7/26/2015

The case for a gold rally

Gold is looking bullish.

2015-07-26_Gold_Monthly

The chart above is 10yr chart with monthly candles. Note that price is sitting on strong support – an ascending trendline and a previous high. Also notice that volume has tapered off substantially in the past 1-2 years, a good sign indicating that selling pressure is waning.

2015-07-26_Gold_Weekly

The next chart, a 5yr weekly chart, shows that gold is completing wave-5 of an ending diagonal. Historically, these patterns are terminal and are followed by an explosive move in the opposite direction. Wave-3 of the ending diagonal should never be the shortest wave; thus Wave-5 should go no further than 1050, or else the pattern is invalid.

2015-07-26_Gold_COT  Finally, note that commercial traders are more net-long now than at any point in the past 10 years!

Combining all the evidence above with the bullish seasonality factor of August, I feel comfortable buying gold at these levels with a stop below 1050.

2/15/2015

CANSLIM Stock: WAB – Westinghouse Airbrake Technologies

This is another CANSLIM stock that I’ve been monitoring since Dec, 2014. It just broke out of a “double-bottom” pattern, so I’ve gone long.

I’ve included the CANSLIM criteria below. Note that this stock meets the criteria on almost all counts.

Criteria Target Actual
YoY Net Income Growth Rate 20% 22%
YoY Sales Growth Rate 25% 26%
EPS Growing past 3 years? Yes Yes
EPS Estimate Higher than last year? Yes Yes
3yr EPS Growth Rate 25% 33%
Return on Equity (5-year average) 17% 19%
Within 10% of High Yes Yes
New Product, Management, etc? Yes Several acquisitions (Aug/Sept), and again in Feb, 2015
12-month relative strength percentile 80% 61%

Let’s take a look at the chart, which shows a breakout of a decent double-bottom.

2015-01-17_WAB_Daily

Note that price broke above point “b” on Friday, accompanied by high volume (80% higher than average). This indicates informed demand.

Strategy: Long @ $89.71 (just above point “b”) with a target of 20-25% gain (~$108). Stop loss is at –8% loss, or $82.60.

1/17/2015

CANSLIM Stock: HFF, Inc (HF)

I’ve known about the CANSLIM method for picking stocks since 2007/08. Back then, I used MSN Money’s stock screener to find suitable stocks, but that has since been discontinued. About a year ago, I created an Excel file that uses the RCH Stock Market Functions Excel add-in to pull data from public sources and calculate my own metrics to find stocks that meet the CANSLIM criteria.
I’m currently looking at HFF, Inc (HF) as it meets almost all of the CANSLIM criteria and is sporting a very nice cup & handle pattern.

CANSLIM Criteria Target Actual
YoY Net Income Growth Rate 20% 35%
YoY Sales Growth Rate 25% 26%
EPS Growing past 3 years? Yes Yes
EPS Estimate Higher than last year? Yes Yes
3yr EPS Growth Rate 25% 50%
Net Income Growth Rate (5-Year Average) OPTIONAL 25% 150%
Return on Equity (5-year average) 17% 30%
Within 10% of High Yes Yes
New Product, Management, etc? Yes Lots of closed deals in Dec, 2014
Insider Ownership 10% 13%
12-month relative strength percentile 80% 54%
6-month relative strength percentile 80% 34%
3-month relative strength percentile 80% 85%
Institutional Ownership 5%-35% 76%
Notes Financial/property management

Chart
2015-01-17_HF_Weekly
The Cup & Handle is well formed with declining volume in the handle.

My strategy is to buy at $37.25 if volume is 25-50% higher than average on the breakout day. My stop will be @ $34.64 (7%) and my limit is $44.70 unless the stock reaches that target within a couple of weeks, in which case I will hold longer.