The February 13 Report

Advanced Happy Valentine's Day folks!

The stock market is about the future, and they've been telling us to have a grand and very red celebration for the Chinese New Year and Valentine's Day as early as January.

The volume for PSEi continues to be lackluster, and the ticker pace will bore you to sleep.

It's the attack of the basuras and they are making a comeback. Tread lightly!

I don't have much to report on because I've been juggling and multitasking so many things lately. All I can report on is that I was able to make a profitable day trade. OMG! Haha. I thought that would be an impossibility.

Good luck. Friday Madness (due to supposed rallies to take place) is going to leave an overhang. The Philippines should be run by children in the future. If these stupid people in politics are called adults, I think I'd rather be a child.

The February 8 Report

The index managed to stay afloat at 3,241.13 or +17 points or half a percentage point (0.56%) gain.

Volume remained Motorola RZR thin, with only 852,094,262, with value only at 1,191,067,00.

Total trades were at 5,917, with one new 52 week low - ORE at 2.34.

Aboitiz owned companies had a jumpstart due to their declaration of two cash dividends for Aboitiz Equity Ventures (AEV), and a share buyback program for not only this said company but other Aboitiz owned companies like Aboitiz Power (AP) & Union Bank (UBP).

This was the second day of the basura stocks, with the following stocks hogging the ticker space:

PEP
BRN (well fine, technically this isn't a basura stock)
GEO
NI
EIBA/B
SINO
TUNA

I'll stop here.

But that wasn't the surprise of the day. This is the surprise:



What the... no trade for TEL????

Now you can tell me this is one helluva bear market.

The one thing that's good, (and maybe bad as well), is that we managed to keep the index afloat with DOMESTIC buyers. The problem is there might be less and less of institutional investors. This creates the problem of a speculative market and this makes for even more difficult trading.
Remember, keep your gains tight and throw greed out the window.

Stocks to look at for the following week are the above mentioned stocks as well as the following:

PA - notice that there's always a big seller posted
BPC - bullish divergence between price and RSI chart
MUSX - same as PA's case

Good luck and have a pleasant weekend!

I hope the US market manages to close higher, if not, flat wouldn't be that bad either. The series of rate cuts and the tax stimulus package in the US will likely push inflation higher in the latter half of the year. They got the shot in the arm alright, but I think they used the wrong medicine. Stay safe.

The February 6 Report

Happy New (Rat) Year! Kung Hei Fat Choi! God knows I'm fat...

Is this the return of my daily stock market journal? Well, it depends if I'm busy or not. So you can take my posting today as I'm not busy.

The index ended at 3,228.84, down 54 points, or 1.67% from yesterday. Let's see our neighbor's performance:

Japan -4.07%
Hong Kong -5.40%
Shanghai -1.56%
Taiwan +2.03%
S. Korea +0.38%
Thailand -2.04%
India -2.81%

As you can see, our market actually fared better, relatively. This, despite looming political uncertainty in the coming weeks. Or, you can take it another way, that the market actually cheered JDV being booted out as the Speaker.

Our market was actually down but the intraday chart of the PSEi was amazing, recovering around the 1030 AM and then settling at 3,228. The market tomorrow should zoom up, and with the DOW going up (as of now anyways), there should be enough catalyst to push the index higher.

If the Gregorian New Year failed to excite investors and traders alike, then hopefully the first day tomorrow of the Lunar calendar year would provide people with a ray of hope.

However, foreign trading activity is quite the shocker, headlined by Deutsche net selling of -462M. What? Are they bailing out of the country or something? That value was enough to gobble up the net buying of other foreign brokers. He's a real killer right? Up there with UBS ang pera mo.

Take a look at the following stocks tomorrow:

EEI - be on guard though, 3rd day of its rise
CMT
MRC

Today was sort of the day of the third liners with TUNA, CMT, MRC, hogging the ticker.

Good luck tomorrow guys. Hopefully, clear signs of decoupling does happen. I have this bad feeling though, that 1st Qtr GDP will fall below expectations. Already, the Customs fell short of their revenue take for the first month of the year. The government has to spend mega bucks sometime between now and March if they want to the GDP numbers to look handsome.

Bloody February

February marks two of the reddest celebrations in the calendar year. One, Feb 14 marks hearts day, where everyone wears bloody red clothes and give plastic flowers and show fake emotions (haha). Two, it is during this month that the Chinese New Year is celebrated, and people who want to usher in good luck, would wear red from the shirt to the skirt to the socks to the shoes, and perhaps even their underwear.

