due to the two "larger larger trades". Sans the 18.6K & 25K larger trades, the larger trades count would be only 2, the percent of day's adjusted volume would be only 10.21% and the VWAP would be $1.5194.
Without the 18.6K & 25K block trades the day's VWAP would be $1.5172, +0.17%, instead of the $1.5168, +0.14%, seen.
Yesterday I wondered if the MMs might be on the wrong side of the market because they closed us 2 cents below the $1.52 traded during 15:59 and at the low of the day, $1.50. Today's absolutely flat $1.51/2 (if we discount the open of $1.50) low volume, and flat close might have been the MMs getting market neutral but from the long side rather than the short side. This seems supported by the extremely low short percentage seen below. Next lowest recent short percentage was 12.5% on 8/1 and next prior around this range was 12/24/15's 14.2%. Adding in the behavior described above about the "stalking bids" and buy behavior all day (and several prior days) and it seems even more reasonable.
We'll never know though.
On my minimal chart we saw another top at $1.52, a flat $1.50 low, and got a close at the "official" high. All this on lower volume, which would be typical of "short-term consolidation".
The Bollinger band stopped converging and did a very slight divergence with a slightly greater increase in the upper limit over the lower limit rise giving us a slightly higher mid-point.
The AH trade is suspicious and my TFH thinks it bodes a near-term (as in tomorrow) rise. Maybe we finally challenge and break $1.54 resistance. But nothing on this minimal chart suggests that.
Yesterday I said I was expecting a short shallow re-trace. That didn't happen today and I now suspect it wont happen real soon. It's not related to whether or not the longs are exhausted either. It's just the very odd behavior in the b/a, the buy percentage, the flattish price range the very low short percentage (see below) and my TFH thesis.
I also recant yesterday's { ... I suspect I'm overly optimistic to look for an immediate $1.54 challenge based on what's been seen. So short-term consolidation with some near-term weakness seems more likely for a few days. }
What all that means to me is we should soon exit short-term consolidation to the up side.
On my one-year chart the 50-day and 20-day SMA, which is above the 10-day, continued rising and the 10-day fell. The near-term behavior, assuming no change in range, is as before - 10-day falls, 20 and 50-day rise with a small pause for a couple days on the 50 and 20-day after a couple days of rise.
Now I don't expect we'll stay where we are. I think we're going up a bit at least.
The oscillators I watch, which yesterday were mixed with a mild weaker bias, all improved but for ADX-related. Momentum is right at neutral, ADX-related and accumulation/distribution are below, and everything else is above neutral. Full stochastic entered overbought.
The 13-period Bollinger limits, $1.4426 and $1.5635 ($1.4419 and $1.5612 yesterday), weren't flat but were darn close to it. Regardless, a mild rise with a rising mid-point is good and we're trading right around the mid-point.
All in, the oscillator switch from mixed slightly negative to less mixed more bullish portends a positive change (at last!) coming near-term.
WAIT! We've seen this act before! Well it has to come true sooner or later, maybe this is the instance. But nothing else is yet suggesting this on either the minimal or one-year chart. Volume is falling, not rising, price range is fairly static, etc.
If I go with the preponderance of TA indicators I watch, we stay in short-term consolidation some more time.
Percentages for daily short sales and buys moved in opposite directions again and the divergence is really quite large. As mentioned yesterday, I obviously don't know what's going on right now. I know what I'm seeing is abnormal. Potential explanations cover the gamut from MMs behavior to TFH thesis about the warrant holders. There's no way to know.
In normal times the short percentage would be a big negative while the buy percentage would be a big positive. Right now I can't, with any confidence, assign these characteristics to either metric. Further, I can't combine them in any way to guess at "what's next".
The spread widened a bit, which if it continues suggests exiting short-term consolidation may be coming.
The VWAP's last twenty-four readings again held steady at 9 negatives and 15 positives. Change since 07/12 is $0.1312, 9.47%, and the averages of the rolling 24-day period seen in the last few days (latest first) are 0.3934%, 0.4850%, 0.4435%, 0.4761%, 0.4766%, 0.2227%, 0.4407%, 0.3111%, 0.5993%, and 0.5621%.
