Just Follow The TradeWinds Top 25

TradeWinds Top 25 Lists

noreply@blogger.com (Steve) — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 23:28:00 +0000

We have suspended making daily commentary on our TradeWinds Top 25 lists. We do update them every day after the market close. Please tune in for some good trading ideas.

TradeWinds Special Post

noreply@blogger.com (Steve) — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 17:16:00 +0000

As we enter the final three hours of trading for the week, we here at TradeWinds think its going to be a crucial period and we are optimistic.

First, its looks like, at least for the short term, the oil rally has run out of gas. We are seeing a divergence set-up for our Fisher Transform and TSI indicators that tell us the USO has hit a near term peak and will be headed down. Watch the trading action for the rest of the day and if it stays down going into the weekend, you can think of taking a short position next week. This would be a take-the-profits-quickly position because of how oil is tied into the political world. Also don't open that position today - you don't want to wake up Monday morning to see that the US has bombed Iran.

We also like the way the small caps have held in there pretty good through this down draft, a bit better than the big boys. This means folks are still willing to take a bit of risk in the market. Watch the afternoon action closely. If we finish strongly along with oil down, it will be a cause for optimism going into the weekend.

Watch for our weekend update to recap the week and look ahead to the next.

TradeWinds Top 25 Updated for June 6th

noreply@blogger.com (Steve) — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 01:10:00 +0000

For the first time in a long time, we are going to recommend that you start paying attention to the Top 25 sell momentum list. We are not, yet, saying go short, but its time to get ready for the possibility. Look at the sell momentum list and you are seeing the big cap indexes, DIA, SPY and OEX standing out.

On the Buy Momentum side its, of course, all about energy and the agriculture stocks. The biotechs are a glint of excitement in the list and the precious metals have popped back in. Its going to be an interesting week.

Our TradeWinds Black Box had another good week with 10 of 12 position showing a tradeable return for the week. Our end of day high for those positions far out paced the benchmark SPY by +2.35% to -2.45%. We have reloaded this week with a record 15 positions as we saw a surge of energy related, agriculture and precious metals jump.

Happy Trading.

TradeWinds Top 25 Updated for June 5th

noreply@blogger.com (Steve) — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 23:45:00 +0000

Wow, what a day. After looking shakey for several days, except on the small/mid-caps and tech, the market exploded to the upside and with it turned a lot of our stocks around. 19 of our 25 buy momentum stocks are picks of the day because they made a key turn while still have positive tradewind strength.

Its a pretty broad-based group except we don't see any financials or the big cap. Energy is strong, of course, OIH, BTE, XLE. Techs are even stronger - AAPL, QQQQ, XLK, NVDA, SMH. In between, we have a bit of everything else. There is a lot to choose from but pick carefully as we should see some short term consolidation after the big move.

The TradeWinds Black Box is smokin' once again, with 10 winners out of 12 and an average High End of day return of 2.35% versus our benchmark SPY of +.69%. Note the change of how we are tracking the Black Box return. For each position we capture its highest end of day return versus the Monday opening price to give a better reading of these selections as trading vehicles.

TradeWinds Top 25 Updated for May 30th

noreply@blogger.com (Steve) — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 20:45:00 +0000

Our headline today is - Broadbased rally continues with a tech sector slant.

Today's Top 25 long momentum list has a healthy dose of technology, from the indexes to individual stocks - QQQQ, XLK, IGN, AAPL, NVDA, RIMM, LLTC, SMH, APH. Interestingly, we are also seeing a heavy participation from our old leaders the Agriculture stocks - MOO, MOS, CF. And on the broad sector side with have small caps and mid-caps - IJR, IWM, MDY.

The rest of the Top 25 is industrials, transportation, services, Japan, Brazil and even a financial stock - MA. Lots to choose from from what just may be a nice trading week.

Not much to talk about in the Top 25 sell momentum list except we have two Buys of the Day in that group - INTC, CSIQ - which means this are stocks that have overall solid long momentum rating which have been beaten down a bit, but have just made a momentum turn. Intel is in the tech sector and CSIQ is in the hot Solar Sector, so they may just be something to keep an eye on for a nice trade.