Today, as of 2:19AM Philippine Time, the US Dow Jones has plopped, plunged, and plummeted by more than 280 points, thanks to this wonderful comment by a US Fed President. Against the backdrop of ugly technical charts, and even uglier (economic) fundamentals, the next big enemy is the very bad sentiment that every investor and trader have.

I attended an investor briefing lately, which was sponsored by Citibank, and their VP and Chief Economist has this (also) wonderful comment,

"Strengths are being downplayed and risks are being exaggerated."

CNBC, and other US media had already been saying the "R" word as early as the 3rd Quarter of 2007. Sometimes I think that these statements become self fulfilling prophecies. Like they say, a rumor stated a hundred times become fact. Since just about everyday, they were screaming recession, the US market has its blood dried up.

Onshore, the ouster of JDV has added to the specter of negative investor sentiment in the stock market. We were down by more than a percent, worse off than our Asian neighbors. Just what investors need right? What's more, this isn't the worst part yet. The worst part will come when JDV starts to open his mouth and accuse the current administration of this and that controversy.
2008 for the Chinese New Year marks the Year of the Earth Rat.

There certainly are a lot of rats out there in the field.

I previously wrote about a trading strategy called 3R. For this blog entry, there is a new 3R - Recession, Rumors and Rats. Rats!

Been Busy Report

I've been quite busy the past few days and feeling down the weather so I had to prioritize other tasks that I needed to do.

The market ended the week on a happier note, and people were still cheering the 7.3% GDP growth that the Philippines registered. The things to look at are:

- GSIS investment in the local stock market
- Foreign buying
- 1st Qtr Philippine GDP
- Dow Jones, decoupling? I still have my doubts.

Pepsi's IPO fizzled out and UBS never even supported them. All their IPOs have been splendid failures. Let me recount for you - VLL, AGI, hmm what else? Well I can't remember probably because a part of my brain doesn't want me to.

Good luck next week. I hope there'd the be some upside coming into the Chinese New Year. GEMINI was supposed to fly before then, not crash, which it has been doing splendidly as well, just like UBS.

I thought of a new catchphrase.

Sa GEMINI UBS ang pera mo!

Kung Hei Fat Choi!

The January 29 Report

Market Commentary

Decoupling here we come!

My report today will be tainted with sarcasm because instead of making a quick buck, I made a quick loss on a day trade. The market was up initially, until the gains of 40 or so points were withered down to half at just 20 points up. During that time, Asian markets were still going up and up, while we were losing much of our gains.

Let's make a wrap up of Asian markets:

Hong Kong +0.99%
Japan +2.99%
Shanghai +0.87%
Taiwan +1.21%
Kospi +0.66%
Thailand +1.41%
Indonesia +1.00%
Singapore +0.29%

Philippines +0.65%
DOW I don't have the data but they were up by triple digits, so that's close to 1.5%.

Philippines - Decoupling ? Yes!

Today's market was what you may call, whipsaw!

Index : 3,224
Vol: 2,704,731,725
Val: 3,517,115,000
# Trades: 6,967

Foreign Brokerages, in terms of value

JPM +135M
Deutsche +95M
UBS -62M
CLSA +49M
ABN -113M
PEP +62M
MACQ -18M
DBP +18M

From my estimate, there seems to be a net foreign buying here, which is a good thing. If this goes on for a week, then they're probably bottom picking. Or....

Window dressing. This is, after all, the last week of the month.

Stock, Stuck, Suck

I don't know anymore. This is a bear market. Moreover, the swings are difficult to predict, much less ride on.

The January 28 Report

Market Commentary

Following the triple digit decline of the DOW last Friday, it was but natural for us to follow suit. Decoupling or no decoupling though, today's performance was actually better than the rest of Asia. Just look at the bloodbath that ensued in other big Asian markets:

Hong Kong -4.25%
Japan -3.97%
Singapore -3.75%
Shanghai A -7.20%
Korea -3.85%

Philippines -1.05%

This is probably due in part to the recent good news from Moody's. Moreover, in this recent Bloomberg article, Asian Fund fund managers have actually INCREASED their stake in selected SE Asian countries, which include us.

As of this writing, Europe is also down, so the pressure is on the DOW tonight. The DOW futures is down 101 points as of this writing (Philippine time 6:40PM).

Volume : 789,554,207
Value: 2,390,054,000
Trades: 5,777

ALI, MER, and BPI led the blue chips in green territory, while the rest of the index-linked stocks were bloodshot.