All in, only the spread (today because of the AH trade at $1.55) and buy percentage would suggest near-term bullish bias. But the VWAP rate of increase declining for four days with the abnormally low short percentage for an even longer period go counter to that. Further, the buy percentage has been suggesting upward pressure for four consecutive days and we've not moved. Maybe I'm too impatient?
Given this, I'll leave assessment to my TFH as he is only pseudo-data dependent.
Bill
Conventional TA has mixed indications with only the oscillators I watch suggesting (again!) there's some near-term bullish movement likely. The rest of it, including volume, trend lines, movements of trading ranges, ... suggest nothing more than consolidation.
My unconventional stuff is worse - continued conflicts between what buy percentage has been saying and what actually happens along with conflicts with what short percentage would suggest means I can't draw any forecasts from that stuff. Only thing I think is still useful is the spread (but only because my TFH says the AH $1.55 trade means something will happen). If I believe my TFH, we move up today above $1.52 and challenge and exceed the $1.54 resistance.
Are you (we?) willing to believe that thesis? I do.
Today was flattish after the open at $1.50 when it immediately went $1.51/2 and stayed there through the close on predominantly very low/no-volume. Unusual recently, we had one AH buy of 500 for $1.55, suggesting tomorrow will push up and my expected re-trace will not appear yet.
I think I should mention that these days of high buy percentages have had a consistent high b/a imbalance with bids somewhat statically outweighing asks by large multiples. I think these bids, which don't get hit often for very long periods of time - lots of fractional trades go around the mid-point though - are "stalking horse bids that are put there to force any buyers to "pay up". This seems somewhat supported in that aperiodically we'll then see a large minute, usually with one or more larger blocks included, go off. This makes me think the MMs are managing price to satisfy a "good customer" at a specific price. This would be opposite to the possibility of MMs being out of position. I don't know if either scenario is correct or both.
Today the b/a spent the vast majority of the day along the lines of 10K-15K bid $1.51 with <1K offered at $1.52. I mean they just sat there for the most part and the trade that mostly hit $1.52 never exhausted the offers. Look at the VWAP below and note just how close to $1.52 it is.
Alternatively, I yesterday wondered of the MMs had gotten on the wrong side of the market. Sitting on the offer and letting folks hit the offer garners them fees from the exchanges for "providing liquidity" and if they were long also get additional profits of the shares they wanted to dump. This would be the opposite "wrong side of the market" I had wondered about yesterday wherein they were to short and had to move price lower or aggressively short to stay near market-neutral. Today's ~11% short combined with the b/a and trade behavior suggests they were long rather than short.
Speculation by me because I can't otherwise figure why I see what I see intra-day and in my unconventional stuff.
Before I forget, a component of our buy percentage could be shorters doing covering buys. If you look at the short interest report I post every two weeks you'll note that nine of the last thirteen reports have had reducing short interest, so they are seriously covering.
I also want to keep in mind my TFH thesis that the warrant holders will be pushing price up. The shorters may believe the same and the covering buys may be "cleaning out the closet" in preparation for shorting again when we get up around the $2.55+ area. Last time we charged up, about 4/8-4/18 and then fell, 4/19-5/9, we saw short interest increases:
I would expect similar behavior if the warrant holders attempt what I think they will (are) and are successful.Settle Dte Short Int. % Chg. AvgDlyVol Day2Cvr
06/15/2016 1,697,995 11.75 282,427 6.01
05/31/2016 1,519,526 3.65 367,563 4.13
05/13/2016 1,465,975 64.99 381,445 3.84
04/29/2016 888,531 3.52 1,042,976 1.00
There were no pre-market trades.