Our TradeWinds BlackBox was just smokin' last week. We tracked our highest end of day position for each of equities selected and we were a perfect 10-0 for making tradeable moves. Even the two stocks which finished down from the Monday open to the Friday close, RIO and SID, made tradeable moves intra-week. In fact RIO made two big moves on a wild roller coaster week. The average return for the highest end of day mark for all the positions was 2.16%. From now on our Black Box results will reflect the tradeable moves for our selections versus buy and hold, since we are trying to catch the short term moves.

We have reloaded the Black Box with 12 positions for this week - Happy Trading.

TradeWinds Top 25 Updated for May 28th

noreply@blogger.com (Steve) — Wed, 28 May 2008 23:56:00 +0000

Today is another day where we see lots of our top stocks making a new turn to the upside. We have 14 Top Picks of the Day. The agriculture sector made a big move today and it shows in out Top 25 buy momentum list - MOO, CF, MOS.

We are also seeing strength in the tech sector - GLW, IGN, APH, RIMM, AAPL. Industrials look strong - FLS, AKS, MTL, SID. And there is the ever present energy stocks to be had - OIH, PBR, XLE.

Otherwise we have a nice, croos-sector representation, so our broad based move is still alive.

Our TradeWinds Black Box is smokin' this week with a perfect 10 winners and a 1.3% gain versus our benchmark SPY with a 1.09% gain. Thats a nice way to start our second quarter of Black Box trading!

Happy Trading to you.

TradeWinds Top 25 Updated for May 23rd

noreply@blogger.com (Steve) — Mon, 26 May 2008 23:58:00 +0000

Let's talk about our TradeWinds Black Box first, since we have now reach the 13 week or one quarter of tracking our Black Box trades. First, let me remind you that as I said in the beginning, I am not a fan of Black Box trading, nor would I recommend using what I publish here in such a trading program. I hoped that by tracking the new picks in the Top 25 buy momentum lists each Friday would show that we have a fairly good system of picking stocks/ETFs which will have some short term positive move that can be traded. The results, I believe, are good, but a little mixed.

The most important stat for me is the number of winners picked versus losers. Remember, these are stocks picked are the open on Monday and then closed at the close on Friday. That not the way a trader would typically do it, but its the best we can do for this exercise. In the end we had 56% winners. That is not bad, but not as good as I would have liked. I can tell you that a far higher percent registered an end of day gain at some point in the week. I did not track that, but I am going to start for the next 13 weeks. This will tell you how many stocks you could have had a positive play on at some point in the week, even if they ended the week down.

Of less importance is how we fared overall against our benchmark SPY for the 13 weeks. Our Black Box came out a winner with +4.7% versus +4.3%. Good but not compelling. We are going to work on demonstrating that we present to you sufficient potential for positive trading plays that makes our system compelling.

An interesting side note, is that our tracking of the benchmark SPY which was based on buying at the Monday open and selling at the Friday close beat the strategy of just holding the SPY for 13 weeks, significantly. Holding for 13 weeks would have given you a 2% gain versus our 4.3%. I don't know what to make of that, but we will watch and see if it repeats itself for the next 13 weeks.

Last week's Black Box was a bummer, as was the market. We had two winners, both in the oil/gas category (USO, BTE) which gave us nice returns which is why we bested the benchmark last week.

We have now reloaded for a new week and a new tracking quarter. Its an interesting group, which even includes our benchmark, SPY, along with some international stock, techs, industrials and both consumer staples and cyclical . Should be a fun week.

Happy Trading.

TradeWinds Top 25 Updated for May 21st

noreply@blogger.com (Steve) — Wed, 21 May 2008 23:59:00 +0000

Its hard to get too excited about the Top 25 Long when the market is getting pummeled. There are a couple of things of note in the list though. Of course we still see lots energy issues represented - PBR, USO, BTE, HERO, XLE, OIH. But tech is holding up good - AAPL, QQQQ, GLW, RIMM, LLTC, APH. And finally we are seeing some of the former leaders back when the market was struggling - FXE, GLD. This is the trend to keep an eye on - do bonds, euro and precious metals resume leadership, which means the market is headed for tough times agains.