Total UP stocks were 20, 77 counters were down and 51 were unchanged from Friday.

Peso / $ = 40.950.

Stock, Stuck, Suck

Everything pretty much sucks, everybody's probably stuck, so what's left to stock?

January 24 Report

Good day folks, in line with the recent market volatility, I'm still going to write my condensed version of my Stock Stuck Suck Report.

Index: 3,147
Performance +89 points or 2.9%
Volume: 2,364,384,527
Value: 4,997,859,000
Trades: 10,569
4 New 52 Week Highs (whaaat?) BC, BCP, EIBA, SEVN

All sectors in the green with mining leading the way at + 195.00

Foreigners still dumping our shares like it's Apocalypse Now. So be wary. Sell in the rally is still the prevailing sentiment.

The dollar is showing resilience amidst a rate cut by the US Fed. Time to buy PAX? Abangan na lang.

Some stocks that may be worth your second look:

BC
DIZ
TUNA
BRN

Good luck to us all.

Incomplete Update for January 23

Apologies, I couldn't view my own blog for the past 3 days, I will update this blog tomorrow or in the coming days when there is something to buy in the market.

Let me reiterate my picks before - DFNN and PAX. After saying that PAX had a solid support, the market betrayed me and it fell through that support. PAX is still tops on my list for a buy and hold strategy (i hope that was not your strategy when it was in its high 30s). The dollar should start to pick up sometime late 2nd quarter, and the beneficiary of that will naturally be the call centers, with PAX being one of the listed companies in the stock market (the others being IP and ETEL).

Why DFNN? Well I haven't looked at the chart, maybe I'll do that tomorrow.

See you when I see you guys. I hope your confidence is still there. This market is what will separate the men from the pansies. Ciao!

Some Thoughts on The Market

There has been some recent comments about Asia "decoupling" from the United States. Since our country, the Philippines is still a part of Asia, I can surmise that we should also benefit from this, er, decoupling. So far, we have been doing that. It's just that it's not in our favor.

For example, the times that the DOW was UP, we were down. When the DOW was down, we were down even worse. Talk about decoupling.

In any case, if my limited knowledge of PSE history is correct, the index at the onset, was primarily composed of mining and oil stocks, i.e. commodities. The PSE has gone a long way since that time, adding such junk companies as Lodestar, JOH, and a slew of other companies who did public offerings and just forgot about the (shareholder) public who shelled out money for their shares during their offer period years ago.

Cynicism aside, it is my belief that the local stock market has come full circle. What am I saying? This year's growth fulcrum for the stock market is linked to the Mining and Oil sector. Similar to the start of the index decades ago, we are starting a new base folks.

If you look at the big picture, yes there are volatilities involved in the stock market. But take heart, we won't see a repeat of the crash similar to that of the years following 1997. This of course, also goes without saying that the market has to find a very strong support before it takes off again. Add to that is the fact that mutual funds, variable life insurance products and UITFs have come to the fore, adding into the trading pits what we may call as institutional investors.

There is a light at the end of this dark tunnel my friends. Stay the course. Just ride through the volatility, be less greedy and you'll be happy by December 31st of this year. The strategy is this :

Short term bearish, but long term bullish. Be mindful once the market starts to find a bottom.


You don't have to emphasize it boys.

January 18 Report

Good Morning, it is now 2:21AM January 19. I felt no urgency to update this blog given today's horrendous market performance.

The upside? We closed down "just" 80 points, from a high of about 110 points if my memory serves me right.

Foreigners continued to dump our shares, in value terms:

Deutsche - -336M
ATR - -65M (if this is considered foreign)
JPM - -100M
Macq - -182M
CLSA - -229M
UBS - + 78M (wow the only net buyer)
PEP - -89M
ABN - -48M
DBP - +30M (di lang pala UBS)

Their selling has only accelerated even further. Goodbye foreigners, hello thin trading volumes in the coming days.

BRN continued to shine today.

I have recently discovered a new technical tool that is almost 90% accurate. I will not share that since it requires further testing. But suffice it to say, it predicted BRN's stellar performance today. The only problem? I didn't have the cajones to buy in because of the triple digit index decline.

A lot of stocks have bottomed out, if I am to use this tool. Let's see what happens on Monday.

No stock picks yet at this point. I think just pick your nose, that'd be more fun.

Ciao for now.

