Written by Ryan Mallory | 08 February 2010

Below are the screen results of stocks that have a book value per share that is more than its price per share. Like last time, I just want stocks selling at HALF their book value. Also, I wanted only those stocks that are showing an increase in interest from the institutions (i.e. they are gobbling up the shares), along with the volume to support it.

Quick observation from the results below, is the Regional Banks have been severely devalued by the street, as well as the financial sector in general. But when you look at the share price, the stocks below really haven't taken much of a beaten at all, in fact for a number of them, there is a solid upward trend in place.

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Written by Ryan Mallory | 08 February 2010

As the NFL football season is now over (always a very sad day for me), our season is still in the early stages on Wall Street with a solid eleven months to go, and then we have our own off-season which lasts all of a couple of days. I definitely enjoyed the game last night, and was hoping that Peyton would get his second Super Bowl ring, but unfortunately, that wasn't in the cards for him.

Today we are seeing the market act a little wishy-washy, up strong overnight, but given back almost all of its gains in the early going. Today is going to be a quiet one from a news-maker standpoint. We have nobody testifying, no economic reports, no-nothing coming out today. While you have a handful of companies reporting earnings this morning, there aren't any that will affect market direction .

Currently the futures have the Dow trading flat, as well as the S&P, while the Nasdaq is trading at 1.5 points down. Of late, Mondays have been the go-to day for bulls of late, rallying nearly every time on first day of each week.

Here are Today's Trading Ideas...

Potential Swing Trade (Long): Suntrust Banks Inc. (STI) - Late last month, STI managed to breakout of the range it had been trading in since early August and on to new highs. While it has given up some of its gains lately due to market weakness, STI did so in an orderly fashion. Volume has also been picking up in STI of late which further strengthens the bullish argument of this play (assuming the market can at least cooperate somewhat). I would place my stop at 20.59.

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Written by Ryan Mallory | 06 February 2010

What a wild week we had! Started the first two days taking back some of the losses from prior weeks, and while the market was dead on Wednesday, on Thursday, we got such strong-downside action, the likes of which we haven't seen in quite some time. Then to cap it off, the market looks like it is going to repeat the huge sell-off on Thursday, only for the bulls to come rallying back in the last hour, to put the market in the green for the day. It has been quite a while since I have seen a market, in one week, act as crazy as it did these past five days.

What was interesting, if you watched the S&P, was that the index managed to touch the 200-day moving average which caused a flurry of buying activity, allowing the market to regain its intraday losses and finish in the green. If you use candlesticks on your charts, as I do, you also noticed the bullish hammer, that was formed on the daily charts. I personally, would like to see the market rally back up to the low 1100's in order that I can get into my short positions that I already have staked out (see my previous post for more on that).

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Written by Ryan Mallory | 05 February 2010

Last month I provided you with my Top 20 Short Setups, this time around, I am giving you my Top 30! There are a ton of excellent short setups out there and below are the ones I believe are the best of the best. The market is no doubt oversold right now, so I'd recommend keeping this list handy, and once we can get a few days of the market rallying, then start picking off these companies one-by-one. The best part about this list, is that I have ranked them from 1 to 30 along with providing you with the stop-loss that I will be using on each one. What more could you possibly ask for on a Friday???

Here are My Top 30 Candidates for New Short Positions... 

1. Avon Products (AVP) - 32.75
2. Coca-Cola (KO) - 56.10
3. Public Storage (PSA) - 83.59
4. Stec Inc (STEC) - 17.10
5. JPMorgan Chase (JPM) - 42.28
6. Vodafone Group (VOD) - 22.83
7. Hartford Financial Services (HIG) - 27.05
8. Rambus (RMBS) - 24.39
9. Partnerre (PRE) - 75.13
10. Occidental Petro (OXY) - 82.92

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Written by Ryan Mallory | 05 February 2010

Wow! Judging by the futures overnight, the market continues to be relentless in its campaign to skin and gut every bull in sight. The employment number comes out today at 8:30am ET, and I can't help but think that if the number even barely meets or exceeds expectations, the market is going to rally hard and fast. There is just too much fear of this report already cooked into the numbers. It isn't unheard of for traders and investors alike to get whipped up into such a tizzy that they start front running a report thinking they  know exactly what its going to say, only for the report to surprise everyone and reverse price action in a hard and decisive way.

Now remember, I am as bearish as it gets on this market, but I also know that I would be foolish to be initiating new short positions ahead of the employment number with the kind of sell-off that we got yesterday.

Currently futures are trading down 35 points on the Dow (a much better improvement since I started writing this), Up 0.5 on the Nasdaq and down 4 points on the S&P.  

Here are Today's Trading Ideas...

Potential Swing Trade (Long): Pharmerica Corp (PMC) - Back in November and December this stocks formed a double bottom, and broke out very nicely before pulling back of late. It has retraced, on low volume 50% of its gains and has been forming a base at these levels over the past week. Despite yesterday's market sell-off this stock held firm. Now there is a caveat to this play - they reported earnings after the close yesterday, and they were mixed at best. So there could be a huge gap up or down, if that happens, this is a "no-play" and you can scratch it from your list. But if the reaction is relatively muted, and you feel like you should go long in a market that is obviously going south, then this is a good play. Put the stop-loss at 15.99

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