The 13th week of the TradeWinds Black Box has been a real horse race. The Black Box was looking good going into today, but it collapsed like the market. We now have 2 winners and 5 losers, but we are whooping the benchmark SPY by -.5% to -2.32%, which puts our percentage return results dead even with the benchmark for the 13 weeks. It will be an exciting race to the finish line for the next couple of days.

TradeWinds Top 25 Updated for May 16th

noreply@blogger.com (Steve) — Sun, 18 May 2008 23:18:00 +0000

Looking at the Top 25 long momentum list, we see a revival of the once dominant agriculture stocks - POT, MOO, MOS, CF. We also like to see the all the major index classes represented in our Top 25 - DIA, SPY, MDY, IWM. That covers the big boys down to the small caps. And of course, you can't go wrong with energy these days - USO, XLE,OIH, BTE, HERO,PBR.

Basically, how many times can I say it, the market is moving to the long side across the board.

TradeWinds Black Box for Week 12 was a split decision. We had 5 winners to three losers. This is the most important statistic for us, so we are happy with that. We lost to our benchmark SPY with a return of 1.26% to 2.69%.

This next week will be Week 13 and the end of one quarter of tracking the Black Box, we will do a more extensive analysis of our results next week.

We have reloaded the Black Box with another small field. I particularly like APH for the coming week.

Happy Trading.

TradeWinds Top 25 Updated for May 14th

noreply@blogger.com (Steve) — Thu, 15 May 2008 00:18:00 +0000

Its not often that we have had a major index at the top of our Top 25 Buy Momentum list, but today we do with SPY. DIA and IWM are also on the list, indicating nice broad positive actions.

Today's buy momentum list is even more broad based then recent ones, as we have fewer energy related stocks. We have both consumer staples and consumer discretionary, XLP and XLY in the buy momentum list. We have both basic materials and technology - XLB and XLK. We have small caps, mid caps and large caps - IJR, MDY, DIA. So you see we have the whole package moving to the long side.

For short players, our signals are telling us to jump on gold, silver, bonds and the euro - GLD, IEF, SLV, FXE. This tells you that the dollar is likely to keep getting stronger - cheaper oil is probably not far behind.

Our TradeWinds Black Box is having a good week, although its neck and neck with our benchmark SPY for total return for the week - +1.26% to +1.33%. We have six winners and two losers, so we are feeling good at this point in the week.

Happy Trading.

TradeWinds Top 25 Updated for May 8th

noreply@blogger.com (Steve) — Sun, 11 May 2008 20:57:00 +0000

Our Top 25 buy momentum list continues to be energy loaded, for obvious reasons. Before long I expect there will be a nice correction. Keep an eye on the strength of the dollar to determine if the reversal is really a correction or a trend changer.

Beyond energy we still see a nice balance buy momentum list. Tech is represented - LLTC, IGN, RIMM, SMH. Financials and real estate are there - C, MA, IYR. Industrials - SID, FWLT, AKS and services - PCLN, DV, are also there.

Week 11 of the TradeWinds Black Box ended with the Box scoring a big victory with a +1.13% gain versus a loss of 1.83% for our benchmark SPY. Our win/loss ratio was disappointing with only 7 winners to 6 losers. Our big winner of the week was the appropriately symboled HERO with a gain of 12.8%. SID racked up a 8.3% gain while C led the losers a -10.6%.

Week 12 of the Black Box is loaded into the starting gate with a small field of just eight entries. Interestingly, C, our big loser of last week is back in the Box. Its been a volatile time for financial stocks and C has given us some good gains and sharp losses over the last few weeks. I think the financials are ready for a bounce, so I am expecting C to erase the loss from last week.

