STOCK GOODIES PLAYS OF THE WEEK

[Black_NITE]

Visual Evidence of Trends

Anyone who has followed the stock market for any length of time realizes that trends can and will take hold. To be fair, not all stocks trend and trends do not last forever. However, there are enough asset classes, major indices, sectors, industry groups or stocks out there to insure that something is trending at some point. The challenge, as always, is to find that trend and ride it. The next three charts show some individual stocks with clear signals and trends. Identifying a simple double top and getting out of Citigroup (C) would have avoided a whole lot of pain. The same can be said for Enron, Worldcom and the few other debacles.



ExxonMobil (XOM) was choppy in 2009, down the first half of 2010 and then up sharply from July 2010 to February 2011. Catching this one big trend would have made up for quite a few losses.



Pfizer (PFE) shows an example of three sizable trends emerging over a two year period. The stock was up over 50% in 2009, down around 25% in the first half of 2010 and up around 50% from July 2010 to March 2011.