$ERJ. Sold this in the decline going into 8/5 to raise cash. Had bought and sold a few times and had some long-term gains on the books from the original purchase. I really liked this stock and it had done really well. But, after running the final numbers, I only made 9.79%. You can see all my buys (green) and sales (red). I got shaken out a few times, sold off part of my original purchases, etc. You can see that if I had held my original position and done nothing else that I would have a had a much larger gain (over 50%). Maybe during the “crash” I could have selected to lighten up on a different stock and this would be way up since then, but it is what it is.
Was able to sell $BKR on the first bad day of the decline, but still lost 5.76% It is still lower than the price at which I sold it.
I reluctantly sold $GE as it sliced below its 50dma during the carry-trade decline. Really wanted to hold, but had to raise cash and the 50dma should support strong stocks. I could not know the decline would end and bounce back fast, had to limit losses. Lost 9.08% on a half position.
These are the final sales I made during the decline. Looks like I lost lots of money, but the position sizes varied and I and bought some new stocks or added to a few remainders once the market show strength and started retaking important milestones.
Overall my IBD account is up 15% for the year, which does trail the S&P by a little bit. The goal is to be the S&P by being 100% out during a huge decline. In this case I think I made it down to 20-30% invested (in that account) and if the market did a “2022”, I would have been greatly outperforming. The other goal is to find a breakout stock I can keep for years that crushes the market and gets me way ahead for a long time.
Pete
$bitb (Bitcoin) is back above the 50sma. It has been consolidating and is in the middle of a flat base. I bought some today.
Holding Through Earnings. We discussed this recently, here is an IBD article…
Why We Held Cava Stock Through Earnings | Investor’s Business Daily (investors.com)
If you’ve been reading this column for any length of time, you could probably find plenty of examples of sells right before earnings. Often the risk of a gap down, and what that can do to a swing trading portfolio, isn’t worth the risk. Yet, we held our position in Cava stock this time around. Here’s why.
…
As Cava inched higher almost daily, it was an easy hold. The day before its earnings report was due, we had a 16% gain on the position. (6) In looking at the options market, we had the market expectation for Cava to stay within a 10% trading range after earnings. We calculated that by taking the at-the-money call and put options for the nearest term and adding them together. That tells us an expected range for the earnings move but not the direction.
[see article for details]
Looks good, we are back to “Risk On”. Fed confirms cuts, market bets on 100 bps this calendar year. IWM up 3%.
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Yesterday I sold some things out of caution in front of the Fed speech today. (NVDA, SPOT, LLY). NVDA was up nice today, but LLY and SPOT were slightly down. After the good news, I ended up reinvesting about that same amount of money. Added to TDG and ONON. Added IESC and POWL.
I found $IESC in the breakout out today list around lunch. It looked like a good breakout and IBD rankings and RS was outstanding. It was a cup with handle, but a stage 4 base. I bought 1/3 position with the full intention of adding another 1/3 near the close. Unfortunately, I forgot I had dog training today and forgot to do it before I left. Big mistake as it ran past the buy zone and I can’t add more. This is an infrastructure play in the electrical area, and we really need to build out the grid, even if no one is buying EVs for a while.
Look at those EPS and Sales growth numbers in the bottom table. Look at the RS 98 and pointing up. Look at those IBD rankings. Look at the idiot that only bought 1/3 position.
But, I do like this group and Cramer has talk about POWL and it has been on IBD’s radar as well, so at the same time, bought a 1/3 position in this as an early buy and will finish it out on a breakout. Lots of good qualities: RS 95 and moving up. Strong IBD rankings but not as good as IESC. Fund ownership increasing. Had a big gap up on earnings 7/31, then tanked next day, but then survived the carry-trade swoon after that. Also has great EPS and Sales growth (bottom table).
So all in all, the selling yesterday worked out and I like my new buys better than SPOT and LLY. NVDA has earnings risk coming up.
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$WING is a stock I feel like I should own. I was in and out once, but it is a long-term leader in quick serve restaurants, it has a great return for franchisees, you have to be highly qualified to be a franchisee, great wings and sports. Stage 2 base. Nice low volume recently, making it look like it is breakout out from a handle. Great EPS and Sales growth. No direct competition for Wings.
You can see my green and red lines where I bought and got shook out not long ago. It has a lot of ants back in Feb, indicating very strong institutional buying. I feel like I am talking myself into buying this jump above the 50dma. Hope it goes down 1% Monday 
I just noticed that was a pretty good sell when I sold it. It broke below the 50dma on 7/9, I sold it the next day and then it tried to hold its price but eventually succumbed and headed lower, only to bottom on 8/5. Has had a decent comeback since, low vol down days and higher vol up days.
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Cava popped and $SG just went past it’s pivot point. It looks like restaurants are starting to come back into Vogue. I noticed Wing today also when I was looking everything over.
