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Rick Pendergraft's  Instablog

My passion for the stock market began in high school when my economics teacher entered me in an investment competition. Following my education I spent several years in banking before making my way to Schaeffer's Investment Research, where I learned the value of sentiment analysis. In the summer... More
My business:
The Stark Report
  • Energy ETFs Channeling Higher
    Each night I run a custom scan of all publicly traded US stocks. I am looking for short term opportunities- both bullish and bearish. There a number of factors that go into the scan with several oscillators, increasing volume and so forth. Over the last few days, I have received bullish signals on several energy ETFs. Tuesday night there were bullish signals on the ProShares Ultra Oil and Gas Fund (DIG), the Oil Services Holders Trust (OIH) and the SPDR S&P Oil & Gas Exploration & Production Index (XOP).
    Wednesday night I received bullish signals on the Energy Select Sector SPDR (XLE) and the Direxion Daily Energy Bull 3x Shares (ERX). 
    After receiving the bullish signals I started looking at the charts more closely and took note of the upward-sloped trend channels the energy ETFs have been in over the last five months or so. Here are the daily charts for the XLE and the ERX. I have also noted the points at which the stochastic lines have made bullish crossovers in the last six months or so.
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    Tags: XLE, ERX
    Nov 05 09:09 am | Link | Comment!
  • Ahead of Earnings: COP and HES
    Over the course of this week, a number of energy and oil stocks will be reporting earnings. On Thursday and Friday we will hear from major oil companies Exxon Mobil (NYSE: XOM) and Chevron (NYSE: CVX) and you can bet these two reports will garner plenty of attention, especially after the rally in oil that has taken it from $40 a barrel earlier this year to over $80 in recent weeks.
    Before we get to these two reports, we will get little preview of what we might see out of XOM and CVX. Two lesser known and smaller companies in terms of market capitalization will report before the market opens on Wednesday.
    ConocoPhillips (NYSE: COP) has lagged its brethren in the major oil and integrated gas sector over the last two years, but the company recently announced plans to try and boost its return on equity. In their previous earnings report, according to Yahoo Finance, COP ranked 12 out of 12 in the sector for revenue growth and 11 out of 12 for ROE with a rate of -32.3%. Analysts are expecting the company to report earnings of $0.94 for this quarter, an increase of 10.6% over last quarter’s results. In the third quarter of last year, COP earned $3.06 per share, so the company is looking at a 71.7% decline in earnings per share.  

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    Tags: HES, COP
    Oct 27 02:18 pm | Link | Comment!
  • If These Four Facts are Any Indication, the Market is Heading Lower for the Near Term
    October 2007 was a turning point in the market.  It was on October 10, 2007 that the S&P set its all-time high. Here we are almost two years later (and 34 percent lower) and the indicators are starting to look similar to what they did during that peak. The tremendous rally off the March lows has created a similar situation to the Fall of ’07.
    Looking at a weekly chart of the S&P, you will see that the last time the 10-week RSI exceeded 65 was in October 2007. You might also notice on the chart below that the top in 2007 was a doji top. For those of you not familiar with candlestick analysis, a doji is formed when the open and close, for the time frame you are looking at are virtually the same. Even though the price was considerably higher and lower throughout the period, the price went virtually no where. 
     
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    Tags: SDS, QID
    Aug 31 11:17 am | Link | Comment!
  • Solar Sector Makes Its Way Back In To The Light
    Over the last few days, I have received bullish signals on three of the biggest operators in the solar sector. These bullish signals coincide with the sharp jump in oil over the last few days. When oil jumps, investors start looking for alternative energy sources again because the production costs for some of the alternative sources is relatively high, so if oil is cheap the incentive to think about alternatives isn’t there. Once the price of oil jumps above $70 a barrel, investors start thinking about the alternatives to oil, and solar is usually one of the first ones considered.
    That being said, First Solar (FSLR), Suntech Power (STP) and SunPower (SPWRA) have all three made their way onto a bullish scan that I run every night. This scan looks at several technical factors and ideally finds quick trades that last a few days to a few weeks but generate big moves. While the three companies aren’t necessarily competitors of one another, they are all three competing for investment money within the solar sector and they are representative of the overall view of the solar energy industry.
    Any of these three will benefit from higher oil prices as consumers and investors alike start looking for alternative energy sources. Personally, I think Suntech has the most upside potential as it is not as overly loved as First Solar and SunPower. STP has far less institutional ownership and analysts have the fewest buy ratings on STP than the other two. This leaves plenty of room for upgrades. 
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    Tags: STP, FSLR, SPWRA, Solar
    Aug 23 10:13 pm | Link | Comment!
  • Earnings Season Looming- Losing Money at a Slower Rate Won’t Do This Quarter

     

    Last earnings season, the expectations were so low that companies could stumble over the hurdle and still move higher. If a company was expected to lose $1.50 per share and only lost $1.40 per share, the stock tended to rally on this news. Now that the books are closed on the second quarter and the S&P saw its largest quarterly gain in the last decade, with the index gaining 15.2% for the quarter.
    That was then, this is now. After the huge rally from the lows in March, investors are not looking for companies to lose money at a slower rate, they are looking for actual improved earnings. 
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    Tags: SPX
    Jul 01 10:11 am | Link | Comment!
  • The Fall In Natural Gas Is Over

     

    Natural Gas has been in a free fall for almost a year now. Speculators have been trying to call a bottom for some time, but the price just kept falling and falling. At least up until the last few months.
    The good news is that the bottom looks to be in and I see natural gas soaring over the next six to eight months.
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    Tags: UNG
    Jun 29 12:55 am | Link | Comment!
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StockTalks

  • Stocks look overbought and we should see selling over the next 4-6 weeks. This would get us out of the current overbought state.
    Jun 08, 2009
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Posts by Ticker
COP, ERX, FSLR, HES, QID, RTH, SDS, SPWRA, SPX, STP, UNG, XLE
Posts by Themes
Retail, Solar
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