Market continues to climb

Well another week has passed and on Financial Tides it's time to step back and take an objective view of what happened in the market during the past week. As always I use Barchart to screen my data and I keep the same 3 yard sticks so my view stays consistent. Let's see where we are.

Value Line Index -- Contains 1700 stocks so it much broader than the S&P 500 or the much narrower Dow 30 -- We were up by 1.63% for the week, 6.89% for March following 4.65% increase in February -- Very positive

• The Index closed Friday above its 20, 50 & 100 daily moving average


• Barchart's 13 technical indicators showed 12 of 13 buy signals and 1 hold

Barchart Market Momentum -- Contains approximately 6000 stocks - The percentage of stocks closing above their DMA for various time frames -- Above 50% for all 3 time frames

• 20 DMA -- 85.38% closed above -- 86.76% last week


• 50 DMA -- 82.69% closed above -- 82.82% last week


• 100 DMA -- 81.67% closed above -- 81.38% last week

Ratio of stock hitting new highs to new lows for various time frames -- 1.0+ bullish, 1.0 neutral, below .99 bearish -- Very bullish for all 3 time frames

• 20 day ratio of new highs/new lows -- 2274/227 = 10.02


• 65 day ratio of new highs/new lows -- 1239/102 = 12..15


• 100 day ratio of new highs/new lows -- 1129/79 = 14.29

Summary -- The market appears to be rising on all 3 yard sticks. Unless something really drastic happens I'll just continue with my standard method of culling stocks that fail to maintain a price above their 50 day moving averages and feel confident that the market will continue to rise and I'll replace them with new selections.

Wall Street Survivor results -- The 8 analysts that post stock selections to Top Stocks have a friendly competition going over on Wall Street Survivor. Month to date the S&P 500 is up 3.07% and 5 of the 8 analysts beat that mark. Our Skeptical Capitalist Vad managed to increase his gain by 7.87% and I'm in the 5th position with a gain of 3.18%. Maybe next week.

Jim Van Meerten is an investor who writes on financial matters here and on Financial Tides. Please leave a comment below or email JimVanMeerten@gmail.com.

Disclosure: I hold no positions in the stocks in my Wall Street Survivor portfolio

Boeing beats the rest of the Dow

On Financial Tides I always try to find the stocks that are having positive price momentum. For the last month Boeing (BA) has had a 17.07% price increase, the best of any Dow component. The Boeing Company is one of the world's major aerospace firms. The company operates in three principal segments: commercial airplanes; military aircraft and missiles; and space and communications.

During the last 20 trading sessions BA has had a price appreciation on 11 days and has been 4 for 5 this week. Barcharts's technical indicators have 12 of 13 buy signals with just one hold for a 96% weighted buy rating.

Analysts are high on the stock with 10 buy recommendations and 11 holds. Although this may be a loss year in sales, increases in earning are expected to show a 117.1% improvement. Next year sales are expected to increase by 4.6% coupled with a 7.4% increase in earnings per share. Wall Street is expecting a 5 year compounded growth of EPS of 8.5%.

Investor sentiment as measured on Motley Fool is very positive. The CAPS members feel the stock will out perform the market by a vote of 3438 to 363 with the All Stars in agreement 887 to 55. The Fool Wall Street journalists are positive also 25 to 3.

Please do your own due diligence to see if BA belongs in your portfolio. It has a positive price momentum, Wall Street buy recommendations and a very broad and positive investor following.

Boeing (BA) trades around 70 with a 50 day moving average of 61.75.

Jim Van Meerten is an investor who writes on financial matters here and on Financial Tides. Please leave a comment below or email JimVanMeerten@gmail.com

Disclosure: no positions in BA at the time of publication

Will your ship come in???

On Financial Tides I'm always looking for new opportunities. Today, Ship Financial International LTD. (SFL ) fits that profile. Ship Finance is a major ship owning company. Including new buildings, Ship Finance owns a fleet consisting of vessels, including crude oil tankers (VLCC and Suezmax), oil/bulk/ore vessels, container vessels, dry bulk carriers, jack-up drilling rigs and seismic vessels. The fleet is one of the largest in the world and most of the vessels are employed on medium or long-term charters.

The company came up on my sonar when it had 18 days of price appreciation in the last 20 trading sessions and was 5 for 5 recently. There has been a 35.21% price appreciation in the last month and Barchart's technical indicators have 12 of the 13 signaling buy with a hold on the last one; that's a 96% technical buy signal.

Analysts think that this year the stock will have a 21.4% increase in sales and a 14.5% increase in earnings per share. They also have 7 buy and 2 hold recommendations published with no under perform or sell calls.

