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Past week recap:  Another choppy week for stocks – 4 days of downward bias negated by a large rise on Friday’s employment data, resulting in the major market indexes finishing the week flat, again.  This is the 13th consecutive week that stocks have whip-sawed back and forth within a narrow price range – that’s a quarter of the year.  Simply no consensus or conviction among institutional investors right now.

 

With these market conditions, passive buy-and-holders are not profiting – major index values remain at the same level as last Thanksgiving – and we are profiting to a lesser degree than normal.  We have a few productive short positions, a few more productive long positions, but many others remain flat or negative during this whip-saw period.

 

Despite an otherwise un-noteworthy week, several Level 1 stocks posted very large price changes – the largest of any week in recent months – primarily on earnings surprises, with CRC and EVTC favorable, but IVAC unfavorable.

 

For all of our Level 1 stocks to generate profits we need them to trend smoothly for weeks/months at a time, and until institutional investors are comfortable with market conditions and confident of holding their positions for longer periods we will remain stuck in this narrow range, largely unproductive rut.

 

Highlights:  7 new weekly highs in long positions.  8 stocks with double-digit long gains:

  • CVRR +16%
  • FMSA +23%
  • EVTC +49%
  • CRC +79%
  • BXC +305%
  • EVH +11%
  • PES +80%
  • URBN +79%

 

No new weekly low among short positions.  No stocks with double-digit short gains at this time.