TradeWinds Top 25 Updated for May 6th

noreply@blogger.com (Steve) — Wed, 07 May 2008 01:00:00 +0000

Looks like our old friend energy is taking over the Top 25 buy momentum list - as though it took a genius to figure that out - BTE, OIH, XLE, HERO, USO, PBR. With oil at $120 it greases a lot of stock moves to the long side. Along with the energy, another standby, agriculture, is making a nice recovery - MOO, POT,CF.

Even with the old favorites taking the lead, we still a fairly diverse buy momentum group, with transportation - GT, CSX, IYT, technology - APH, LLTC, AAPL, CHL, GLW, financials - MA, and consumer staples - XLP.

Week 11 of the TradeWinds Black Box got off to a slow start yesterday, but exploded today. We have 12 of 13 winners, with a weekly gain of +2.32% versus our benchmark SPY of +.25%.

TradeWinds Top 25 Updated, May 2nd

noreply@blogger.com (Steve) — Mon, 05 May 2008 00:32:00 +0000

Lots of new comers to our Top 23 Buy Momentum list today that roll into our TradeWinds Black Box to start the new week - thirteen in total. And those new comers are are a variable cornucopia of stocks across all sectors - financials, energy, industrial metals, foreign stocks, consumer staples, technology, major indexes, industrials and shipping. How many times can I say, all boats are rising with the tides (well, except for our old favorites gold and silver).

Last week we introduced our long picks of the day. I have watched them closely this week and they have performed well. One thing I did notice is that sometimes there is a day or so delay in the stock/ETF making the next move. So if you want to play one of our picks watch them carefully for the right entry point.

Our TradeWinds Black Box had a disappointing week as we got caught with some stocks that have been hot, but tailed off as the rest of the market rallied this past week. Once again a hazard of Black Box investing. Remember this whole Black Box thing is just for fun, I really don't advocate anyone following it for actual investing. Anyway, we have reloaded again this week, and our optimism abounds, even though I think the first couple of trading days this week will be so-so or even down.

Happy Trading.

TradeWinds Top 25 Updated for May 1st

noreply@blogger.com (Steve) — Fri, 02 May 2008 00:18:00 +0000

Today was an interesting day for two stocks we highlighted yesterday, AKS and PCLN. If you were a trader you could have worked both of these for a 5% intraday move, although in very different ways.

AKS finished the day up .24% at 62.93. Intraday it fell to 60.40 and jumped up to a high of 63.48. PCLN was even wilder. It opened at 128.80 and jumped to 134.99, then crashed to 124.28 and finished at 128.23, up .46%. I think they are still ones to watch for tomorrow. The point here is that our short term buy momentum selection is hitting on trading candidates. Its up to you to watch and figure out how to make the buying momentum work for you.

Our Top 25 Buying Momentum for today is a smorgasboard of sectors with a definite slant to the tech side - LLTC, XLK, INTC, SMH, GLW, RIMM, APH. Keep an eye on the recovering healthcare sectors - PPH and XLV, they have the most open head room for a move.

If you are looking for a short candidate, I would suggest keeping an eye on the euro ETF, FXE. Its not a pick of the day, but I think the writing is on the wall that the dollar has bottomed.

The TradeWinds Black Box is having a tough week but is showing signs of life. We have 6 winner and 5 losers, which is what we keep the closest eye on for trading. A good system has to pick more winners than losers, and so far we are succeeding at that. We trail in return for the week -1.84% to a positive .89%.

Happy Trading.

TradeWinds Top 25 Updated for April 30th

noreply@blogger.com (Steve) — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 23:32:00 +0000

Our Top 25 Buy momentum list is very interesting today. We had a lot of Picks of the Day pop up which is expected with the market move today, even though it finished mixed. What is curious is that we some Picks in areas that I think should be avoided. CF shows up from the agriculture sector and FXE is a Euro ETF. These guys are way oversold, so you can make a short term play if you want, but be careful as I think the market is moving away from these areas now. I am not sure agriculture is headed the way of the precious metals just yet, so if you are careful it may be a good play.