09:30-11:49 opened the day with a 1,244 sell and two sells of 35 and 37 respectively, all for $1.50, and then did 9:36's 500 $1.51->$1.52, 9:37's 400 $1.5156, 9:39's 400 $1.5137, 9:41's 2K $1.5118, 9:42's 300 $1.5121, and 9:44's b/a of 2.4K:6.6K $1.51/2. B/a at 9:49 was 1.8K:7K $1.51/2. Then came 9:49's 100 $1.52, and trade went very low/no-volume $1.51xx/$1.52. 9:59's b/a was 1.9K:6.4K $1.51/2, 10:19's 2.2K $1.5101/$1.5158 interrupted the volume, b/a at 10:20 was 2.3K:6.7K $1.51/2, and 10:25's was 3.7K:1.1K $1.51/2. 10:25-:26's 14.1K $1.5101->$1.5150->$1.52 interrupted the volume. B/a at 10:33 was 3.1K:700 $1.51/2, 10:58 3.9K:300 $1.51/2, 11:06 2.9K:1.1K $1.51/2, 11:30 4.4K:300 $1.51/2. 11:49's 3.3K $1.5135/$1.52 ended the period.
11:50-12:15 had b/a at 11:51 of 4.3K:800 $1.51/2. After three no-trades minutes, it did a short small drop and 11:54 did 25.4K (incl 18.6K $1.51 blk) $1.52->$1.51, 11:54's 100 $1.5150, 11:59's 4.1K $1.51/$1.5133->$1.51, B/a at 12:00 was 2.4K:2.2K $1.51/2. 12:15's 300 $1.5150 ended the period.
12:16-16:00, after nine no-trades minutes, moved back to very low/no-volume $1.51/2 on 12:25's 435 $1.5150/$1.52. Volume was interrupted by 12:37-:41's 16.6K $1.5150/2. B/a at 12:48 was 12K:300 $1.51/2, 13:09 15.3K:400 $1.51/2, 13:21-:22 interrupted volume with ~32K (incl 25K $1.52 blk) and b/a went 14.5K:800 $1.51/2. B/a at 13:43 was 15K:300 $1.51/2, 14:09 14.1K:200 $1.51/2, 14:43 15K:700 $1.51/2, 15:40 12.6K:200 $1.51/2. The period and day ended on 15:59's ~2.42K $1.51 (202)/$1.52 and 16:00's 257 $1.52.
There was one AH buy of 500 for $1.55.
Excluding the opening and closing trades (didn't qualify), there were 4 larger trades (>=5K & 1 4K+) totaling 54,400, 28.55% of day's volume, with a $1.5165 VWAP. The count of larger trades and percentage of day's volume seem normal for the reduced volume. Half the larger trades count and 80.15% of larger trades volume were due to the two "larger larger trades". Sans the 18.6K & 25K larger trades, the larger trades count would be only 2, the percent of day's adjusted volume would be only 10.21% and the VWAP would be $1.5194.
Without the 18.6K & 25K block trades the day's VWAP would be $1.5172, +0.17%, instead of the $1.5168, +0.14%, seen.
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 ~%
11:49 47834 $1.5000 $1.5200 $72,529.23 $1.5163 25.10% 61.71%
12:15 30213 $1.5100 $1.5200 $45,637.30 $1.5105 15.85% 39.08% Incl 11:53 $1.5100 18,600
16:00 108085 $1.5100 $1.5200 $164,146.28 $1.5187 56.72% 64.14% Incl 12:37 $1.5189 6,000 12:41 $1.5200 4,800
13:22 $1.5200 25,000
16:10 500 $1.5500 $1.5500 $775.00 $1.5500 0.26% 64.24%
The high was a 500 share AH trade at $1.55. Using the "official" $1.52 high the movement on that metric would be -0.33% (yesterday's was $1.5225).__Open_ ___Low_ __High_ _Close_ Volume_
Today -1.32% 0.00% 1.64% 1.33% -44.31%
Prior 1.33% 1.35% 0.33% -1.32% -0.29%
Yesterday I wondered if the MMs might be on the wrong side of the market because they closed us 2 cents below the $1.52 traded during 15:59 and at the low of the day, $1.50. Today's absolutely flat $1.51/2 (if we discount the open of $1.50) low volume, and flat close might have been the MMs getting market neutral but from the long side rather than the short side. This seems supported by the extremely low short percentage seen below. Next lowest recent short percentage was 12.5% on 8/1 and next prior around this range was 12/24/15's 14.2%. Adding in the behavior described above about the "stalking bids" and buy behavior all day (and several prior days) and it seems even more reasonable.