The January 16 Report

Congratulations to the holders of BRN, and BC. Those who were able to pick these up when I first mentioned this should be happier than the primarily bear infested local market. I sold my BC too soon. Instead of BRN, I focused on RLT, but it was just a day trade.

I have decided to cut my SSS report to just shorter entries. If I make a SSS report, then I'll just be cutting the wounds deeper trying to recall the day's (and just about everyday's) bloodbath.

This is certainly a bear market if you haven't already noticed, however, I am confident our market, even at its worst, will not be as bad as the market we had about a decade ago. The problem is in the United States, and although that has an effect on our local economy, we, and Asia in general has built up a mighty war chest called national reserves. In fact, our own currency is dubbed as Asia's best performing currency. This is a sharp turnaround from what we faced earlier in the century.

These are all fundamentals, albeit very basic at best. However, when the Technicals tell you don't buy, you want to find solace in the fundamental story, just so you can keep you sanity.

Sorry about yesterday, I was out. As I've said, I have focused my energies on other earning endeavors. So this is not a priority at the moment. :-)

Some stocks to take note of:

DFNN
PAX - it's been beaten black and blue and almost decomposing, but 5.80 is a very very strong support.

The January 14 Report

I know I wasn't able to update this last Friday, I was in Baguio :p

I have a very short report today, and the one thing very significant, at least for me, is the level of volume and number of trades that I saw today - anything but exciting.

Check the numbers:

VOLUME 783,782,286
VALUE 2,206,757,000 (which leads me to believe it's just purely blue cheaps, I mean
pathetic volume but that high value?)
# Trades 4,603

Foreigners are still selling like crazy with notable example - UBS, -250M (value).
Deutsche was picking up MEG. This is an interesting play as MEG is trying to cover the gap down it created last week.

ETON has also been rising steadily however 4.00 could be a near term resistance.

Some interesting stocks to look at:
BC
BRN
RLT

Well good luck to us this week. So far DOW is triple digits up.

The January 9 Report (Or lack of it)

I'll just sum up the market - impressive. With the Dow Jones crashing through the roof triple digits, we were down by just 4 points. At one point we were down 30, but the intraday PSEi chart showed that the market would rebound, and I was betting that we'd be down by about 10-15 points. Boy was I wrong!

Tomorrow should be an interesting day for the Philippine Market.

For now, the stock market is largely driven by sentiments. I talked to not a few people, and they want to shift their investments to safer, more conservative instruments. Flight to quality (or was it safety) is the term for it.

Anyway, I might begin to look offshore for trading opportunities. I wanted to blog about something today, it's related to the stock market but I just can't remember it. Grr. I was out the whole afternoon and I guess the heatwave fried some of my brain cells.

No January 8 Report

Sorry folks, I am unable to craft the report for today as I was in the hospital during trading hours.

There's nothing much to recommend, and dissing a stock will just mean dissing everything that's listed on the exchange.

Oh, please don't hate me but I was able to day trade Ni.

See you tomorrow folks. I am busy doing something new as I need to detach myself from the market and as Robert Kiyosaki states, "expand my means".

The January 7 Report

Market Commentary - January 4

As much as I would like to remain unattached emotionally with the condition of the market right now, emotions are just too strong to be denied entry into my blog.

Markets are certainly dead in the water right now, anywhere and everywhere you look. The recent spate of bad US economic news has certainly dampened sentiments further, this blogger's included. Prices fluctuate based on demand and supply, but these are all predicated on the prevailing sentiments of people.

Right now, people are just cautious if not paranoid already. I have started to become bored with the market, and there is greater difficulty trying to make day trades. I think I have to get my momentum back real soon.

Market is now at 3,388. This is close to wiping the entire gain of 2007. We are 2.60% down, or 90.56 points.

There are traders and there are investors. It's time to wear your investor hats, if you are one with extra cash. People make money from panic and mania. This is certainly a time for the former.

Fundamental stock picking is a long and arduous task though as you have to go through voluminous financial reports, and timing is certainly crucial. This isn't the time yet to get in. And this most definitely is not a time for traders, especially since our market is not open to shorting.

On with the horror show.

10 stocks up, 125 down, 28 spared. Total trades today were 9,141 with probably 90% selldowns (so it goes, so it goes).

New 52-wk high : none, and I'm not surprised
New 52 Wk low: EIB, FLI, GMA7, TUNA, UBP

Active stock MBT (-7.69%) closing at 48.00
Top Gainer was KEP 1.98 (+10.00%)
Top Loser was MVC 0.60 (-29.41%)

Today's volume: 2,431,395,983
Value is 3,893,243,000

* All values are based from Technistock.

