The focus of the day was 12K on the Dow (will Tuesday be the day?). But there was decent activity all around; 8 picks covered a time span of 4 minutes by the Trade Ideas scan. Over the last 2 months, Scripps E W Co ( SSP ) and Honeywell ( HON ) enjoyed bullish crosses of the 50-day MA by the 20-day MA. Reckson Associate Realty ( RA ) suffered a bearish cross and a bullish cross of the 50-day and 20-day MAs over the same period. Peoples Energy ( PGL ) was the only pick to be under the influence of a bearish cross of the 20-/50-day MAs. The remaining picks are in mature bullish rallies. Over the last year the following picks look well positioned to gain: Reckson Associate Realty ( RA ) has shaped a nice 3-month handle, Peoples Energy ( PGL ) looks to have broken from a bullish flag, State Street Corp ( STT ) may yet form a handle off $66 resistance, and SCG could break from a bullish ascending triange. As for price targets: look for $53 from RA , $48 from PGL , $75 from PGL , and $45 ...

Very little to add to Thursday's post. Markets are overbought - but could stay this way as they bump along ever higher. The good news for bulls is the various trend channels in play across all the key indices listed on my public stockchart list . The biggest shift was in the most current (most bullish) alignment of the markets with small caps [ Russell 2000 ] now leading Tech [ NASDAQ ] - {Small cap > Tech Indices > Large cap} . The chief change elsewhere was the new MACD 'buy' trigger in the semiconductor index, combined with a resistance break of the bearish divergence in its CCI. The index trades inside its former rising channel and is well positioned to climb higher. There should be enough momentum to see the upper part of the channel at around 510; only the 200-day MA at 477 could spoil the party. Tech market internals [ $NASI , $NAA50 and $BPCOMPQ ] increased their rate of ascent, but having cleared cyclical bear market reversal zones they now have...

The latest loan comes courtesy of L. Tozo. Buyers of annual membership to my newsletter will have $25 allocated to a KIVA project of their choice. Subscribers to my managed portfolio will have their first month payment allocated to a KIVA project of your choice. KIVA

Another good week for the markets as the Dow closed shy of the much publicized 12K. The Stockcharters didn't have a whole lot new to add, but in general - were considerably less bearish than they were a couple of weeks ago. Mitchell Meana kept to his long standing charts, although market resistance as indicated on his varaious charts have now been cleared. He has indicated a new resistance level (blue line) on the Nasdaq Summation Index: His other point of note was his target price for the Qs: $44.03, now fast approaching (his chart was unchanged). Michael Winfree listed the last two years of Qs highs on highs chart; note the rising price channel: Robert New no longer has his weekend summary, but his lead chart summarizes the events of last week nicely: His S&P chart was similarly bullish: Although Micheal Winfree is looking for volatility to soon spoil the party: Matthew Frailey has an interesting chart showing the continuation and support line of the cyclical bull market ...

Having read Brett's latest piece on the markets and the possibility things are not as toppy as they may appear to be (to me included). I took a look back on some of my previous comments when the markets made their bottom this summer, and top during the first half of the year. I keep an historical record of all of my market comments since April 2004, which can be found by scrolling down to the bottom of the page here . I was looking back on June and July 2006 to see what I had said about the (now) in place bottom and was reasonably satisfied with my stance - although at the end of May I was starting to tout a bottom. My archive for February , when I turned bearish, was a little premature. But my concerns had worn off a little by early May when the top actually hit. The question I now ask myself is whether I am repeating the same error now ? How about a top in January anyone? fallond

If I am going to use the trailing stop for a certain trade. What percentage should I use? or there is another way of installing this feature? what is it? Placing stops is always a tricky subject. Much of it depends on the risk threshold of the individual, as it is the projected plan for the trade (short term hold, swing trade, long term/investment). The bulk of my suggested trades fall into the intermediate/swing trade category; with failed plays often holding for less than a month (often weeks, or days); successful trades tend to close inside 6-months. I give a suggested initial stop price for stocks featured in my newsletter (some of the most recent picks are available for free here ): In some cases, I will feature a stock more than once over this period. Stops are nearly always raised, and in some instances the target price is revised upward too. But what of the bulk of trades which fail to make the grade for a second (third, or fourth) time - how can one employ active stop protecti...

There was an interesting divergence in the 1-week stock performance for Wednesday and Thursday. The markets may have had strong Thursday, but individual stocks didn't join the party. Wednesday, with its afternoon dip in the indices, was able to return stronger individual stock perfomances than that of Thursday; a worrying concern for buyers of individual stocks. The market ETFs were consistent across the two days - posting an average return of +2.00% and +1.41% for Wednesday and Thursday respectively. The Trade Ideas performed relatively well, with a +1.06% and a +0.18% return over the two days. My newsletter picks had the best performance for Wednesday of all the picks, returning +5.55% on average per trade. There were no picks for Thursday because of a baby care class I had on Wednesday night. Jim Cramer had a decent Wednesday with an average return of +1.24% per trade and closed slightly down for Thursday ( -0.29% ). But, where the pain was really felt was in the percentag...