We'll never know though.
On my minimal chart we saw another top at $1.52, a flat $1.50 low, and got a close at the "official" high. All this on lower volume, which would be typical of "short-term consolidation".
The Bollinger band stopped converging and did a very slight divergence with a slightly greater increase in the upper limit over the lower limit rise giving us a slightly higher mid-point.
The AH trade is suspicious and my TFH thinks it bodes a near-term (as in tomorrow) rise. Maybe we finally challenge and break $1.54 resistance. But nothing on this minimal chart suggests that.
Yesterday I said I was expecting a short shallow re-trace. That didn't happen today and I now suspect it wont happen real soon. It's not related to whether or not the longs are exhausted either. It's just the very odd behavior in the b/a, the buy percentage, the flattish price range the very low short percentage (see below) and my TFH thesis.
I also recant yesterday's { ... I suspect I'm overly optimistic to look for an immediate $1.54 challenge based on what's been seen. So short-term consolidation with some near-term weakness seems more likely for a few days. }
What all that means to me is we should soon exit short-term consolidation to the up side.
On my one-year chart the 50-day and 20-day SMA, which is above the 10-day, continued rising and the 10-day fell. The near-term behavior, assuming no change in range, is as before - 10-day falls, 20 and 50-day rise with a small pause for a couple days on the 50 and 20-day after a couple days of rise.
Now I don't expect we'll stay where we are. I think we're going up a bit at least.
The oscillators I watch, which yesterday were mixed with a mild weaker bias, all improved but for ADX-related. Momentum is right at neutral, ADX-related and accumulation/distribution are below, and everything else is above neutral. Full stochastic entered overbought.
The 13-period Bollinger limits, $1.4426 and $1.5635 ($1.4419 and $1.5612 yesterday), weren't flat but were darn close to it. Regardless, a mild rise with a rising mid-point is good and we're trading right around the mid-point.
All in, the oscillator switch from mixed slightly negative to less mixed more bullish portends a positive change (at last!) coming near-term.
WAIT! We've seen this act before! Well it has to come true sooner or later, maybe this is the instance. But nothing else is yet suggesting this on either the minimal or one-year chart. Volume is falling, not rising, price range is fairly static, etc.
If I go with the preponderance of TA indicators I watch, we stay in short-term consolidation some more time.
Percentages for daily short sales and buys moved in opposite directions again and the divergence is really quite large. As mentioned yesterday, I obviously don't know what's going on right now. I know what I'm seeing is abnormal. Potential explanations cover the gamut from MMs behavior to TFH thesis about the warrant holders. There's no way to know.
In normal times the short percentage would be a big negative while the buy percentage would be a big positive. Right now I can't, with any confidence, assign these characteristics to either metric. Further, I can't combine them in any way to guess at "what's next".
The spread widened a bit, which if it continues suggests exiting short-term consolidation may be coming.
The VWAP's last twenty-four readings again held steady at 9 negatives and 15 positives. Change since 07/12 is $0.1312, 9.47%, and the averages of the rolling 24-day period seen in the last few days (latest first) are 0.3934%, 0.4850%, 0.4435%, 0.4761%, 0.4766%, 0.2227%, 0.4407%, 0.3111%, 0.5993%, and 0.5621%.
All in, only the spread (today because of the AH trade at $1.55) and buy percentage would suggest near-term bullish bias. But the VWAP rate of increase declining for four days with the abnormally low short percentage for an even longer period go counter to that. Further, the buy percentage has been suggesting upward pressure for four consecutive days and we've not moved. Maybe I'm too impatient?
Given this, I'll leave assessment to my TFH as he is only pseudo-data dependent.
Bill
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