What I do like among our picks are a couple of matched pairs. In the steel arena we have SID and AKS; and in the solar energy arena with have FSLR and CSIQ. We also have a third matched pair in the industrial metals arena. RIO is in our top 25 and PCU tripped at Top Pick signal, but did not make our Top 25. These guys are looking very attractive to me along with PCLN.

The TradeWinds Black Box continues to get buffeted by some storm winds. We have only 3 winners out of 11 and trail our benchmark SPY for the week, -2.24% to -1.16%. We are ever optimistic that we will see a turn around before the end of the week. Interestingly, our biggest loser for the week is AKS which is down -8.16%. You can see that its a Pick of the Day that we like, so it may be time for a nice bounce. Keep an eye on AKS.

TradeWinds Top 25 Updated for April 29th

noreply@blogger.com (Steve) — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 01:19:00 +0000

Interesting day. Our Top 25 Buying Momentum Stocks are seeing some weakening. That can be good if you are buying dips.

Our old market leaders - Agriculture, precious metals and energy have almost totally disappeared from the buying momentum list, continuing our confirmation of market leadership shift. Tech remains strongs - GLW, RIMM, LLTC, IGN, AAPL, XLK, APH. Financials are assuming some leadership - MA, C, XLF.

Our Top 25 Selling Momentum list has someone interesting highlights with the precious metals flashing short term sell signals. With the FED announcement coming tomorrow, for those aggressive traders it may be the play to make.

Our TradeWinds Black Box is struggling in this so so week. The Box trails the benchmark SPY by -2.62 to -.60 for the week. Bleech!! We are hopeful for a end of the week rally.

Happy Trading.

TradeWinds Top 25 Updated for April 25th

noreply@blogger.com (Steve) — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 18:56:00 +0000

Lets get right to our new feature. Last week we changed our Top 25 Lists names to denote that they are a reflection of buying and selling momentum. We want to take that one step further and try and zero in on those stocks that would be the best long and short picks of the day. We have done that and you can see the color coded chart above out two lists with two new categories - Long Pick of the Day and Short Pick of the Day.

Now the first thing you may notice is that 15 of the Top 25 Buying Momentum equities is coded as a Long Pick of the Day, and you might ask, how is that zeroing and helping make a decision of what to trade on a given day. A couple of answers to that. One, we have a market that is coming out of consolidation and should make a short term move to the long side, a lot of equities are reflecting that. Two, you are never going to get just one of two picks that you can blindly trust. We hope to give a narrow list for you to look at and make you own decisions as to whether to trade or not. Remember we cater to the short term trader.

Our Buying Momentum list continues to reflect what we believe is new market leadership emerging - primarily in the tech sector - GLW, AAPL, SMH, LLTC. But beyond tech the list is well balanced between financials, industrials, small caps and transportation.

Precious metals dominate the Sell Momentum list. If you a short player, you might consider our short picks of the day - WFR, KMB, CCC, but other than that, the Sell Momentum list mainly has equities which are reloading to make another leg up.

The late afternoon surge by the market saved our TradeWinds Black Box results for Week 9. In the end we ended up posting our third straight weekly win over the benchmark SPY, by +.97% to +.81%. We ended up with 6 out of 10 winners being led by Citicorp (C), at +7.17%.

The TradeWinds Black Box will continue to comprised of those equities in the Buy Momentum list of Friday which are appearing for their first week. This is very similar to the new Buy Picks of the Day because they are both trying to pick good momentum stocks in the early stage of new up leg. For now we are sticking with the original methodology until we have 13 weeks, or one quarter of Black Box results. Then we will think about changing.

So the Black Box has be reloaded with 11 new equities for what we hope will be an exciting and promising week. Tune in daily to follow the action.

Happy Trading.

TradeWinds Top 25 for April 24th

noreply@blogger.com (Steve) — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 00:16:00 +0000

In our general commentary we noted that we see a major rotation coming. As evidence of that we see 15 new comers to our Top 25 Buy Momentum list and pretty much none of them are from the sectors that have been leading the market over the last several months - agriculture, precious metals, energy, bonds and euro. If you want to find those sectors look in our Top 25 Sell Momentum list.

