Monthly Archives: March 2011

Does 1313 Mean Bad Luck for SPX? – Maybe not This Time

Posted on March 27, 2011 by Michael Harris

The S&P 500 index closed at 1,313.8 last Friday, up 2.7% for the week. The 1,313 level is quite significant for the index because back in August 16, 2008 it acted as strong resistance when prices failed to penetrate it to the upside on an intraday … Continue reading →

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The State of ETFs – March 27, 2011 – The Week Ahead

Posted on March 27, 2011 by Michael Harris

As of the close of Friday, March 25, 2011, there are 5 changes in the ETF trend state table in relation to previous Friday’s close. There are no overbought or oversold conditions present in any of the ETFs considered in this analysis: 

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QQQ Closing Price Change was +0.25% Today, Friday, March 25, 2011, not +2.02%

Posted on March 25, 2011 by Michael Harris

A friend called me right after the market close today and asked me why QQQ moved up +2.02% although QLD was up just +0.25%. To make a long story short, this is because some data vendors (ex. Yahoo! Finance) have … Continue reading →

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An Outside Day Pattern with an Upside Breakout in QQQ

Posted on March 25, 2011 by Michael Harris

Yesterday (Thursday, March 24, 2011) an upside breakout of an outside day pattern in QQQ occurred. QQQ is the new (actually the old) ticker symbol of QQQQ. This can be seen on the chart below:

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Chaos in Technical Analysis and Backtesting – Part I: Close vs. Adjusted Close

Posted on March 23, 2011 by Michael Harris

This is the first in a series of posts about the impact of data adjustments on technical analysis studies and backtesting, as well as, of the pitfalls of trading system development due to incompatibilities and/or conflicts between data series and analysis techniques. Use … Continue reading →

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The State of ETFs – March 21, 2011, The Week Ahead

Posted on March 20, 2011 by Michael Harris

As of the close of Friday, March 18, 2011, there are only 4 changes in the ETF trend state table in relation to previous Friday’s close. There are no overbought or oversold conditions present and there are no short-term high probability … Continue reading →

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Mass Psychology and Fibonacci Retracement Levels on March 15, 2011

Posted on March 16, 2011 by Michael Harris

The market behavior on Tuesday, March 15, 2011, was driven by mass psychology, which in turn was driven by fear and greed caused by the Japan earthquake aftermath. The big winner of this market behavior was Leonardo of Pisa, a.k.a. Fibonacci. The … Continue reading →

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The State of ETFs – March 14, 2011 – The Week Ahead

Posted on March 14, 2011 by Michael Harris

As of the close of Friday, March 11, 2011, there are 8 changes in the ETF trend state table in relation to previous Friday’s close. There are no overbought or oversold conditions present and there are no short-term high probability setups … Continue reading →

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Bill Gross Sold His Holdings of US Treasuries – What Does Technical Analysis Tell Us About His Move?

Posted on March 12, 2011 by Michael Harris

Bill Gross, the founder of PIMCO, sold his Treasury bond holdings late last month as reported by Bloomberg. The manager of the world’s largest bond fund said that he thinks yields are low and he may buy Treasuries again when yields … Continue reading →

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Time to Hire a Monkey? Not Really

Posted on March 11, 2011 by Michael Harris

Recently I have noticed a renewed interest in a few blogs and forums about “monkey style trading”. This type of trading usually involves coin tosses, percent stop-losses for risk management and trailing stops for profit taking. This is how it works in principle, according to its proponents … Continue reading →

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