The broad market – as measured by the Dow30 and S&P500 Indexes – down the prior week, of course turned up last week, continuing the whip-saw pattern that has prevailed throughout 2015. Our Level 1, 2 and 3 stocks, however, continue to reflect a “stealth” bear market, with new weekly lows continuing to outnumber new weekly highs, offering sizeable trading profits for those who have acted on recent short signals.
For those of you with retirement accounts, current market conditions continue to require patience until more opportunities for long positions develop. At least holding cash in your brokerage account is preferable to losses of 20-30+% that many passive investors are incurring, either through intention (purposeful refusal to sell) or inattention (not paying attention and failing to react to the market downtrend – and that includes many brokers and financial planners).
Although mild index movement last week suggested a typical, dull late summer week on Wall Street, many of our focus stocks continued moving significantly in price, up and down – which is not unexpected as they are purposely chosen for that reason. While we continue to achieve double-digit trading gains in both directions, the S&P500 remains range-bound, up only +1.6% on the year.
Highlights: 5 new weekly highs in recent positions. Double-digit long gains in AKAO +20% and SABR +10%, both in 5 weeks, and congrats to those of you who picked up new listing PLNR last week, for a first week gain of +31%.
9 new weekly lows. Double-digit short gains in ABUS +32%, BAS +33%, ECA +45%, ERF +29%, HPQ +12%, MAT +10%, MDXG +12% (2 wks), NVIV +23% (2 wks on large decline) and PDS +30%.
Locking in short gains of +18% in CVTI (15 wks), +11% in SEAS (10 wks) and +20% in VICR (14 wks).
Stock list changes: Final reminder that TKMR is now ABUS (Arbutus Biopharma).
Analytics: Had the current version of analytics been in effect 6-8 weeks ago, it would have signaled additional or increased double-digit gains in ANAC long and PES short – we regret missing these opportunities, which is why the analytics are subject to constant re-evaluation and adjustment.