On the buy side momentum we are seeing technology - LLTC, AAPL, RIMM, INTC, SMH, XLK, IGN. We are also strength in financials - XLF, C, MA, real estate - IYR, XHB; transportation, IYT, CSX. Small caps - IWM, big caps - OEX. All this tells me we are seeing new market leadership emerging and a nice rally to boot.

Our TradeWinds Black Box has got caught in the rotational move we have been talking about. It is heavy in agriculture stocks (POT, MOO, ADM) that got pounded today. Our big winners for the week are tech (LLTC +3.83%) and financial (C +3.79%). Need I say more.

Happy Trading.

TradeWinds Top 25 Updated for April 23rd

noreply@blogger.com (Steve) — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 00:15:00 +0000

Our TradeWinds Top 25 Buy Momentum continues to reflect a broad based rally. We do note some strength by the Far East sector - EWJ, CHL, FXI, EWH. We also see some tech strength, particularly semicondutor - APH, LLTC, INTC, SMH.

Beyond those headlines we see the usual assortment of energy and agriculture related stocks, with a sprinkling of industrial and financial stocks. Also the one shipper we track, DRYS has rejoined the buying club after a long absence.

The TradeWinds Black Box has taken a swoon after its fast start to the week as the market has consolidated. We have fallen back to only four winners out of 10 selections for the week and just a narrow edge over our benchmark SPY, even though we are underwater for the week.

Happy Trading.

TradeWinds Top 25 Updated for April 21st

noreply@blogger.com (Steve) — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 00:25:00 +0000

While the market rally remains broad based, we can't help but notice that energy is taking a dominant position in our Top 25 Buy Momentum list. Well, duh, look at the price of oil. In our list today we see - HERO, PBR, BTE, OIH, XLE, BQI.

Steel and other industrials remain strong - FLS, AKS, SID, XLI. And don't forget agriculture, our other crises sector along with energy - ADM and CF. But we also like seeing the resurgence of financials - C, MA.

Our TradeWinds Black Box busted out of the starting gate this week with a nice 1.24%(equal share)/1.21% (equal weight) gain, versus our benchmark SPY's .05% gain. We have 9 winners and one losers, with ADM leading the winners pack with a 4.31% gain after one day.

TradeWinds Top 25, Updated for April 18th

noreply@blogger.com (Steve) — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 20:02:00 +0000

First off, we have made a subtle but important change in our Top 25 lists due to a reader comment. We now call them the Top 25 Buy/Sell Momentum lists. This is really more accurate that calling the Long or Short Lists. The reason for that is that many times a good stock will undergo selling pressure and appear in the Short list, but it really was not a good candidate for shorting, and vice versus. This also aligns the name of the lists with the advice on how to use the lists. When a "green" stocks appears in the selling momentum list, it may mean that its a good buy candidate when it appears back in the buying momentum list for the first time, and of course just the opposite for the "red" stocks. With that said, lets look at Friday's Top 25 Buy Momentum ETFs and Stocks.

Broad-based in the theme once again. Our top five consist of service stock, a technology stock, a financial stock, an industrial stock and basic materials ETF. The red-hot Agriculture remains big in the buying momentum category - POT, MOO, ADM; but you also see it in the selling momentum list - MON, MOS, so be careful treading in that sector as it may be volatile in the short term. We also like seeing tech stock in our Top 25 Buy momentum - GLW, LLTC, RIMM. That's a sector we like a lot right now.

In the Top 25 Selling Momentum, the precious metals dominate - SLV, SLW, GLD, GDX. Keep an eye on all the green stocks in this list to see if the bounce in the next few days.

The TradeWinds Black Box results for Week 8 are in and its was a resounding victory for the Box. The final tally was +6.18% (equal weight) to +3.82% for the benchmark SPY. We had 13 winners to two losers for an 87% success rates. Our top winner was CF at 10.2% for the week.