Investor sentiment is high on Motley Fool with the CAPS members voting 441 to 19 that the stock will out perform the market with the All Stars in agreement 134 to 3. The Wall Street columnists Fool follows also agree 4 to 0.

Please do your own due diligence to see it there is a place for this stock in your portfolio. This triple hitter has positive price momentum, good analysts recommendations and positive investor sentiment.

The stock is selling around 19 with a 50 day moving average at 15.50.

Jim Van Meerten is an investor who writes on financial matters here and on Financial Tides. Please leave a comment below or email JimVanMeerten@gmail.com

Disclosure: no positions in SFL at the time of publication

Any strength in steel?

On Financial Tides, I always begin to look for stocks by using Barchart to screen for stocks hitting the most frequent new highs and then look over the top 10. Today one of the standouts is United States Steel Corporation (X). I guess X marks the spot. X manufacturers and sells steel and coke products with plants in Indiana, Pennsylvania, Alabama and of all places the Slovak Republic.

On Barchart the stock has had price appreciation on 11 of the last 20 trading sessions and is 3 for 5 recently. The stock has enjoyed a 27.76% price appreciation in the last 30 days and has a buy signal on 11 of Barchart's 13 technical indicators with holds on the remaining 2.

Analysts predict great things with an estimated 51.96% increase in sales this year and a 16.4% increase next year. Coming from a loss they look for a 101.9% increase in earnings per share this year and a whopping 2366.7% increase next year -- remember that is coming off a loss. The 5 year compounded EPS increase is expected to be 10% per year. They have 6 buy and 6 hold recommendations out there.

Investor sentiment is high based on a Motley Fools CAPs member vote of 1862 to 144 that the stock will beat the market this year. The All Stars agree 632 to 28. The Wall Street columnists Fool follows like it 12 to 1.

The stock is firing on all 3 cylinders:

• Positive price momentum
• Analysts predicting increased sales and earnings
• A positive investor sentiment with a large following

Please do your own due diligence to see if the stock deserves a place in your portfolio. The stock trades around 61 and the 50 day moving average is slightly below 55.

Jim Van Meerten writes on financial matters here and on Financial Tides. Please leave a comment below or email JimVanMeerten@gmail.com

Disclosure: No positions in X at the time of publication

Short sellers protest

On my blog, Financial Tides, I try to teach you that you need to take a disciplined and rational approach to managing your portfolio. My approach is very simple, I don't charge for using my system and updates are free and can be read on multiple sites. I want you to take charge of your own future. Use Internet tools and your own rational thoughts, you take charge!

The system can be summarized as follows:

• Find stocks that are consistently hitting new highs
• Look for analysts reports that estimate increasing revenues and earnings
• Use other free Internet sites to poll investor sentiment
• Always protect yourself from the unknown by using stop losses, either actual or mental

Last Fall I wrote reviews of 2 stocks, their names are not important. I pointed out that although the stocks were having consistent price appreciation, I could not find positive analysts reports or a large investor following. I cautioned that investing in these stock was highly speculative and any purchase should be protected by the use of stop losses.

Sure enough in just a few days the stocks collapsed and I became the target of cyber attacks by some short sellers. Let me explain why.

There are several groups of short sellers who identify stocks that are having upward momentum for no reason at all. They then short those stocks, alerts their paid subscribers to short the stocks and post negative reports across the Internet investing bulletin boards until the stock collapses. They close their short positions and then brag about how smart they are.

The last step is to cyber attack anyone as a stock manipulator, who pointed out that the upward price momentum was unwarranted before they where able to put their short sell scheme into place.

I will not be silenced by the Howard Sterns and Jerry Springers of the financial world. I will continue to point out stocks enjoying price increases for unknown reasons. You should continue to protect yourself from short sellers raiding your portfolio's value by the intelligent use of stop losses.

Jim Van Meerten is an investor who writes on financial matters here and on Financial Tides. Please leave a comment below or email JimVanMeerten@gmail.com

When the truth is not on his side Timothy Sykes makes up lies. He panders to the same audience as Howard Stern and Jerry Springer. He knows that my postings were not taken down because of his threats of law suits. I took them down voluntarily because he and his followers flooded the sites with juvenile, abusive and in most cases obscene comments. Comment moderation filters are now in place.

I thank all of you who shared with me how you have been victims of Timothy Sykes and his cyber bully techniques.

I leave you with these links to ponder:

Timothy Sykes

Hedge Funder Timothy Sykes Bombs out on Wall Street

Somewhere a village is missing their idiot and I think I know where he can be found -- if they even want to.

Jim Van Meerten