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Sure seems that way. The group is only 127 out of 197, but there is a subset that is very strong. People have been worried about the consumer, but clearly CAVA and SG are pulling them in. McDonald’s had to come up with a new $5 to get their fleeing customers back. Football season is coming for WING, but everyone knows that. If inflation keeps falling, consumers will have more money in the wallet and may go out more.
The group seems to be declining over that last months and that syncs with the problems they were having, but maybe that is turning now.
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Hey Pete I contacted IBD today because I am noticing that the EPS numbers do not align. What I found out is the estimates come from William O’neill and are Non-Gaap and the numbers reported are Factset and are Gaap. This pretty much makes the earnings worthless. I can’t believe they haven’t fixed that. They say they are working on it but that is a big deal to me.
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Ok after talking further with IBD the estimates are Factset and the earning number are Oneil. They are going to make them both Oneil so they will align but do not have an ETA. So it looks like only the estimates are what is incorrect both on the Revenue and earnings.
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RE: Earnings estimates: thanks for looking into that Andy, that is really stupid.
And here is why we worry about holding through earnings…
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It does seem stupid Pete to have that going on with their flagship product. I wonder if they have it in their newspaper?
For a little more color: They said that the estimates were a recent addition so I can understand that they might have problems when trying new stuff out. I also asked them if I should just ignore the estimates and they said that was probably a good Idea until they are fixed. All the other items are earnings are correct though.
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They talked about $SFM in the video today. Very strong stock and breaking out of a “consolidation” on +53% volume. Good EPS growth, boring Sales growth, but consistent. VERY strong IBD rankings. This latest pattern is a flag-like consolidation after earnings gap up on huge volume.
Look at that beautiful stair step action on the weekly. This is a chart pattern to lock in your brain.
So, on the daily, you can see the last official base was a Stage 2 back in April. It had some ants right before the base, a low vol breakout, then a gap up and off to the races (up the stairs). If you notice the green and red horizontal lines, those are my buy and sell point. I did a good job capturing this out of the base, except that the low volume caused me to only have a partial position. I sold it with 9.9% profits and my notes say “it is too small a position and a nuisance, so sell to invest in something else”
The not on the chart said “I should have added on the gap-up from earnings” Ugh, that was the real breakout with real volume. If I had done that, perhaps I would still be holding and might have been up from $67 to $100. I do hold some things a long time. I have some NVDA left from the breakout in 2023 and I held ERJ a long time, adding a bit and selling a bit. I need to analyze all the stocks I sold that then went on to big gains and see if there is a pattern or signal that will help me.
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$Aspn breaking out of stage 3 base.
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$Cost breaking out of stage 2 base
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That Aspn turned back down fast.
Thanks, added to my Hot Watch. When I first look at earnings gap up. it looks like it finished at low of the range, which would be bad. But when you look at the true range from the low close of the day before, it looks around 50% or more of the range. I don’t know what happened on 8/16 to cause that jump. Breakout “failed” , but it is putting on a nice handle with decreasing vol. It is a shame today’s break of the downward trendline has reversed. I will watch for after NVDA impact on market.
RE: Other growth stocks: I listened to last night’s Mad Money on podcast in the car today. He talked about CARR and TT. Both are in the HVAC business and are seeing lots of growth. Both service new datacenter buildouts and have good backlogs for known future projects. CARR has a good business with schools and hospitals. I suspect these are COIVD dollars at work and it is possible Trump could redirect unspent money if congress allows it. Not too worried. Cramer says as Fed lowers rates, new housing will expand and that will help them. Good to keep on your watch list. I have a full position in CARR and put in a limit order yesterday, but it did not hit. CARR is moving into a buy zone for a base-on-base. I bought the last base.
TT will not stop long enough to build a base, just keeps creeping up.
Update: CAVA down on insider selling. But that might help provide a new buy point. I drew the pink lines on the gap day up. The pattern I am hoping for is a consolidation of that big move in the pattern of a flag. Then a buyable breakout. Maybe this insider selling will help. Need at least a week of consolidation.
And Shark Ninja SN is setting up an add-on buy point by building the current shelf. I don’t own, so can’t add-on. But worth watching to build that pattern into our minds.
Update: CAVA. I could argue that if today’s price makes it back up to the close on gap day, that it would be a strong sign of support in the light of insider selling. Might have to add in that case.
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$WING is in a nice base and possible early buy. MarketSurge sees it as a cup, but my eye sees a nice downward sloping handle on decreasing volume with a recent break above that. Now in day 3 of a “shelf”. I have CAVA and SHAK so I really should not buy another restaurant, but good for someone’s watch list. A market dip from NVDA might let it show support at the 50dma.
$NFLX is interesting, moving above trendline, but on low vol. Look for support at 21dma for really bad market reaction to NVDA.
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$IDR has popped up above it’s base on nice volume.
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Very nice find. Gold is hot and miners are playing along, which is not always the case with gold. RS is a blue dot. It has a teeny tiny market cap so may not be very liquid. Look at the 5 minute chart and you will see lots of white space with no trade.
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