We have re-loaded the Black Box with 10 more stocks that joined our Top 25 Buy Momentum list for the first time. We have a nice mix which reflects the broad-based move upwards of the market.

Happy Trading.

TradeWinds Top 25 Updated for April 17th

noreply@blogger.com (Steve) — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 01:41:00 +0000

Yesterday's call to avoid the agriculture stocks because they appeared to be over bought was right on the money. They have all disappeared from our Top 25 long list and a few of them are popping up in the short list. Now don't go shorting them, just avoid buying them until they make their way back into the long list.

Another call we made a couple of days ago was to start seeing more tech stocks in the Top 25 long list, and indeed that is starting to happen - AAPL, QQQQ, APH, XLK. Financials are making a showing as well - MA and XLF. And we like seeing indexes like MDY, DIA and SPY in the long list.

While energy certainly remains strong, broad based is still the theme for this move to the long side, with the exception of health care and pharma stocks.

Keep an eye on the precious metals. While they have been absent from the long list for awhile, I think they are now rested and ready for another run. But don't take my word for it, wait until they reappear in the Top 25 list.

Our TradeWinds Black Box consolidated today, just like the market, but it remained very strong for the week. We are up 4.4% versus 2.75% for our benchmark SPY, and continued to sport a 93% win rate for the week with 14 winners and only one loser.

TradeWinds Top 25 Updated for April 16th.

noreply@blogger.com (Steve) — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 22:03:00 +0000

Today we once again start off with agriculture stocks. We still see a few in the Top 25 long list - CF, POT, MOO, but they are being pushed aside by a rising tide of stocks and ETFs. In fact Ag stocks a very over bought right now, so its best to stay away from them for awhile. Same probably is true of energy.

Real estate looks good - IYR and XHB; tech looks good - GLW and APH are in today's list, but I am expecting more to show up soon. Industrial metals also look good - RIO and PCU. Again this is a broad based move so there are lot to pick from.

Our TradeWinds Black Box was smokin' today. We leaped to to a +5.14% (equal share)/+4.81% (equal weight) for the week, versus +2.6% for our benchmark SPY. We have 14 winners and one losers. Our winners are led by MOS which is up 11% for the week. But don't be surprised to see MOS and other agriculture stocks take a time out from this point as they have been red hot.

TradeWinds Top 25, Updated for April 15th

noreply@blogger.com (Steve) — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 23:07:00 +0000

No real change in the theme of our Top 25 long list. Energy and agriculture continue to dominate. We are seeing some foreign plays coming into view, particularly Brazil with EWZ, RIO and SID, but also emerging markets - EEM, and China Wireless - CHL. Real estate is also perking along nicely with XHB and IYR.

On the Top 25 Short list, pharma and healthcare remain ones to stay away from. Otherwise look at this list as a source of stocks ready to rebound - e.g. INTC and SMH.

Our TradeWinds Black Box is doing nicely this week, out pacing our benchmark SPY by +1.29% (equal weight) to -.10%. We have eleven winners and only four losers, being led by MOS with a 3.54% gain.

TradeWinds Top 25, Updated April 14th

noreply@blogger.com (Steve) — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 11:26:00 +0000

Energy (OIH, HERO, XLE, BTE, USO, FSLR, PBR) and Agriculture (POT, CF, MOO, MON, AG, MOS) take up over half the Top 25 long stocks. These are obviously good areas to invest, but they are also areas that are bringing great pain to the economy and people around the world, with soaring prices in both sectors.

On the Top 25 Short Side, we see continued weakness in the precious metal miners (GDX and SLW). We also see continued weakness in healthcare (XLV) and pharma (PPH), sectors that you would think would be strong in a weakening economy. I attribute this to the pending ascension of the Democrats to White House control and real healthcare reform to follow.

Our TradeWinds BlackBox got off to a good start despite the weak market. We had 9 winners and six losers and posted at +.9% (equal share)/+.38% (equal weight) gain versus a loss of .38% for our benchmark SPY.