Foreign Houses:
DEU +24M
CLSA +50M
MACQ -218M
JPM -197M (sold out?)
UBS -88M
ABN -8M (wow still so little)
DBP +28M
PEP -12M

Bear market folks. GMA? FLI? UBP? Down???

STOCK...

Up On Cash.

And Morale.

STUCK

My ass to the chair and my eyes to the screen... doing nothing. This still remains.

SUCK

All the blue cheaps.

The January 4 Report

Market Commentary - January 4

The DOW rebounded last night but only to pare down its gains. This weaker close no doubt caused our market to close weaker at 3,479, down by 22 points or -0.63%. Fears of a recession in the US have intensified due to the weaker jobs growth in December. As of press time (12:29AM Philippine Time), the DOW is already below the 13,000 mark at 12,896.

On with the show.

34 stocks up, 78 down, 43 spared. Total trades today were a lowly 6,536 with probably 90% selldowns (again).

New 52-wk high : none, and I'm not surprised
New 52 Wk low: PNC, UBP

Active stock TEL (-0.1634%)
Top Gainer was AAA 0.46 (+43.75%) , a day after dipping to its 52 week low
Top Loser was JOH 1.62 (-10.00%)

Today's volume: 2,717,144,928
Value is 2,397,779,000 (amazing given the volume)

* All values are based from Technistock.

Foreign Houses:
DEU -173M
CLSA -43M
MACQ -49M
JPM +80M (2nd net green)
UBS -37M
ABN -1.9M (wow so little)
DBP -13M
PEP -46M

I wasn't able to check whether it was net buying or selling yesterday. No time. Anyway, I don't bother to check anymore. The market is going from bad to worse to worst.

No more editing after this point.
STOCK...

Up On Cash.

STUCK

My ass to the chair and my eyes to the screen... doing nothing.

SUCK

All the blue cheaps.

The January 3 Report

Market Commentary - January 3

My first report for the year! Happy New Year again folks, the bandwagontrader is back again. I'm retooling my blog so that my reports are short, crisp and to the point. I don't imagine having my fingers typing gazillion words everyday will be beneficial in the long run.

I woke up late today, by choice, given last night's horrid performance by the DOW. What a way to start the New Year! The Phisix, a slave to the DOW, fell and is hanging precariously at 3,500 - 3,501.38, down by 115 points or -3.2%. If the DOW continues its consistent nosedive, it's hello 3,300.

16 stocks up, 101 down, 30 spared. Total trades today were a lowly 6,542 with probably 90% selldowns.

New 52-wk high : none, and I'm not surprised
New 52 Wk low: AAA, BCB, TUNA

Active stock AC (-6.42%)
Top Gainer was CEU 6.40 (+16.36%)
Top Loser was PNC 4.10 (-29.31%)

Today's volume: 2,852,863,173
Value is 2,425,757,000 (amazing given the volume)

* All values are based from Technistock.

Foreign Houses:
DEU -176M
CLSA +64M
MACQ +79M
JPM +142M
UBS -48M
ABN -46M
DBP -3M
PEP -62M

Surprise surprise, net foreign BUYING? Confirm these tomorrow in the newspaper. Even if it's foreign buying, I wouldn't be surprised that this is start of the year window dressing.

STOCK...

Up On Cash.

STUCK

My ass to the chair and my eyes to the screen... doing nothing.

SUCK

All the blue cheaps.


Stay safe my friends. Don't go long unless these are mining stocks (which have been lackluster, even LC/B, PX, OV). Do continue to monitor gold stocks and oil stocks. Oil at 100? It's a major resistance, it'll probably correct so stocks like OV and OPM might be ripe for the bottom picking once oil corrects. OV broke out of a rut recently but OPM is near its resistance. Between the two, go for OV. This is not an endorsement though as these are very volatile times.

Look at the chart of DJIA the entire year of 2007 was like a major consolidation phase. 2008 - a continuation? Or a breakout of the consolidation?

Happy New Year

Happy New Year traders, I surely hope the adjective Happy will stick throughout the 366 days of the current year.

Time flies when you don't have a trading program installed in your computer. I made sure I got the program today (Technistock), so I'll be back to day trade 'em again! (I missed out on TA and OV. Shoot)

I'll return to doing my daily SSS Reports. Can't wait.